This appeared in the Washington Post a year ago yesterday:
… The acting commissioner [of Social Security] “has very serious concerns about the issues raised by The Washington Post about the inspector general’s oversight of this program,” Scott Frey, chief of staff to Kilolo Kijakazi, said in an interview. Kijakazi has scheduled a meeting with her senior staff on Monday “to discuss how to proceed,” Frey said. …
A spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee, which also has jurisdiction over Social Security, said the committee is “evaluating a number of steps” in response to the article. …
Update: This post has received multiple confused comments blaming the Acting Commissioner for not firing the Inspector General. I have mostly deleted those misleading comments. The Inspector General doesn't work for the Acting Commissioner. The Inspector General was confirmed by the Senate for a five year term. She can only be fired by the President, for cause. Blame the President but assign even more blame to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency which has been investigating Social Security's Inspector General.
It’s funny you thought they would do anything more than act like they’re considering action. This Commissioner and her executive staff don’t solve problems. They say they’re going to solve problems, then form committees ostensibly designed to gather more information. Those committees in turn do nothing more than send out emails assuring everyone that they’re surely definitely going to do something to address the problem.
ReplyDeleteThey’re currently using this same strategy to address the plummeting morale. As anyone with a functioning neuron would expect, the results have not been positive.
You have to have your expectations in the right framework. You need to think about the agency like a glacier. Large thoughtless and plodding. The only time it concerns me is when it moves quickly, because that is not the way of a glacier and generally means bad things.
ReplyDeleteIt's more like the Titantic colliding with the glacier. Thoughtless whether slow or fast.
ReplyDelete