The Orange County Register has a report on Social Security's horrendous hearing backlog. As the story says, Republican ideology plays a part. Even though Republican voters in general support Social Security, the Republican donor class hates Social Security so Republican officeholders underfund Social Security so that service deteriorates. Then they use the poor service as proof that government programs can't work.
7 comments:
Wow another journalist besides Michael Hitzik who actually understands writes intelligently about Social Security issues. A rarity.
Cut funding and then complain about poor service has been SOP for the GOP for years.
See the VA, IRS, Secret Service, and, of course Social Security.
As Grover Norquist said," I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Good reporting. There's only one thing missing. Names. People who have suffered bankruptcy, homelessness, and the families of those who died waiting for a hearing deserve to know the names of those in congress is most responsible for underfunding the agency and creating the long delays. If those responsible in congress are taking money from donors for their support in underfunding the agency, then provide the names of those donors too. There are many thousands of people who are justifiably angry about this problem, and rightfully so. Shouldn't that anger be directed at those most responsible? Names.
Most of the time I have been around this there was a long wait time for a Hearing. the 999 day cases from years ago became a priority. Then it dropped for a while close to a year. There were a lot of complaints then about not having time to develop a case completely. I doubt there will ever be a happy medium reached.
I would guess that 90 days at Initial, 90 days at Recon and most likely 9 months to a year would be about the best we would ever see if things went perfectly.
It's disheartening to read the comments and see how many people buy into the idea that disability claimants are largely a bunch of deadbeats who don't want to work.
Everybody thinks the disabled are deadbeats until it happens to them-then they are the most deserving person on earth who is having to wait due to all the deadbeats and fakers clogging the system.
Some people confuse a chronic medical condition with disability.
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