Pomeroy A Yes On Health Care Reform

Earl Pomeroy, the new Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, had earlier voted for the health care reform bill. It has been unclear how he would vote this time around. CNN is now reporting that Pomeroy plans to vote for the bill. Pomeroy may have a tight race for re-election. He may be looking to make as much as possible out of his new role as a Ways and Means Subcommittee chairman.

AARP Supports Administration Social Security Budget Proposal

From a press release issued by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP):

“AARP’s top priorities in this legislation include adequate funding to address the Social Security Administration’s growing disability claims backlog ..."

“For FY 2011, we urge that the Committee provide at least $12.5 billion to operate the programs under Title II and Title XVI of the Social Security Act, including Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI). Without this significant increase, the SSA will be unable to maintain quality service to the public, the disability backlog will worsen and program integrity will be undermined.”

Negotiations On Sick Leave

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is in contract negotiations with Social Security. Recent posts by AFGE indicate that the current stumbling block is sick leave.

A Little History

Dana Milbank, writing in the Washington Post:

"This is the largest tax bill in history," the Republican leader fumed. The reform "is unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted and wastefully financed."

And that wasn't all. This "cruel hoax," he said, this "folly" of "bungling and waste," compared poorly to the "much less expensive" and "practical measures" favored by the Republicans.

"We must repeal," the GOP leader argued. "The Republican Party is pledged to do this."

That was Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon in a September 1936 campaign speech. He based his bid for the White House on repealing Social Security.

Bad call, Alf. Republicans lost that presidential election in a landslide. By the time they finally regained the White House -- 16 years later -- their nominee, Dwight Eisenhower, had abandoned the party's repeal platform.

Trying To Do Too Much With Too Little

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, has issued its March 2010 newsletter. The newsletter features a long article on service delivery problems at large Social Security field offices. Here is how the article begins:

Where can you meet 300-500 new people every day? You can find them in the waiting rooms of Social Security’s busiest offices. Nationwide, Social Security is experiencing growth in the number of people visiting offices. As of early March 2010, the agency has already had five weeks in which it greeted over one million customers. In comparison, the agency had over a million customers only two weeks out of the entire last calendar year.

Social Security employees in many offices, both large and small, are feeling the effects of this customer growth. But, many of the largest offices are experiencing higher customer growth rates than the national average. Consequently, while the agency's overall waiting times have remained steady at approximately 21 minutes for the past several years, the busiest offices are experiencing waiting times exceeding 30 minutes. This is because there is often an average of one Service Representative (SR) for every 45-60 customers visiting per day in these offices. Because some interviews can be lengthy due to their complexity, this number of customers is more than one employee can adequately assist in the six hours usually spent at the reception counter each day.

More On Astrue As Poet

There may be a new book of Michael Astrue's poetry coming out before long. In November 2008, Astrue's alter ego, A.M. Juster, was expecting to complete a translation of poetry for the University of Pennsylvania Press by the end of the following year as well as a new book of original poetry to be called A Midsummer Night's Hangover.

Do not expect a new book immediately. The editing process could easily take six months or more even if Astrue was able to submit one or both by the end of 2009. I do not thing that an academic press would be rushing a volume of poetry into print.

By the way, Astrue's tastes in poetry go well beyond his preferred style for writing poetry, formal verse. He admires T.S. Eliot's free verse and adores the work of Richard Hugo and Linda Pastan.

Dog Tags And Social Security

Republicans have been making many outrageous claims about the health care reform package that is pending in Congress. Republican scare tactics are not new. This sort of thing happened when Social Security was introduced. This is from the Social Security Administration's website:

The publisher William Randolph Hearst was a fervent enemy of President Roosevelt and the New Deal. All the newspapers in the Hearst chain were expected to regularly publish unfavorable stories about New Deal programs. On the eve of the 1936 presidential election Hearst sought to undermine support for Social Security with allegations that workers would be required to wear "dog-tags" with their Social Security number and would be forced to fill-out questionnaires probing for personal information. In fact, neither allegation was true. However, the "dog-tag" story did have a basis in fact.

When considering ways to assign Social Security numbers, one proposal was to issue metal nameplates, not unlike military "dog-tags." Commissioner Altmeyer vetoed this idea as soon as he heard about it. This did not, however, stop the Hearst syndicate from reporting it as fact. During the early discussion of the metal nameplate idea, one company eager for this potential government business (the Addressograph Corp.) went so far as to prepare a sample I.D. tag in Commissioner Altmeyer's name. Altmeyer kept this sample "dog-tag" in his desk drawer throughout his career with SSA, and he donated it to SSA after his retirement. So the one and only Social Security "dog-tag" ever issued is now on display in the History Room at SSA headquarters in Baltimore.

Senator Dorgan Wants Answers!

KQCD-TV in Dickinson, ND reports that Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) wants to know why Social Security has barely made a dent in its backlogs even after receiving an additional $2.5 billion.

I can give Senator Dorgan the answer more bluntly than Social Security will. The $2.5 billion has made a noticeable dent in the backlogs but mostly that money prevented things from getting much, much worse. Rapid improvement will cost much more money than the agency is getting or will get. Social Security's budget situation was so dire before Democrats gained control of Congress in 2007 that it is going to take huge sums of money and some time for the agency to dig its way out of the backlogs.