New Freedom Of Information Policy In Obama Administration

While Social Security has never been a terribly secretive agency (except when it comes to Social Security claimant records), it is my impression that, like the rest of the executive branch, it did become more secretive during the Bush Administration. This is likely to change in the Obama Administration. From the Associated Press:

In an attempt to deliver on pledges of a transparent government, Obama said he would change the way the federal government interprets the Freedom of Information Act. He said he was directing agencies that vet requests for information to err on the side of making information public — not to look for reasons to legally withhold it — an alteration to the traditional standard of evaluation.

Just because a government agency has the legal power to keep information private does not mean that it should, Obama said.

Major OMB Appointments

The Lost in Transition blog reports that Robert Gordon, pictured to the left, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, will be associate director for education, income maintenance and labor at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). "Income maintenance" sure sounds like Social Security and one can infer the same thing from looking at the OMB organizational chart. Here is some biographical information on Gordon. OMB Watch reports that Cass Sunstein, pictured to the right, a law professor at the University of Chicago, has been appointed director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Policy at OMB.

OMB is the most important actor in determining Social Security's appropriation and the gatekeeper for any regulations that the Social Security Commissioner wants to adopt. Without OMB approval, proposed and final regulations do not go in the Federal Register. For Social Security, Gordon is in charge of the budget and Sunstein is in change of the regulations. OMB mostly operates behind the scenes, but it is enormously powerful.

$902 Million Supplemental Appropriation Being Marked Up Today In House Committee

The House Appropriations Committee is marking up the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today beginning at noon. This is the bill that would give Social Security a $902 million supplemental appropriation. See the link at the Committee website for the webcast.

Why Would A Respectable Newspapers Publish This?

But my question presumes a fact that has not been proven. From the Kansas City Star.

Change We Can Believe In

From a letter sent by Barack Obama to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) On October 10, 2008.

First, I strongly agree with you that there is a critical need to increase funding for the SSA administrative expenses account to address the serious challenges facing the agency. Due to prolonged underfunding, SSA has reduced staffing levels even as its workload has increased. SSA agency staffing will soon reach its lowest level since 1972 even though SSA's beneficiary population has nearly doubled since that time.

An unfortunate result of underfunding is an unprecedented backlog in SSA disability claims. As of August 2008, about 767,000 people were awaiting a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge on their Social Security disability claims, compared to about 312,000 cases pending in October 2000. There has also been an increase in Field Office waiting times.

Time Frame To Spend That $900 Million

The Obama economic stimulus package contains a total of $900 million in supplemental appropriations for the Social Security Administration. Ordinarily, federal appropriations are for one fiscal year only. The current fiscal year ends on September 30, 2009. Social Security would have to move awfully fast to spend that much money that fast. A second look at the bill shows that while the money is appropriated for the current fiscal year (§3), agencies will have until the end of the following fiscal year, September 30, 2010, to spend it all (§1105). However, §1102 says that each agency must have a goal of spending at least 50% of the money upon activities that can be "initiated" within 120 days of enactment. No, the bill does not define "initiate."

My prediction: Lots of overtime for Social Security employees, since I expect that Commissioner Astrue will try to avoid hiring new employees. At least we will know how Social Security is spending the money since §1201 requires each agency to post on the internet its plans for spending the money.

By the way, Social Security's Office of Inspector General is also given a $2 million supplemental appropriation in the bill. Each inspector general is required to review any concerns raised by the public about how the money is spent -- and I do mean required, since the statutory language is "shall", not "may" (§1202).

Social Security Central Offices To Be Open On Inauguration Day

According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) almost all federal employees in the District of Columbia and most surrounding areas will have a holiday on Inauguration Day, but this does not apply to Baltimore County, Maryland, which is where Social Security's central offices are located. Good luck with the traffic!

Falls Church, which is where the Appeals Council is located, is within the area covered by the holiday.

The Baltimore City Schools will be closed on Inauguration Day, but the Baltimore County Schools will be open.

What Bush Did To The Federal Government

The public's opinion of the federal government took a beating during the Bush Administration, according to research by the Pew Center for the People & the Press. I think a lot of this has to do with lack of adequate staffing at almost all domestic federal agencies. There just are not enough warm bodies to get the work done and the public has noticed the difficulty they have in dealing with these agencies and the poor performance they get in exchange for their tax dollars. Anyway, take a look at the graph. I think it speaks volumes.