Social Security Benefits Safe Because Of "Suicidal Spite"

     From Jonathan Chait:

As sequestration begins, Republicans have been overtaken with something close to giddiness, and Democrats seized with gloom. It appeared as recently as a few months ago that the threat of across-the-board cuts, disproportionately hurting defense, would force Republicans to negotiate a long-term debt reduction agreement. But Republicans are happily announcing their willingness — and, in many cases, outright eagerness — to absorb a hit to spending of any kind whatsoever, and their total resistance to higher revenue in any form....

It is true that, if you define the struggle in purely zero-sum terms, Republicans can “win.” What they can win is the ability to keep in place, more or less permanently, spending reductions that both exempt the programs they most badly want to cut and that are designed stupidly so as to create maximum harm for minimum budgetary saving. Yes, Obama would probably find this more bothersome than would Republicans.

Of course, this “victory” would mean giving up a chance to cut spending on Medicare and Social Security. Since these programs will consume a growing share of the federal budget, the Republican strategy would mean leaving in place higher spending. And since they’re so popular — even Republican voters don’t want to cut them — Republicans are determined to refuse a golden opportunity to secure bipartisan cover for something they’ll never have the political standing to carry out on their own. In policy terms, “winning” means suicidal spite.

Bomb Scare In Georgia

     From the Athens, GA Banner-Herald:

Emergency personnel responded to the Social Security Administration building on Prince Avenue in Athens Wednesday after an unidentified pint-sized bottle of liquid was discovered by an employee about 11 a.m.

All employees were immediately evacuated, and within a couple of hours, the bottle had been removed from the building by a University of Georgia bomb disposal unit robot and packaged up to be sent for further analysis

Hearings Postponed

     Because of predicted snowfall, the House Appropriations hearing for Social Security's administrative budget that had been scheduled today has been postponed. There has been no announcement on tomorrow's House Social Security Subcommittee hearing.

     Update: The House Social Security Subcommittee hearing has been postponed to March 14. No new date yet for the House Appropriations Committee hearing.

     Further Update: The predicted snowfall in Washington is less than one inch. However, the wind is blowing 25-35 miles per hour. Social Security offices in the D.C. area are open today.

ALJ Register Open

     The federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is now taking applications for the position of Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). This will only last until March 15.  Everyone should understand that taking applications and hiring are two different things. Under current budget conditions, actual hiring is very uncertain. However, the notice does indicate job openings in Santa Barbara, Denver, Hartford, Miami and Tampa. I would also caution that if there is hiring there's a good chance that the new ALJs will go to less desirable locations. Still, if you want to be an ALJ, submit your application now. Social Security may be hiring ALJs off this register for  years, meaning that it may be years before you have another chance to apply.

Threats In Poconos

     From The Morning Call of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania:

A man on Friday threatened to make trouble at the Social Security Administration office near East Stroudsburg if the office did not immediately put money into his account, police said.

Joseph J. Findley, 41, of Bushkill, Pike County, hinted the trouble would involve a firearm, state police at Swiftwater said. He was charged with making terroristic threats.

Findley phoned the office at 9:50 a.m. to say if he did not have cash in his Social Security account on Friday he was "going to go down there and there would be a problem," state police at Swiftwater said.

"He further related that he liked guns and he liked to shoot them," police said.

Exciting And Sexy Twitter Fight Over Chained CPI

Wonkette author Ann Marie Cox

     From Wonkette:

This weekend we got a shining example of the utter existential futility our president must feel every day when dealing with the nitwits in the opposition party, in the form of the debate over tying Social Security payments to the Chained Consumer Price Index (CCPI). “Chained” SSI is something conservatives have long wanted because it would recalculate the way the government measures inflation, leading to slower growth of every Social Security recipient's yearly cost-of-living increases. ...

Needless to say, as [columnist Joe] Klein points out, the president has long made CCPI a part of his plan for solving the sequester nonsense. It is right here on the official White House website. It has been right here on the official White House website ...

Anyway, this led on Saturday to an exciting and sexy TWITTER FIGHT involving various pundits, including Klein and one Mike Murphy, a GOP consultant and strategist and allegedly one of those mythical Republican “moderates” we keep hearing about but thought had long been hunted to extinction for the crime of moral squishiness. ...

Murphy had recently written in Time that if the president wanted the GOP to come to the table, he should endorse CCPI. When several pundits this past Saturday pointed out to Murphy on Twitter that the president has indeed done so (right here on the official White House website!) he first denied it, then dismissed Obama’s particular CCPI proposal as a “small-beans gimmick.” So to sum up: first this top Republican, a one-time strategist for the last two GOP presidential candidates and writer for a major weekly news magazine, does not know there exists a proposal for something he has deemed crucial to sequester negotiations, then denies the existence of the proposal, then says “Meh, proposal shmoposal, it’s too small and I just decided he has to do a bunch of other stuff too so shut up argle bargle derp.” ...

It was at this point that yr Wonkette, having weathered our own head exploding several times as we scrolled through this thread, injected ourselves into the conversation by tweeting at Murphy that whatever the merits of the proposal, telling your readers and followers that it does not even exist is a flat-out lie. Murphy immediately blocked us, because that is a more courageous way of dealing with dissent than admitting that you were wrong. And that being wrong made your point about the president a lie. A giant, irrefutable lie.

     Update: As commenters have pointed out, I got a few things wrong. It wasn't Joe Klein but Ezra Klein. It's Ana Marie Cox, not Ann Marie, and she's no longer writing Wonkette anyway.

ACUS Draft Report

     From a draft report of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) (emphasis added):

In order to promote greater decisional consistency and streamline the adjudication process at the ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] hearing stage, SSA [Social Security Administration] should consider: 

(a) requiring claimants or their representatives to submit pre-hearing briefs in a standardized format that, among other things , summarizes the medical evidence and justification for claimants’ eligibility for benefits; 
(b) expanding the use of video hearings, in a manner consistent with sound technological practices, that balances improved efficiency (i.e., timeliness and costs of adjudication) and fairness of the proceedings and participants’ satisfaction with them. SSA may wish to offer incentives to claimants who opt for video hearings, such as faster scheduling of hearings (as compared to in - person hearings) or more convenient hearing locations; and 
(c) exploring the assignment of decisionwriters and case technicians to specific ALJs in a hearing office (with Hearing Office Directors continuing to supervise such support staff ), while maintaining flexibility for changes in technological and operational needs....

Expanding “Own Motion” Review. In order to focus attention on the decisions that are most likely to warrant review, thereby enhancing both efficiency and programmatic consistency, SSA should expand the Appeals Council’s use of own motion review in a manner consistent with ALJ decisional independence. If necessary to achieve this goal, SSA should consider revising its existing regulations through notice - and - comment rulemaking. The Appeals Council should use published neutral and objective criteria, including focused statistical sampling , to identify those ALJs whose decision rates for allowances or denials place them significantly outside the rates of the majority of their peers. SSA must also ensure that selection of review criteria is do ne without referenc ing, or targeting, particular ALJs or other decisionmakers, and that inclusion of cases in such review does not serve as the basis for evaluation or discipline. ...

SSA should consider revising its regulations to eliminate the controlling weight aspect of the treating source rule. Instead, SSA should consider giving ALJs greater discretion and flexibility when determining the appropriate weight to afford opinions from treating sources, in line with the factors enumerated in the current regulatory scheme for evaluation of opinions from medical professionals who are not deemed “treating sources.”

      I wonder if the ACUS Chair will be testifying at the House Social Security Subcommittee hearing this week.

The Attack Begins

     From an Op Ed piece by Robert Ehrlich in the Baltimore Sun:

Those of you paying attention have noticed that the Obama administration is actually doing what it promised: transforming America into a gigantic welfare state. And there are plenty of takers willing to cash in on it and "get mine." Numbers don't lie. Forty percent of the population was on some form of public assistance when the president took office; today, that number stands at 55 percent. And fraud is rampant.

"Exhibit A" is the Social Security Disability Insurance program (SSDI), a classic Washington entitlement that chews up tax dollars while (often) negligently providing for unqualified beneficiaries, an increasing number of whom are wont to remain on the public dole for … well, forever if they don't get caught.

Make no mistake — rapid growth, lax standards and an increased cultural acceptance of long-term nanny state benefits has gotten SSDI into big fiscal trouble.

The 2012 Social Security trustees report shows that SSDI is on schedule to be exhausted as early as 2015, making it one of the first federal entitlement trust funds to go bust. Rapid expansion of the program has coincided with the tenure of the Obama administration.

     There will be a concerted attack on the Social Security disability programs this week. I hope it continues in this over the top partisan manner.