You Crazy Right Wingers Are Such A Hoot!

     From The Examiner of Independence, MO:

U.S. District Court Judge Brian C. Wimes sentenced Charles Daniel Koss, 63, of Independence to seven years in federal prison and ordered Koss to pay $212,987 in restitution to the Social Security Administration and the Department of the Treasury. ...

Koss began receiving Social Security disability payments in 1987 for myoneural disorder and hypertension. In 1994, according to court documents, Koss began operating Embassy Mortgage, a real estate business, with his wife in Blue Springs. Koss was working as a loan officer and office manager for the business.

According to the indictment, when Koss learned that he would have to repay the government, he created a false negotiable instrument – which he called a “Registered Private Money Order” – purporting to draw on a bogus trust account held by the U.S. Treasury. He allegedly utilized the false negotiable instrument as payment for his debt and mailed it to the Social Security Administration.

Koss subscribed to what is known as the redemption theory, the indictment says, which claims that a “Birthright Trust” is created with the U.S. Treasury when parents of a newborn child pledge the child’s birth certificate to the government. Redemption theory involves bogus claims that when the U.S. government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow money. The movement also asserts that common citizens can gain access to funds in secret accounts using obscure procedures and regulations.

According to the indictment, adherents of the redemption theory sometimes call themselves “sovereign citizens.” The sovereign citizen movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted anarchist ideology. Its adherents claim that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to “restore” an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed.

Why No Statute Of Limitations?

      From KATU:

The Social Security Administration sent Lanier Schriner a shocking letter. It said the feds paid her too much more than 30 years ago, and now they are coming to collect.
More than three decades ago, Schriner was just heading to college along with small disability payments from her deceased father's Social Security.
"I received it before I went to college and then after I turned 18," she said. "Then you could still collect disability and disability payments if you're going to school."
Just last week, the payments came back to haunt her.
"I got this letter, 30-some years later, just the other day, that said I owed a $167 back payment," Schriner said.
It says she was overpaid at some point, but there are no specifics in the letter.
The amount's not important to her, but the time that's passed.
"I think it's ridiculous," she said. "I can give evidence that I don't owe it, but I'm not sure how to do that when I don't have any paperwork from 30-some years ago," she said.

Figures Never Lie ...

     The Heritage Foundation has put out an impressive looking chart showing that in 1960 the average person received $6.39 for each dollar they had to pay in Social Security taxes but that by 2013 the average person was receiving only 92 cents for each dollar of taxes and that by 2030 this will be down to only 84 cents. Wow! QED! Social Security is a bad deal!

     However, if you look at the study that the chart is based on, you notice that it's for "hypothetical workers with specific work histories and longevity characteristics." If you look further, you notice that those hypothetical workers don't become disabled nor do they die early leaving survivors who receive benefits, nor, in fact, do they have spouses who receive benefits on their account either before or after their death. In other words, the study is misleading since it excludes dependent benefits, survivor benefits and disability benefits.

We're Movin' In!

     From Social Security Works:

Oh, the sweet irony.

Pete Peterson is the conservative billionaire who is a major financier in the effort to dismantle, cut and privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Recently he and his foundation held a contest asking folks to submit videos on why it is important to “fix” the national debt of which, he and his foundation falsely claim, Social Security is a major contributor.

Sometimes the best-laid plans for a propaganda campaign can go awry. The winner of the $500 grand prize determined by popular vote on the website came from the completely opposite side of Peterson’s cut Social Security argument.

Confusing New Attorney Fee Instructions

     Social Security has issued new instructions on fees for attorneys and others representing Social Security claimants. The instructions have to do with fee agreement cases where the claimant appoints two or more people to represent him or her and then one or more of the attorneys or representatives withdraws. It would be an understatement to say the instructions are confusing. Take a look at these examples given in the instructions and see if you can tell me what the underlying theory is:

Example 2: The claimant appointed two representatives from Firm A, one representative from Firm B, and one representative who is a sole practitioner. The representative from Firm B waived his or her fee from any source. The sole practitioner waived charging and collecting a fee from the claimant or any auxiliary beneficiaries because a third party entity will be paying his or her fee. The two representatives from Firm A have an approved fee agreement that each of them signed, and SSA determines a fee of $6000. The representatives from Firm A will receive $3000 each.
Example 3: The claimant appointed two representatives from Firm A and one representative from Firm B. One of the representatives from Firm A signed a fee agreement. The second representative from Firm A and the representative from Firm B both waived charging and collecting a fee from any source. At the time of a favorable decision, the decision maker approved the fee agreement; subsequently, SSA determines a fee of $6000. The Firm A representative who had an approved fee agreement will receive $3000, but the “waived share” of $3000 for the second representative from Firm A should go to the claimant.

    Would you want to be the person implementing this "policy"?

Does Social Security Have A Functioning System Of Dealing With Complaints About ALJs?

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

Claimants and their advocates or representatives may file a complaint against an ALJ [Administrative Law Judge] if they believe the ALJ was biased or engaged in improper conduct. ... The Division of Quality Service (DQS), within ODAR’s [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review's] Office of Executive Operations and Human Resources, reviews and resolves these complaints with the assistance of ODAR’s RO [Regional Office] staff, as appropriate. At the time of our review, DQS had assigned approximately 12 employees, including 2branch chiefs and permanent and detailed staff, to handle ALJ complaints ...

DQS closed 1,490 ALJ misconduct complaint cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011. ... [W]e determined the median times for various processing time frames in FY2011. 

• The overall ODAR processing time, from the ALJ hearing to the closing of the complaint, was about 894 days since the AC needed to process the majority of the cases before DQS could initiate its own review.
• DQS processing time was about 400 days. 
• RO processing time, a subset of DQS processing time, was about 201 days....

Of the complaints closed in FY 2011, DQS substantiated 4 percent. DQS closed approximately 11 percent of the cases because the ALJ left SSA before DQS completed a full review of the complaint. About 5 percent of the decision fields was left blank in the system. DQS determined the remaining 80 percent of the cases were unsubstantiated....

SSA established the DQS process to ensure “Every complaint will be reviewed or investigated in a timely manner by an official who was not involved in the alleged improper conduct.” [According to the notice published in the Federal Register at the time the system was established] ... 

DQS management told us the Agency had not established time frames for reviewing and resolving complaints at every stage. However, during our review period, a DQS manager told us her office created its first report showing the age of pending complaints for internal use by DQS managers. In addition, this manager explained that DQS started tracking cases that were 1-year-old or older from the time DQS received them. DQS established a goal to close 60 percent of the year-old cases by the end of FY 2013. ...

[W]e reviewed one case DQS closed because the ALJ had retired. The ALJ held a hearing with the claimant in August 2007, and on December 2010 (3 years later), DQS closed the complaint before fully investigating the allegation because the ALJ had retired. We reviewed another case where 22 closed complaints related to 1 ALJ were labeled as ALJ No Longer With Agency after the ALJ was removed from the Agency because of improper behavior.

     Certainly many of the complaints lack merit. Others are legitimate complaints but concern an isolated instance of bad judgment by an otherwise good ALJ. Still, there is a small minority, perhaps 1-2% of ALJs, who are just bad ALJs, some of them ALJs who suffer from serious psychiatric problems, some of them ALJs who suffer from serious character flaws, but all of them people who are just in the wrong line of work. This is not a functional system of dealing with complaints about ALJ misconduct.  It takes far, far too long. Nothing is done for years and years about ALJs who are well known to be causing serious problems. Mostly, the agency just waits for the bad ALJs to retire. Not only do claimants and their attorneys deserve better, the vast majority of ALJs who do a good job deserve better than to be lumped in with these bad apples.

Interesting Map

     The Washington Examiner has a fairly predictable article that decries the number of people drawing disability benefits from Social Security. At least the piece has an interesting map showing the counties with the highest incident of disability. Hint: Disability hits hardest in rural areas represented in Congress by Republicans.

To The ALJ Association

     Dear ALJ Association:

      Take a look at the sort of thing that comes from claiming that because Social Security pressures you to hold more hearings and issue more decisions that the agency is forcing you to approve more disability claims. You're not getting back at your enemy, Social Security. You're not reducing the pressures you face to hear and decide cases. You're only aiding those who really want to influence how you decide cases or who just want to do away with your jobs altogether. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend.

     I'm writing this as someone who agrees with you that ALJs are expected to hear and decide too many cases and that this reduces the quality of the process. I encourage you to stick to that message. I think it's a message that most people involved with the program have sympathy for. The "I'm being forced to approve claims" message is ridiculous.