Warning About Lack Of Budget

David Traver on the CONNECT board is posting an e-mail that was sent to employees of the Michigan Disability Determination Service (DDS) warning that the federal fiscal year ends on September 30 and no new budget has been adopted for the next fiscal year. Michigan DDS is funded by the same budget that funds the Social Security Administration itself. Neither Michigan DDS nor Social Security can open for business next Monday without a budget. This e-mail advises Michigan DDS employees of procedures if this should happen.

There is no reason for alarm about this. There is every reason to believe that Congress will pass and the President will sign a stopgap continuing funding resolution before Monday, but the delay can make one a little nervous.

Justia

Those of you who are really adept at PACER, the paperless system used by the Federal Courts, are probably already familiar with Justia, I find it to be a revelation. Did you know that you can find out exactly how many Social Security cases were filed in the Federal District Courts yesterday? You can. The number was 28. You can tell where the complaints were filed and the name of the plaintiff. You can then go use PACER (if you have an account) to view the complaint and discover the name of the attorney. You can do this for any time period since the beginning of 2004, although, apparently, Justia has trouble if the search would find more than about 50 cases. Also, there is no way to make it count the number of cases for you -- or at least I have not yet been able to figure out how to do this.

Disability In Norway

The Norway Post reports that 10% of the working population of Norway is on "disability allowance." This is an increase of 3% from last year.

Poll

Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com

Pittsburgh Paper On Social Security Difficulties Faced By Parkinson's Patients

The Pittsburgh City Paper is reporting on the Social Security difficulties faced by younger individuals afflicted by Parkinson's disease. One might think that the very public plight of Michael J. Fox would have helped eased the situation for other younger individuals suffering from Parkinson's, but here is a quote from one person: "I told [the young-onset Parkinson's support group] I was applying for disability, and they all kind of laughed and told me their horror stories ... How it can take years and you can still be denied."

Social Security Budget -- For Next Week

From the Capitol Insider put out by the Disability Policy Collaboration:

This week marks the final week of FY 2007. It is clear that the Congress will not send any of the twelve FY 2008 appropriations bills to the President for his signature/veto before FY 2008 starts on October 1. Thus, the Congress will have to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) this week to keep the federal government operating until the FY 2008 appropriations process is completed. Most rumors have the first CR lasting until mid November with programs funded at the current (FY 2007) levels.

The current level of funding means little or no new hiring -- of Administrative Law Judges or anybody else. Mid-November is not the outside on when the Social Security Administration would have a new budget. This impasse could be resolved by then or could drag on into the next calendar year. There is no serious dispute over the budget for the Social Security Administration, but serious disagreements about just about everything else.

New Regulation

From today's Federal Register:

This document contains a correction to the final rules that were published in the Federal Register on September 5, 2007 (72 FR 50871). The final rules amended our regulations to reflect two provisions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that affect the payment of benefits under title XVI of the Social Security Act (the Act). One of the provisions extended temporary institutionalization benefits to children receiving SSI benefits who enter private medical treatment facilities and who otherwise would be ineligible for temporary institutionalization benefits because of private insurance coverage. The other provision replaced obsolete terminology in the Act that referred to particular kinds of medical facilities and substituted a broader, more descriptive term.

Bush Still Wants To Cut Social Security

From the Associated Press:

The Bush administration said Monday the only way to permanently fix Social Security is through some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases.

That was one of the key findings in a new paper on Social Security released by the Treasury Department in an effort to achieve common ground on the politically explosive issue.

"Social Security can be made permanently solvent only by reducing the present value of scheduled benefits and/or increasing the present value of scheduled tax increases," the paper said. The Treasury paper said that while other changes to the giant benefit program might be desirable "only these changes can restore solvency permanently."

I do not understand why the Bush Administration says benefit cuts are necessary. My understanding is that simply removing the cap on earnings that are subject to the FICA tax takes care of 93% of the problem and does not affect most wage earners. Take a look at the "Social Security Game" put out by the American Academy of Actuaries and make your own choices.