Social Security Union Endorses Obama

Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 25,000 Social Security employees, has endorsed Barack Obama for President.

Written Statements At House Appropriations Hearing

The House Appropriations Committee has not posted the written statements made at yesterday's hearing. I have obtained those statements and have posted them as best I reasonably can on the separate Social Security Perspectives Blog. However, the statements of Ron Bernoski on behalf of the Association of Administrative Law Judges and Patrick O'Carroll, Social Security's Inspector General were only available to me in a PDF format that would not allow easy text extraction, so I have not posted them.

Here are the statements that I was able to post:

• Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security
• Marty Ford on behalf of The Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities
• Richard Warsinskey, on behalf of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations and the Social Security Advocacy Group
  

A Remembrance Of The Extraordinary Bob Ball

From Gene Sperling:

During the battle over President George W. Bush's plan to partly privatize Social Security, many of us engaged in the debate received long, lucid memos from a former Social Security commissioner. I used to receive similar notes from this particular person years before, when I was in the Clinton White House.

What was extraordinary was that the individual pounding out and faxing these memos was at the time 91 years old. It just didn't seem like a big deal to most of the Washington policy community, because everyone had just come to expect that from Bob Ball, who died four weeks ago at age 93. ...

Nostalgia for Ball's accomplishments -- or even for his energy level -- doesn't do justice to his future-oriented spirit. Even in his 80s and early 90s, Ball was putting forward plans that were designed to both ensure Social Security's long-term solvency and its guaranteed benefit.

The whole article is worth reading.

More On Appropriations Hearing

From Congressional Quarterly (subscription required):

Astrue recommended lawmakers give him more authority to discipline judges and hold them accountable for productivity. Astrue said some “bad apples” among the judges “tend to be corrosive in the workplace.”

...under questioning from the subcommittee’s chairman, David W. Obey, D-Wis., Astrue said the agency will not be able to process a disability claim faster than nine months, on average, before 2013.

...Obey noted that Astrue had independently requested $76 million more from Congress in fiscal 2009 than President Bush requested for the agency. Astrue said the difference was due in part to differences in cost estimates by SSA and the Office of Management and Budget, and the true difference was more like $20 million, which he called “marginal.”

Astrue drew some additional heat while discussing the administrative law judges. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., charged that the “150 or so” new judges Astrue plans to hire this year would mostly just replace retired judges.

“You’re really not increasing the number of judges at all, are you?”

“Actually, we are ...” Astrue responded, then began to detail the hiring plan. McCollum cut him off.

“Do you have enough judges?” she said.

“We don’t,” he said. “We think the minimum we need on an ongoing basis — and this might be a little low — is 1,250.”

He expects to have 1,175 by the end of the year.

First Reports On Appropriations Hearing

Here is part of a report on the February 28 House Appropriations Committee from the Associated Press:

An infusion of cash from Congress and President Bush will help the Social Security Administration cut into the months long backlog for disability benefits for thousands of Americans, officials said Thursday.

However, advocates said a one-time budget increase won't be enough to solve the problem, and they urged Congress to give the agency another cash infusion to battle the long waits faced by those seeking disability benefits. ...

...advocates said the 2009 increase still isn't enough, considering the influx of baby boomer applications that Social Security is about to confront. Astrue said they expect retirement claims to rise by 40 percent and initial disability claims will go by nearly 10 percent. ...

"In order for SSA to meet its responsibilities, we estimate that the agency needs a minimum of $11 billion," said Matt Ford, co-chair of the Social Security Task Force of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities. ...

Ronald G. Bernoski, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, said the judges won't be able to do anything if they don't have support staff, he said. "To hire 175 new judges without hiring the necessary staff is like buying 175 new trucks but only enough fuel to operate 20 of those trucks," Bernoski said.

The Washington Post's Stephen Barr indicates that Astrue used the hearing to continue his attacks upon Administrative Law Judges:

Astrue said most ALJs do a good job, but he made it clear he has no power to discipline bad apples in their ranks. He said he is frustrated by his inability to deal with "gross misconduct" by judges, especially those accused of fraud, domestic violence and soliciting prostitution.

Disciplinary actions brought against ALJs end up before the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears federal employee appeals, resulting in months of litigation and, in Astrue's view, a "paid vacation" for the accused. "I'm offended by that," he said.

"Prototype" and "Single Decisionmaker" Experiments To Be Reinstated?

I have heard a credible report that New Hampshire will be reinstated as a "prototype" state in the disability redesign tests and that Maine and Vermont will be reinstated as "single decisionmaker" states. This is to return these states to the status they were in before the Disability Service Improvement (DSI) plan that former Commissioner Barnhart tried to implement and that current Commissioner Astrue ended.

This does raise the issue of whether the Social Security Administration should continue the "prototype" and "single decisionmaker" experiments. It is about time to fish or cut bait.

No Webcast On House Appropriations Committee Hearing

The House Appropriations Committee website indicates that many of its hearings are available by webcast, but not all. Apparently, there is no webcast of today's hearing on Social Security's appropriation.

New Hearing On Compassionate Allowances

The Office of the Federal Register may have labeled it yesterday as a "proposed rule," but what came out today in the Federal Register is a notice of a new public hearing on "Compassionate Allowances," to be held on April 7 in Boston. Unlike last time, the public will be allowed to attend this hearing but only invited witnesses will be allowed to speak. There will be a live webcast.