From Mark Miller, a columnist for Reuters:
By the way, I wonder who organized this letter. The timing is interesting. Could Saul have been in on this?
A worsening customer service crisis at the Social Security Administration has prompted three of its former commissioners to urge the U.S. Congress to fix the annual budgeting process that has starved the agency of the resources it needs to do its job.
A letter calling for administrative budget reforms signed by the former commissioners - two appointed by Democratic presidents, and one by a Republican - will be delivered to congressional leadership later on Wednesday.
An advance copy of the letter was provided to this column by the authors, and by advocates pushing for reform of the Social Security budget process. It will be sent to 19 key lawmakers, including the leadership of both parties and the chairs and ranking members of all the key congressional committees controlling budget, appropriations and finance.
To read the letter and view the list of recipients, see: (https://bit.ly/2KnIt3C) ...
Congress cut the agency’s budget nearly 11% between fiscal years 2010 and 2019, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while the number of beneficiaries grew by more than 16%. ...
Since passage of the 2011 Budget Control Act, which places caps on nondefense discretionary spending, the Social Security budget has been forced to compete with other federal spending priorities - for example, the National Institutes of Health. ...
The trio of former commissioners is proposing a legislative fix to the problem. The letter to be sent to Congress on Wednesday is signed by Ken Apfel, who served as commissioner during the Clinton administration, Jo Anne Barnhart, who was nominated by President George W. Bush and served from 2001 to 2007; and Carolyn Colvin, who served from 2013 to 2017 during the Obama administration.
You can bet that Andrew Saul will be asked about this when he testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee in the near future. I think this will be an early test of his independence from the Trump Administration. You would expect him to agree with these former Commissioners but I doubt that this would be the position of the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, or of Congressional Republicans.The former commissioners propose that Congress eliminate the requirement that the Social Security administrative budget be included in the caps. Congressional appropriations committees would still approve the agency's budget. "But importantly," they write, "the Committees would be able to approve the funding that would be needed for the Social Security Administration to provide adequate service to the public." ...
By the way, I wonder who organized this letter. The timing is interesting. Could Saul have been in on this?
Am surprised Astrue didn't sign on, as he dealt with budget issues a lot and didn't seem tied to the party (GOP) line on things. But indeed it is how Saul responds when asked that will demonstrate the Trump WH view of this. Smart money says this gets played out by Dems as a way to ensure SSA service levels for the agency's customers; GOP will take a budget approach (perhaps also indicating that budget "cuts" were part and parcel of the Obama administration, hence "bipartisan" ). How Mulveney directs OMB to react will be telling.
ReplyDeleteAstrue's nomination to the Social Security Advisory Board is currently pending:
ReplyDeleteDuring the 116th Congress, the president nominated the following individuals to serve on the Board:
Michael J. Astrue, of Massachusetts, to be a Member of the Social Security Advisory Board for the remainder of a six-year term expiring September 30, 2022.
https://www.ssab.gov/About-the-Board/Members