Sep 3, 2024

What's Going On? Oh, Not Much

     It's been a few days since I've posted anything. You wouldn't expect much Social Security news over the Labor Day weekend anyway but there's usually a little bit.

    I will speculate that there are two causes for the slowness. First, it's the election season. My observation over the years is that Social Security is always careful to avoid making even the slightest news during a Presidential election season. I've always wondered whether this is explicit or just instinctive at Social Security. Second, I think Martin O'Malley has picked all the low hanging fruit he could find. Maybe he's planning to leave the agency after the election one way or another or maybe there's nothing more of consequence he can do without Congressional approval and there's no way to get that now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trump would probably ask for O'Malley's resignation if he is elected.

But I doubt Commissioner O'Malley would leave if Harris wins. He's very dedicated , engaged with the employees, and determined to help the agency.

At his age, this likely his last high profile position, and he would not want to walk away for no good reason. . Plus he hasn't been commissioner very long.

Anonymous said...

Why would Trump ask for O’Malleys resignation? What has he done? He’s the perfect figurehead to pretend that changes are being done. Starving the agency is the game plan that’s being implemented. .

Anonymous said...

Trump loses: O'Malley will probably last one more fiscal year before grabbing a Cabinet post. He knows Kamala is, barring an absolute disaster, the Dem nominee again in 2028. So he angles for 2032.
Trump wins: he gets fired for some Heritage ghoul that lets everyone cash out their SSA, but only for lottery tickets. He tries to stand out in a crowd of Hashtag-Resist types to run in 2028, but fails.

There's plenty of low-hanging fruit left in our technological deficit.