New Condition For Raising Debt Limit: Raise Social Security Retirement Age?

     I have a hard time believing this but BuzzFeed reports that Senator Rand Paul is saying that the retirement age for Social Security should be raised and that Republicans will make this a condition for raising the debt ceiling. Paul is thought to be a candidate for President in 2016. This sounds more like a report from The Onion.

Conn's Troubles Not Playing Well In Kentucky

     The Lexington Herald-Leader is calling for the Kentucky Bar Association to take action against embattled attorney Eric Conn, arguing that the recent accusation that he colluded with a Social Security Administrative Law Judge is not the first time that Conn has been in trouble. He had already agreed to stop practicing before the Court of Veterans Appeals because of professional misconduct charge. Also, Conn was recently convicted of illegal campaign finance contributions.

     What I don't understand is why Social Security hasn't already suspended Conn from representing Social Security claimants -- if there is the substantial evidence against Conn indicated by at the Senate hearing last week. There is a process to take away Conn's ability to represent Social Security claimants. It can be done in a few months. Social Security wouldn't have to prove bribery. Even if it the bribery happened, it probably won't be proven unless one of the parties decides to confess. The charge of manufacturing physician opinions would be enough to stop Conn from representing Social Security claimants -- if it can be proven. Charges don't have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Has Social Security just been slow to act? Has the evidence of manufacturing physician opinions just come forward? Is the evidence not as strong as it was made to appear at the Senate hearing?

Sequestration At Issue

     From Jonathan Karl at ABC:

Democrats are still willing to accept a short-term deal to reopen the government at sequester spending levels (the Senate, of course, passed a 6-week extension on those terms), but now that talks are centered on funding the government into 2014, they are insisting on undoing some of sequester cuts. To Republicans, this is a non-starter, unless the sequester spending cuts are replaced with cuts to entitlement programs — and that is a non-starter for Democrats.   

     Note that a likely result at this time is a short term continuing resolution that would fund the government for a few weeks leading to a threat of a later shutdown over sequestration.  A Huffington Post article quotes a Democratic aide as saying that Democrats are trying to "break the will" of Congressional Republicans so that the Republicans would have no leverage in future negotiations over sequestration.
     Social Security desperately needs to get out from under sequestration.

COLA Likely To Be 1.5%

     The Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security is likely to be 1.5% this year.

Status Of The Shutdown And What It Portends For The Future

     Here are a couple of excerpts from pundits, suggesting that we're nearing a solution to the current impasse but that even though Social Security and Medicare are safe, any government benefit that older white voters perceive as going to the undeserving will continue to draw fevered opposition from the GOP:

     Jonathan Bernstein writing for the Washington Post:

Republicans do seem to be getting ready to surrender (although they seem to have only reached the stage at which they’re asking for rewards for surrendering; it may take a while longer for them to fully understand the concept). A true economic disaster may yet be avoided. But everyone should remember just how irresponsible they’ve been on this one.

     Ronald Bernstein writing for the National Journal:

Veteran Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who has studied the two parties' coalitions since the 1980s, recently conducted several focus groups with GOP voters that probed this passion. He concluded that the roaring sense of embattlement among the almost all-white tea party and evangelical Christian voters central to the GOP base draws on intertwined ideological, electoral, and racial fears. ... 

Greenberg's analysis echoes the findings of other scholars, such as Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol, whose studies have concluded that the tea party's most ardent priority is reducing government transfer payments to those it considers undeserving....

House GOP leaders flailing for an exit strategy this week are again suggesting broad negotiations that will constrain entitlement programs such as Medicare. But our latest polling shows older and downscale whites overwhelmingly resist changes in Medicare or Social Security, which they consider benefits they have earned—and pointedly distinguish from transfer programs.

Those findings suggest that the real fight under way isn't primarily about the size of government but rather who benefits from it. The frenzied push from House Republicans to derail Obamacare, shelve immigration reform, and slash food stamps all point toward a steadily escalating confrontation between a Republican coalition revolving around older whites and a Democratic coalition anchored on the burgeoning population of younger nonwhites.

Republicans Proposing Benefits Cuts

    The Associated Press reports that House Republicans are proposing benefits cuts as a price for reopening the government. The article does not specify Social Security cuts but it's hard to imagine this proposal not including the chained CPI proposal to cut Social Security's Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA).

NOSSCR Responds To Sixty Minutes

     Rebecca Vallas, the Deputy Director of Government Affairs at the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), spoke on Counterspin, a project of  Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), today to speak about the recent Sixty Minutes story. Vallas details how misleading the Sixty Minutes piece was and argues against legislating by anecdote. Vallas' part of the program begins at the 9:45 mark.

Arizona DDS Closes Due To Lack Of Federal Money

     I don't know how this happened so quietly but the Arizona Disability Determination Service (DDS) was closed on Monday due to the federal government shutdown. We had already heard that the Maine DDS had closed for the same reason. I wonder if there are others we haven't heard about.