Response To Ehrlich Attack Piece

     Ethel Zelenske of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) responds to the awful Robert Ehrlich op ed piece in the Baltimore Sun.

     What I don't understand is the Baltimore Sun's recent interest in Social Security affairs. For many years, the Sun studiously ignored one of the largest employers in its area. Now, we're seeing Social Security articles in the Sun on a regular basis. Maybe part of this is that the op eds have ended up in the Sun only after the NY Times and Washington Post turned them away.

HR Passes CR

     The House of Representatives (HR) has passed its version of a Continuing Resolution (CR) that would keep the government functioning for the rest of the fiscal year, albeit with the across the board sequestration cuts in place. The bill clearly exempts from the sequestration money appropriated for Social Security for continuing disability reviews and SSI redeterminations. (page 268). It also includes this language (page 231):

Of the amount made available by section 1101 for ‘‘Social Security Administration, Limitation on Administrative Expenses’’, $483,484,000 is additional new budget authority specified for purposes of subsection 251(b)(2)(B) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

      I don't know what this means. Probably, it's nothing of consequence but if it adds almost half a billion to Social Security's baseline, it would mostly undo the effects of sequestration for the Social Security Administration. There is an urgent need for plain language in appropriations legislation.

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.