Pay Attention To What The House Republicans Are Trying To Do

The Republican controlled House Budget Committee announced yesterday that it wants dramatic cut in appropriations for the remainder of the fiscal year. These cuts would amount to a 12.7% reduction in appropriations for the Labor/HHS/Education portion of the budget. This is the portion that includes Social Security. The House Budget Committee has not yet made any allocations within the Labor/HHS/Education appropriation so one cannot say yet what this would amount to for the Social Security Administration. The House Appropriations Committee would certainly have a big say in this as well but more importantly the Senate and the White House would have a say.

If the Social Security Administration were subjected to a 12.7% reduction -- and I do not think that is going to happen -- I would expect large scale reductions in force at Social Security.

Why Not 95?

George Will, a prominent columnist, thinks that the best way to ensure the nation's financial future is to push the age for eligibility for Social Security retirement benefits to 74 and to force the elderly to buy their own insurance instead of relying upon Medicare. In fact, he is not so sure that elderly people should even be receiving much in the way of medical care anyway. Interesting talk from a man of his age.

Security Guard Injured In Virginia

From WDBJ:

A security officer was injured on the job at the Danville [Virginia] Social Security Office Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Protective Service.

The officer was taken to a local hospital. We do not know the extent of their injuries.

One person was taken into custody by local law enforcement.

Federal investigators are working with the Pittsylvania County Sheriff's Office to figure out what happened.

Update: The Danville Register and Bee says it was a stabbing but provides few additional details.

Big News For Urbana

From Gazette.Net:

The Urbana [Maryland] Corporate Center will soon be home to a new 400,000-square-foot National Service Center for the Social Security Administration, according to the Urbana center's developer.

Thomas Natelli, CEO of Natelli Communities in Gaithersburg, said Thursday that the General Services Administration chose the Urbana site, where about 200 new jobs are expected.

The project will have a budget of $500 million and is expected to be complete by the end of 2013, according to Natelli. The new service center is planned for use predominantly as a primary data operations center for the agency, along with some office space.

Appropriations Subcommittee Members Announced

The members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee having jurisdiction over the Social Security Administration have been announced:

Republicans
Denny Rehberg, Montana, Chairman
Jerry Lewis, California
Rodney Alexander, Louisiana
Jack Kingston, Georgia
Kay Granger, Texas
Mike Simpson, Idaho
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming


Democrats
Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut, Ranking Member
Nita Lowey, New York
Jesse Jackson Jr., Illinois
Lucille Roybal-Allard, California
Barbara Lee, California

Superbowl Poll

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My apologies for misspelling your name, Pittsburgh. I live in a city named after Sir Walter Raleigh. Residents of this city take amusement at the fact that our city's name is frequently misspelled since we know that Sir Walter used as many as forty different spellings of his name, including "Rawleigh", "Ralegh" and "Rawley" but never used Raleigh!

Not Likely To Work

From the Associated Press:

Social Security, Medicare and virtually every other federal program would face the budget ax under legislation unveiled Tuesday aimed at forcing Congress to dramatically cut spending over the coming decade.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would phase in a federal spending cap of just more than 20 percent of the size of the economy, which they said would wring almost $8 trillion from the budget over the coming 10 yearse eee

The legislation doesn't actually propose cuts but instead sets spending caps and enforces them with the threat of automatic, across-the-board reductions.

McCaskill's idea went over like a lead balloon with fellow Democrats. She is the sole member of her party who's backing the legislation.

But What If Other Offices Are Also Getting Lots Of Calls?

From the Bolivar Commercial:

The Social Security Administration offices in Cleveland have received an upgrade this week.

Patrick Goins Jr., a Cleveland native now working with Avaya Government Solutions, had workers take out the old phone lines in the building and replace them with a new system. ...

The new system uses Enterprise Voice over Internet Protocol technology.

“What was a completely independent system is now a network within the Social Security Administration that they own,” Goins said. “They don’t have to pay long distance or call charges. It’s basically run at almost no cost to them.”

Additionally, the interlinked system means that if there are ever problems at a particular office, calls can easily be re-routed to other offices. ...

This process also works in situations where hold times are long. If an office is experiencing a huge number of calls and is having to keep people on hold for a long period of time, calls can be quickly sent to another office.