Biggs Taking A Bizarre Turn

Andrew Biggs, the former Social Security Deputy Commissioner during the Bush Administration who may be the biggest promoter of Social Security privatization, now thinks that privatizing Social Security just might be unconstitutional.

Pay Attention To What The House Republicans Are Trying To Do

The Republican controlled House Budget Committee announced yesterday that it wants dramatic cut in appropriations for the remainder of the fiscal year. These cuts would amount to a 12.7% reduction in appropriations for the Labor/HHS/Education portion of the budget. This is the portion that includes Social Security. The House Budget Committee has not yet made any allocations within the Labor/HHS/Education appropriation so one cannot say yet what this would amount to for the Social Security Administration. The House Appropriations Committee would certainly have a big say in this as well but more importantly the Senate and the White House would have a say.

If the Social Security Administration were subjected to a 12.7% reduction -- and I do not think that is going to happen -- I would expect large scale reductions in force at Social Security.

Why Not 95?

George Will, a prominent columnist, thinks that the best way to ensure the nation's financial future is to push the age for eligibility for Social Security retirement benefits to 74 and to force the elderly to buy their own insurance instead of relying upon Medicare. In fact, he is not so sure that elderly people should even be receiving much in the way of medical care anyway. Interesting talk from a man of his age.

Security Guard Injured In Virginia

From WDBJ:

A security officer was injured on the job at the Danville [Virginia] Social Security Office Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Protective Service.

The officer was taken to a local hospital. We do not know the extent of their injuries.

One person was taken into custody by local law enforcement.

Federal investigators are working with the Pittsylvania County Sheriff's Office to figure out what happened.

Update: The Danville Register and Bee says it was a stabbing but provides few additional details.

Big News For Urbana

From Gazette.Net:

The Urbana [Maryland] Corporate Center will soon be home to a new 400,000-square-foot National Service Center for the Social Security Administration, according to the Urbana center's developer.

Thomas Natelli, CEO of Natelli Communities in Gaithersburg, said Thursday that the General Services Administration chose the Urbana site, where about 200 new jobs are expected.

The project will have a budget of $500 million and is expected to be complete by the end of 2013, according to Natelli. The new service center is planned for use predominantly as a primary data operations center for the agency, along with some office space.

Appropriations Subcommittee Members Announced

The members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee having jurisdiction over the Social Security Administration have been announced:

Republicans
Denny Rehberg, Montana, Chairman
Jerry Lewis, California
Rodney Alexander, Louisiana
Jack Kingston, Georgia
Kay Granger, Texas
Mike Simpson, Idaho
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming


Democrats
Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut, Ranking Member
Nita Lowey, New York
Jesse Jackson Jr., Illinois
Lucille Roybal-Allard, California
Barbara Lee, California

Superbowl Poll

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My apologies for misspelling your name, Pittsburgh. I live in a city named after Sir Walter Raleigh. Residents of this city take amusement at the fact that our city's name is frequently misspelled since we know that Sir Walter used as many as forty different spellings of his name, including "Rawleigh", "Ralegh" and "Rawley" but never used Raleigh!

Not Likely To Work

From the Associated Press:

Social Security, Medicare and virtually every other federal program would face the budget ax under legislation unveiled Tuesday aimed at forcing Congress to dramatically cut spending over the coming decade.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would phase in a federal spending cap of just more than 20 percent of the size of the economy, which they said would wring almost $8 trillion from the budget over the coming 10 yearse eee

The legislation doesn't actually propose cuts but instead sets spending caps and enforces them with the threat of automatic, across-the-board reductions.

McCaskill's idea went over like a lead balloon with fellow Democrats. She is the sole member of her party who's backing the legislation.

But What If Other Offices Are Also Getting Lots Of Calls?

From the Bolivar Commercial:

The Social Security Administration offices in Cleveland have received an upgrade this week.

Patrick Goins Jr., a Cleveland native now working with Avaya Government Solutions, had workers take out the old phone lines in the building and replace them with a new system. ...

The new system uses Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol technology.

“What was a completely independent system is now a network within the Social Security Administration that they own,” Goins said. “They don’t have to pay long distance or call charges. It’s basically run at almost no cost to them.”

Additionally, the interlinked system means that if there are ever problems at a particular office, calls can easily be re-routed to other offices. ...

This process also works in situations where hold times are long. If an office is experiencing a huge number of calls and is having to keep people on hold for a long period of time, calls can be quickly sent to another office.

Scary Prospects

On this slow news day, let me give a summary of where we are with appropriations and the federal debt ceiling. I will start with the appropriations process which is dangerous for the Social Security Administration and then go on to the debt ceiling which is even more dangerous. Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 began on October 1, 2010. To this point, the only appropriation for Social Security and other agencies has been a Continuing Resolution (CR) that allows Social Security to continue spending at the FY 2010 rate. The CR is bad for Social Security since the agency's workload is increasing with the aging of the Baby Boom generation. The CR ends on March 4, 2011. If nothing else is passed by then, Social Security and other agencies shut down.

Agreement between Congress and the President on a real FY 2011 appropriation seems unlikely at this point. Republicans in the House of Representatives are insisting on rolling back appropriations to FY 2008 levels. This would be disastrous for most agencies. It would be catastrophic for Social Security. There would be mass layoffs of Social Security employees. The agency could not function. The Republican base and Fox News are insisting upon confrontation with Democrats over appropriations yet it seems clear that any government shutdown would be extremely unpopular with the public.

I can only speculate that we will continue to see CRs for the rest of FY 2011 but a government shutdown is not out of the question. Agreement between Republicans and Democrats is possible but hard for me to envision.

At the moment, this situation has caused Social Security to discontinue virtually all hiring. I think the agency has discontinued most if not all overtime. This will hurt more and more as time goes on.

Congress has set a ceiling on the gross amount of federal debt. Because the federal government is running a large deficit, it needs to keep borrowing money. We will reach the debt ceiling sometime around the end of March or early April. If the debt ceiling is not raised, much of the federal government must shut down. It is not at all clear how this would affect Social Security. We have never gone there before. Undoubtedly, there are contingency plans but it would be best if these plans just gather dust.

Raising the debt ceiling requires a majority vote in the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Many Republicans have pledged to vote against an increase in the debt ceiling unless they obtain something dramatic such as huge reductions in appropriations and Social Security benefits. Some have pledged to vote against an increase in the debt ceiling no matter what is offered. Again, the Republican base and Fox News are demanding confrontation but a failure to raise the debt ceiling could have terrible long term consequences since it would shut down much of the federal government and bring into question the nation's creditworthiness.

At best, I think we are going to the brink on the debt ceiling. The chances of going over the precipice are very real.