More Signs Of The Deep Penetration Of Republican Myths About Social Security

From Firedoglake:

Matt Bai and the editors of the New York Times have printed an article ostensibly about Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer and his willingness to cut wasteful spending to reduce the deficit — as though eliminating unhelpful or harmful programs were an unheard of position for Democrats ...

With no apparent oversight from the Times’ editors, Bai turns the “news analysis” article into a Republican talking point attacking Social Security and the US Government’s credit worthiness ...

Here is how Matt Bai, who apparently gets his understanding of how Social Security works from Alan Simpson, describes how the Trust Fund works:

The liberal groups that are already speaking out against the debt panel’s unfinished work have chosen to start with Social Security because it is likely to be at the center of any budget compromise. “If there’s a place where it looks like Republicans and Democrats can reach agreement, we’re afraid it’s Social Security,” says Frank Clemente, the director of Strengthen Social Security. (In other words, the two parties might actually work together on something. They must be stopped!)

The coalition bases its case on the idea that Social Security is actually in fine fiscal shape, since it has amassed a pile of Treasury Bills — often referred to as i.o.u.’s — in a dedicated trust fund. This is true enough, except that the only way for the government to actually make good on these i.o.u.’s is to issue mountains of new debt or to take the money from elsewhere in the federal budget, or perhaps impose significant tax increases — none of which seem like especially practical options for the long term. So this is sort of like saying that you’re rich because your friend has promised to give you 10 million bucks just as soon as he wins the lottery.

Contracting Intrigue

From Network World:

The Social Security Administration says it will announce in September a new award for data networking services, jumpstarting a critical IT [Information Technology] project that has been delayed for more than a year following a successful -- but secretive -- legal protest of the original awards.

In June 2009, SSA awarded two data networking services contracts through the U.S. government telecommunications program known as Networx Universal. SSA chose Verizon Business as its primary data services provider and AT&T as its secondary carrier. A month later, failed bidder Qwest Government Services protested these awards to the General Accounting Office, which sustained the protest in October 2009.

For more than a year, SSA has been quiet about its WAN [Wide Area Network] plans. Now SSA says it is proceeding with its efforts to migrate its data services to the Networx program. ...

How SSA will move forward with its data networking services has prompted curiosity across the federal IT market. The General Accounting Office never released a public version of its decision to uphold the Qwest protest, so industry observers aren't sure what problems existed with the original awards. ...

Ray Bjorklund, a senior vice president with consulting firm FedSources, of McLean, Va., says he was "scratching my head why I couldn't find the full text of the GAO bid protest decision…For whatever reason, there was never a public version of the decision and…it remains under protective order." Bjorklund referred to the SSA WAN deal as an "intrigue."

SSA, meanwhile, says it needs to transition both its wide area network and toll-free voice services to the Networx contract from the predecessor program, FTS 2001, which expires in June 2011. "We are 87% complete with the transition from FTS 2001 to Networx," according to the SSA spokeswoman.

"Like A Milk Cow With 310 Million Tits"

From Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:

Alan Simpson believes that Social Security is "like a milk cow with 310 million tits," according to an email he sent to the executive director of National Older Women's League Tuesday morning. Simpson co-chairs the deficit commission, which is considering various proposals to cut Social Security benefits.

Simpson's email, which OWL chief Ashley Carson released publicly, (PDF) was sent in response to an April blog post Carson wrote for the Huffington Post. Carson criticized Simpson for repeatedly describing his Social Security opponents as "Pink Panthers," arguing that the description had sexist connotations.

His email is peppered with exclamation points and condescension.

There could not be a better person to lead this effort to cut Social Security than Alan Simpson.

Update: The American Association of Retired Persons is not amused by Simpson's rant.

Further Update: Simpson has now apologized.

Even Further Update: Paul Krugman on Simpson's comments:

At this point, though, Obama is on the spot: he has to fire Simpson, or turn the whole thing into a combination of farce and tragedy — the farce being the nature of the co-chair, the tragedy being that Democrats are so afraid of Republicans that nothing, absolutely nothing, will get them sanctioned.

Obama did not fire him.

I have to say that I see far more farce here than tragedy. I do not want to see Simpson replaced. He should stay the public face of this effort to cut Social Security benefits.

The Updates Just Keep Coming: This is not the first time that Simpson has gone out of his way to e-mail someone who criticized his efforts to cut Social Security benefits. I am getting miffed that I have not yet received a crude, condescending e-mail from Simpson!

OIG Says Withheld Benefits Never Paid

From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We identified 13,739 previously entitled child beneficiaries over age 18 who had past due benefits that were withheld pending the selection of a representative payee. When these child beneficiaries attained age 18 and therefore were presumed capable of managing their own benefits, SSA [Social Security Administration] should have paid the withheld benefits directly unless it had information that the beneficiaries had impairments that prevented them from managing their benefits. ...

SSA needed to improve controls to ensure child beneficiaries who attained age 18 were paid benefits that had been previously withheld pending the selection of a representative payee. Based on a random sample of 50 beneficiaries, we found SSA did not pay an estimated 13,464 beneficiaries approximately $31.2 million in withheld benefits (see Appendix C). We also found that, when SSA suspended their benefits, 40 of the 50 beneficiaries were age 15 to 17 and therefore might have been eligible for direct payment.

Huge Contract Coming

From Nextgov:

The Social Security Administration expects to award by October a contract potentially worth more than $2 billion for information technology support during the next eight years, agency officials confirmed late Friday.

The huge purchase is an extension of an IT services contract currently held by Lockheed Martin Corp. that has reached its cap of $525 million. The scope of work for this follow-on will extend beyond the previous contract that was primarily for software development and maintenance to include health information technology as well as new management responsibilities. The award may be split between multiple companies. ...

The contractor must create business models for exchanging electronic medical records, expand Internet services for Medicare and supplemental security income applicants, and enable the agency to request and receive medical data automatically through health information exchanges. ...

Several federal market specialists presume the government will award the contract to more than one vendor to boost competition, which should drive down prices, for individual task orders.

Sign The Pledge

Campaign For America's Future is asking members of Congress to sign a pledge to oppose any cuts to Social Security, including raising full retirement age. So far their scorecard shows 29 members of Congress, all of them Democrats, making the pledge.

Why The Differences Between DDS And ALJs?

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in disability determination at Social Security read the Office of Inspector General (OIG) report "Disability Impairments on Cases Most Frequently Denied by Disability Determination Services and Subsequently Allowed by Administrative Law Judges." The tables in the report are striking. It is likely to be cited as support for all sorts of arguments for many years to come.

The only disappointment I have with this report are the following conclusions which, to my mind, are rather timid:

1. Collect information related to claimant representation at the DDS l[Disability Determination Service] level to determine whether representation results in more allowances at the DDS level. Based on the results of that assessment, determine whether additional efforts are needed to ensure claimants are made aware of the availability of claimant representation at the DDS level.
2. Consider conducting a targeted review of disability determinations made in the six States we identified as having higher than average DDS denial rates and hearing level allowance rates for the four impairments we analyzed.
3. Consider analyzing variances between the hearing offices and ALJs [Administrative Law Judge] with high and low allowance rates for the four impairments we analyzed to determine whether factors are present that support the variances.

I can tell Social Security that focusing on attorney representation at DDS is not going to get them anywhere. I have been representing claimants at DDS for years. The main benefit of my representation is that my clients are not allowed to become discouraged and fail to file appeals. I have no illusion that I can do anything to influence the outcome at the initial or reconsideration level except in unusual cases. My prediction is that Social Security will collect statistics on the effects of representation at the initial and reconsideration levels and they will show that represented claimants have only marginally better success at DDS. That difference can mostly be explained by the fact that attorneys refuse cases they regard as unwinnable at any level. Social Security's response to the OIG report suggests they think much the same thing.

My recommendation after reading the report is that Social Security needs to concentrate upon the issue of Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) determination at DDS and, especially, to concentrate upon the RFC guidelines applied at the initial and reconsideration levels. Social Security's official position is that there are no RFC guidelines. This is bull. Sure, they may no longer put the RFC guidelines in writing but everyone knows they exist and are enforced by the quality assurance process. If you have to keep the rules you are following this secret, there has to be something wrong with the rules you are following.

All We Are Saying Is Let Social Security Be Voluntary

From CQ Politics (emphasis added):

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) on Sunday said lawmakers who have not signed onto Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to balance the budget lacked "courage" and could be targeted by the conservative tea party movement as a result.

"All Paul Ryan is saying is let Social Security be voluntary, let Medicare be voluntary," Armey said. "The fact that he only has 13 co-sponsors is a big reason why our folks are agitated against the Republicans as well as the Democrats -- the difference between being a co-sponsor of Ryan or not is a thing called courage."