Isn’t It Great That Trump Has Discovered How To Save Social Security!

      From the Washington Examiner:

President Donald Trump hosted the 12th Cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday, where he claimed that the White House’s anti-fraud task force may balance the federal budget and save Social Security. …

The president claimed that the task force has already identified “billions and billions and billions” worth of fraud, adding that if the initiative “does really great, we’ll have a balanced budget without having to do anything.”

“Everybody was getting rich, and I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it,” Trump said. Just the numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security — people that are 115 years old, 125 years old, getting payments. It’s funny.”

“The numbers that we’re finding out — we have great people in Social Security. We’re going to make our Social Security so strong, so good, that you’d never seen anything like it,” he continued. “We’re going to protect, I said right from the beginning, we’re going to protect our people in Social Security.” …

     By the way, please note that I occasionally use irony. Comments to my post yesterday suggest that some of my readers can’t figure this out or they’re unable to spot obvious irony when they see it. 

No Sympathy For Fraudsters Like This

      From KMTV:

Christopher Storm was 17 years old, working at Pizza Hut and going to high school in Texas when his father died. He received survivor benefits from Social Security — roughly $500 a month — until he turned 18.

After a final, lump sum payment of roughly $3,000, he says benefits stopped when he came of age. Thirty years later, the government wants that money back.

Storm and his wife, Amy, expected a tax refund this year. Instead, they were told the IRS was claiming it for a past debt. The Social Security Administration says Storm was overpaid in 1996 and now owes almost $8,000. …

Memorial Day

Spyware Coming To SSA?

      From The American Prospect (emphasis added):

The Trump administration is building a surveillance network to spy on its own workforce across multiple agencies. It has already given Palantir an initial $3.9 million to do so at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), federal spending disclosures show.

The artificial intelligence war profiteer will “design, configure, deploy and manage a secure, user-friendly tool to track USDA employees’ return to the office,” according to a disclosure. The contract started May 1 and has the potential to grow to $13.3 million over the next fiscal year, which runs from October 1 to September 30.

The Lever first reported in March that the USDA had hired Palantir to help it enforce its return-to-office demand, a story based on an initial disclosure justifying the reasoning behind the department’s opting for a sole-source contract, commonly known as a no-bid contract, before a dollar amount had been published. Since then, union officials and additional spending disclosures show that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) are seeking to implement similar programs. 

Union officials with AFGE Council 220, which represents SSA workers, said they expect the surveillance at that agency is a prelude to consolidating or outright shuttering of more offices nationwide, based on a determination that too few people work at certain sites to justify keeping them open.  …

     Palantir is a very sinister corporation owned by an even more sinister man. 

Legislation Being Considered

      From a press release prepared by the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee about a markup hearing for several pieces of legislation:

… We will also consider legislation from Representative Austin Scott that helps disability insurance beneficiaries return to work by reauthorizing the Social Security Administration’s authority to test new approaches that remove barriers for beneficiaries looking to work. …

     I don’t know what this legislation is but I doubt it amounts to much. The Ranking Member of the Social Security Subcommittee thinks the legislation poses risks for claimants.

Bisignano Really Needs A Pardon Before Trump Leaves Office

      From the New York Times:

… Frank Bisignano, who is working in the newly created role of chief executive of the I.R.S., signed the agreement with the Justice Department to create the [$1.8 billion dollar slush] fund [controlled by Donald Trump which may be used to pay taxpayer dollars to those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers on the President’s behalf]. Mr. Bisignano was not confirmed by the Senate to that I.R.S. job, and he is splitting his duties there with his job as the commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

     This is aiding and abetting embezzlement. 

This Sounds Messed Up

      From NBC Chicago:

… [L]ast summer Jo and Holly Howard visited the Social Security office in Woodstock. The good news: Jo Howard was issued a check for almost $55,000 [under the Social Security Fairness Act] and The bad news - she never got it. …

It turns out, just five days after the check was issued in June, it was cashed. According to the police report, the ‘female suspect, employed by Amazon inc’ was using an ID with Jo Howard’s information.

“We thought the case would be solved, that she would be prosecuted,” she stated. 

According to the police report,there was even video of the suspect cashing the check at the bank. But the officer "could not open the encrypted file." That lead was quickly abandoned, and then Old Dominion Bank stopped responding to the police department, police stated.

“So the police just closed the case,” Holly Howard said. …

“I made seven trips to the Social Security office. Every time you see a different person, you get a different story,” she said. 

On the seventh visit, Jo Howard said she was told to file a theft report with the U.S. Treasury Department. Now almost a year from the theft, she said the investigation is just ramping up. …

   Does the Secret Service still investigate these cases? The Secret Service isn’t even in the Department of the Treasury. It’s in Homeland Security now.  Has she even contracted the right agency? Doesn’t Social Security have an obligation to pay this woman now, regardless of the investigation? Whether the crook gets caught is irrelevant. Where is Social Security’s Office of Inspector General? Old Dominion stopped responding? No kidding. If they accepted a forged endorsement they’re the ones on the hook for this fraud. I remember that much about the U.C.C.

     Please, no snarky remarks about the Social Security Fairness Act. If she’s owed the money, she’s owed the money.

New OHO Report Posted

      I had posted a link to the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) Caseload Analysis report but it only went through March. They’ve now posted a new report going through most of April. 

     What sticks out to me is the huge amount of overtime OHO is getting. Of course, this is at the expense of other agency components. I think that SSA management is quite concerned by the prospect of a huge and rapidly growing backload at OHO so they’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, which is the story at Social Security for many years,