Exactly

Andrew Biggs, writing on his blog, gives three reasons why liberals are not interested at the moment in addressing Social Security's long term financing issues. I think his third reason is the only one that really matters:

Time is on their side: If we knew the share of the Social Security deficit that must be filled with higher taxes, it would make sense to apply those tax increases immediately. Spreading a tax increase (or benefit cut) over as many people as possible lowers the necessary increase on each person. But delaying reform puts more people into the system, after which point their benefits are effectively sacrosanct, and tilts the political calculus toward tax increases and away from benefit cuts. It’s like the conservative “starve the beast” strategy in reverse.

Actually, though, the benefits are already sacrosanct. Right wingers just don't accept this well-established fact.

VA Watchdog Ceases Publication

I am sorry to report that the VA Watchdog is ceasing publication due to the ill health of Larry Scott, its founder and editor. This is a great shame. The VA Watchdog has done a great job. I wish someone could pick up where Scott has to leave off.

Federal Career Intern Decision

That decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board on the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) is available online. Some key excerpts:

We hold that FCIP is inconsistent with the Civil Service Rules that govern placement of positions in the excepted service under 5 U.S.C. § 3302(1) -- a law relating to veterans’ preference -- because it allows an agency to invoke an appointing authority reserved for “positions . . . for which it is not practicable to hold a competitive examination” after the agency holds a competitive examination that yields highly-qualified preference-eligible candidates.

We wish to emphasize what we do not hold. Amicus NTEU [National Treasury Employees Union] asserts ... that FCIP violates the merit system principles because it allows hiring without “fair and open competition.” ... The cases before us, however, arise under the VEOA [Veterans Employment Opportunity Act]; the sole issue is whether the appellants’ rights under a statute or regulation relating to veterans’ preference have been violated. ...

In this connection, we overrule the statement in Gingery v. Department of Defense, 105 M.S.P.R. 671, ¶ 9 (2007), rev’d on other grounds, 550 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2008), that FCIP is “a valid exception to the competitive examination requirement” because it is “authorized by an Executive Order.” ...

The Board has recognized that in unusual cases its decisions may have such a far-reaching impact on the workings of the government that the normal timeline for compliance should be extended. ... This appears to be such a case. At the same time, untold numbers of veterans are potentially being shut out of job opportunities for which they would have preference, because the agencies are filling the positions under FCIP without public notice. ... Balancing the foregoing considerations, we conclude that OPM must comply with 5 U.S.C. § 3302(1) within 120 days of the date of this decision instead of the customary 30 days.

This will have a massive effect upon future hiring at Social Security and other agencies. FCIP was probably intended to be a small part of federal hiring but has come to be a major way in which federal employees are hired. Of course, because of the elections results, Social Security may not be doing much hiring over at least the next two years.

Updated Fee Payment Numbers

Social Security has posted these updated numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and certain others who represent Social Security claimants.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-10	32,227	$111,440,046.23
Feb-10	29,914	$105,708,101.59
Mar-10	34,983	$122,874,426.87
Apr-10	44,740	$153,478,589.32
May-10	34,686	$119,527,194.40
June-10	32,432	$111,887,579.72
July-10	32,232	$132,328,622.27
Aug-10	34,755	$119,424,346.42
Sept-10	32,660	$108,650,373.60
Oct-10	38,705	$128,133,064.77

MSPB Rules Against Federal Career Intern Program

From a press release issued by the American Federation of Government Employees:

The American Federation of Government Employees today applauded the Merit Systems Protection Board’s ruling that the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) violates competitive hiring and veterans preference rules under Title 5. AFGE had filed an amicus brief in the case urging the board to strike down the FCIP.

In the Nov. 2 decision, MSPB ruled that the FCIP is inconsistent with Civil Service Rules that govern placement of positions in the excepted service because it does not require agencies to justify placing positions in the excepted service as required by statute. Under Title 5, excepted service authority should be granted only for “positions … for which it is not practicable to hold a competitive examination.” The board therefore ordered the Office of Personnel Management to comply with Title 5.

Social Security has made extensive use of FCIP. This will be a major change in hiring for Social Security if this holds up.

Proffering

From an update to Social Security's HALLEX Manual:

HALLEX Sections I-2-5-42 Obtaining Medical Expert Opinion Through Interrogatories and I-2-5-57 Obtaining Vocational Expert Opinion Through Interrogatories are amended to reflect that administrative law judges (ALJ), attorney adjudicators, and hearing office (HO) staff (with the authority to issue interrogatories in cases not yet assigned to an ALJ under the direction of the Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge (HOCALJ)) need not proffer proposed pre and posthearing medical expert (ME) and vocational expert (VE) interrogatories to claimants or representatives prior to submission to the ME or VE. After the completed interrogatories are received, they must continue to be proffered to claimants and representatives.

This is the first update for HALLEX since August 7, 2009.

I'm Glad Republicans Aren't Getting Carried Away

From the Washington Post:

To make good on their campaign pledge to reduce the size of government, Republicans say they are planning a series of quick moves to slash spending soon after they take control of the House in January. Among the likely options: a massive rescissions package that aides said would slice 20 percent from most domestic agency budgets and enact $160 billion in additional cuts endorsed by visitors to Cantor's "YouCut" Web site. ...

Conservatives, meanwhile, dismissed the proposal as too puny to satisfy a public fed up with three years of bailouts, deficit-spending and other far-reaching government programs.

Could someone explain to me how they get the Senate to pass this and either get the President to sign it or get both houses of Congress to override his veto?

Senate Hearing In Ohio

From the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:

FIELD HEARING - Improving Social Security Disability Insurance Claim Processing in Ohio

Monday, November 15, 2010
09:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Main Place Building, 3rd Floor Conference Room, 121 S. Main, Akron, Ohio 44308

Witnesses

Panel 1

• The Honorable Michael Astrue
  Commissioner
  Social Security Administration
• The Honorable Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr.
  Inspector General
  Social Security Administration

Panel 2

• Mr. Richard Warsinskey
  Cleveland Downtown District Office Manager and Past President
  National Council of Social Security Management Associations
• Mr. Randy Frye
  President
  Association of Administrative Law Judges

The only Subcommittee member from Ohio is the ranking minority member, George Voinovich.

From The Great State Of Texas

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, is proposing that states be allowed to opt out of Social Security for all the citizens of their state. He likens Social Security to the federal government dictating "the size of tube socks that you’re gonna wear down in Texas."

Update: Perry maintains that some public employees in Texas opted out of Social Security years ago and are doing just fine. Actually, maybe not. The Texas Attorney General thinks there are real problems.

AARP On Social Security's Looming Continuing Resolution Problem

A press release from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP):

Washington, DC – AARP, along with dozens of organizations representing stakeholders of Social Security, sent a letter to House and Senate leadership today requesting that Congress fund the Social Security Administration (SSA) at the recommended level of $12.379 billion for FY 2011. This funding level was requested by the President and recommended by key Appropriations committees and subcommittees. The organizations also called for funding SSA at a higher level under the possible scenario of an extended Continuing Resolution in order to address the significant backlogs in disability claims, appeals and hearings, along with increased assistance needed for SSA’s field offices

Key excerpts of the letter are below:

“As organizations representing stakeholders of the Social Security Administration (SSA), we respectfully request that as you work to finalize FY 2011 appropriations levels you retain the full President’s Budget Request of $12.379 billion for SSA…

“This level of funding is absolutely critical for SSA to address the increase in requests for assistance from the American public due in large part to the economic downturn. SSA teleservice centers, hearing offices, Disability Determination Services (DDSs), and the nearly 1,300 field offices are in critical need of adequate resources to address their growing workloads.

“The greatest concern for SSA remains the rising number of new claims and appeals coming into the agency, especially disability claims… In the 25-month period ending in October 2010, the number of claims pending a disability medical decision rose from 556,670 to 851,812, an increase of 53 percent.

“SSA was making steady progress in addressing the enormous backlog at the hearings level until recently…Unfortunately, for the last four months the number of hearings pending has increased and as of the end of October is at 718,196. The reason for the sharp increase is the number of new hearings being filed, due in large part to our distressed economy.

“… Processing time for a hearing has been reduced from 491 days for all of FY 2009 to 377 days in the month of October 2010. Unfortunately the number of claims and hearings pending is still not acceptable to the thousands of Americans who depend on Social Security or Supplemental Security Income for their basic income, meeting health care costs, and support of their families. Adequate funding must be made available to continue to reduce the number of cases pending and the time it requires to process these cases.

“SSA field offices continue to see a record number of visitors. In FY 2010, 45.4 million customers requested assistance from the field offices. The field offices are also responsible for processing an additional 1.2 million Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations in FY 2011 as compared to FY 2008, an increase of 100 percent.