Some Budget Ideas

The Republican Study Committee has released its budget proposals. Here are a couple of highlights:

• Reduce federal discretionary spending to 2006 levels -- and hold it there for ten years
• Cut the federal workforce by 15% by only hiring one worker for every two who leaves until the 15% reduction is achieved

Can you imagine the Social Security Administration with 9,000 fewer employees? If this were applied to Social Security, it would be impossible for the agency to fulfill its statutory obligations as they stand now, much less as they increase over the next few years as the baby boomer generation ages. Makes perfect sense if you hate Social Security and think that most of the country agrees with you.

Democratic Members Of House Social Security Subcommittee Announced

The Democrats have announced their members for the House Social Security Subcommittee. This is the full lineup for the Subcommittee:

Republicans
Kevin Brady, TX, Chairman
Pat Tiberi, OH
Aaron Schock, IL
Erik Paulsen, MN
Rick Berg, ND
Adrian Smith, NE

Democrats:
Xavier Becerra, CA, Ranking Member
Lloyd Doggett, TX
Shelley Berkley, NV
Fortney "Pete" Stark, CA

Interview With The Commissioner

The Washington Post is running an interview with Michael Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security. Here are a couple of excerpts:

I'm a big believer in trying to speak in my own voice. Maybe it's a little colorful, but at the end of the day employees will know that I'm really trying to talk to them. I can be in Miami or Tucson and employees will come up to me and say one of the things that I appreciate about your broadcast is that I know that you actually wrote the material - it sounds like you. ...

I think one of things that you would get unanimity from my executives is I run what lawyers call "hot bench." I read the materials in advance, and I don't bother with things that I see being done right. Instead, I try to get to the heart of what the hard issues are and to make sure that they're on track.

What The Insiders Want

From Dean Baker writing at the Huffington Post:

The insiders in Washington really really want to cut Social Security, and they are prepared to say or do anything to do it. Among the latest lines is that they want to make Social Security more "progressive." This sort of rhetoric appeared in a report from the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) in a plan that proposes substantial cuts in benefits. ...

It would lead to substantial reductions in Social Security benefits for people who earned an average of $60,000 or $70,000 during their working lifetimes. ...

Childrens' Benefits Draw Scrutiny

From the Boston Globe:

Key members of Congress are demanding an investigation into whether a fast-growing, $10 billion federal disability program designed to serve poor disabled children is flawed in multiple ways, including the possibility that it creates incentives for families to put those children on psychiatric drugs.

A top member of the US House Ways and Means Committee, along with Representative Richard Neal and Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, issued a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate the striking rise in the number of children receiving Supplemental Security Income benefits, or SSI, for behavioral and mental issues such as attention deficit disorders and depression, and whether low-income families are tempted to put their youngsters on psychiatric drugs “to improve their chances’’ of qualifying. It also asked investigators to examine whether the Social Security Administration, which runs the program, can effectively screen new recipients and adequately determine when children’s conditions have improved to the point that they are no longer eligible for benefits.

9% Increase In Social Security Civil Actions

The number of civil actions brought in the federal courts to obtain review of decisions made by the Social Security Administration went up from 12,820 in 2009 to 13,958 in 2010, an increase of 9%.

The Waiting Room Videos

I had a hearing recently that was scheduled at a Social Security field office. The field office had recently moved to a new building. Hearings at field offices had been rare in the past but that may be changing.

I sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes before it was time for my client's hearing. I had a chance to see and hear the video that was playing. The video was intended to educate those waiting. The concept of the video was to mix the education with a travelogue. What I saw started out in Charleston, SC. There was an interviewer and an interviewee. I think the interviewer was a Social Security public affairs employee and the interviewee was the Charleston District Office manager, who appeared to have ankylosing spondylitis (which has a rather distinctive appearance). Mostly, they were taking a carriage ride around the elegant city of Charleston describing some sights and spouting some Social Security information. The next segment was in Bowling Green, KY. I saw little of it before I was called to my client's hearing. What I saw of both segments was a bit clunky. That did not bother me. I see no reason why Social Security should go all out for slickness. Conceptually, doing it as a travelogue seemed like a great idea to me. The subject matter is inherently boring. You have to do something to spice it up.

The videos I saw were of two cities in Social Security's Atlanta Region. Is this video just being shown in the Atlanta Region? What is being shown in other regions?

Nobody Could Have Predicted It

From Paul Krugman's blog at the New York Times:

[I]n discussions of Social Security it’s often argued that in the program’s early years, nobody could have imagined the increases in life expectancy that have actually occurred, so nobody could have imagined that we’d have as many beneficiaries relative to the number of people of working age. ...

Well, it turns out that Table 9 in the 1945 report (pdf) [of the Board of Trustees of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund] shows high and low estimates of the population distribution looking forward as far as 2000, which we can compare with the actual population distribution in 2000.

What you can see right away is that the SSA [Social Security Administration] expected a much smaller population than we actually ended up with — the baby boom and immigration weren’t anticipated. But they also expected a somewhat older population than we actually got: their “low” estimate put the ratio of seniors to adults under 65 at 20.8%, almost the same as the actual 21.1%, while the “high” estimate put the ratio at 29.1%. That is, in 1945 the Trustees thought that America would probably be a grayer, older country by 2000 than it actually ended up being.