"The Capital's Chief Scapegoat Wrangler"

     From Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times:

As we all know, the official animal of Washington, D.C., is the scapegoat. Today's example is Carolyn W. Colvin, the acting commissioner of Social Security.

Colvin recently was raked over the coals by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista [CA], the capital's chief scapegoat wrangler, for problems at Social Security that can largely be traced to its budget squeeze. In other words, to Congress.

In a letter to Colvin, who has been acting commissioner since February 2013 and has been nominated to take over the job officially, Issa blamed her for a backlog of disability reviews that dates back to before 2007 and that is directly related to Congress' failure to provide for enough administrative law judges to handle the workload.

Senator Brown Speaks Out In Support Of Social Security Disability Benefits

     From the Columbus Dispatch:

Sen. Sherrod Brown [D-OH] yesterday called on progressives to defend and “expand” both Social Security and Social Security’s disability insurance against what he assailed as right-wing critics.

In a speech at the Center for American Progress — a Democratic-leaning nonprofit organization in Washington — Brown, D-Ohio, said that “the debate over Social Security should not be how much we can cut from the program in order to balance the federal budget.”

Brown added, the “debate over Social Security should not be about raising the retirement age or limiting benefits. The debate over Social Security should be about retirement security.”

Speaking before a group of about 40 people, Brown said in order to help disabled and elderly Americans stay out of the streets, progressives must not “let one piece of Social Security be picked off.”

Senator Collins Wants To Keep Field Offices Open

     Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) has authored an op ed for a Maine newspaper opposing office closings and the elimination of face to face contact at Social Security. However, she doesn't say anything about additional appropriations for the agency. Reading the piece, you get the impression that the only problem is foolish decisions made at the Social Security Administration. Republicans either actively deny that there's a link between appropriations and agency operations or they just ignore the issue altogether.

The Assault On The Colvin Nomination Has Begun In Earnest

    From the National Review:

Widespread abuses within the Social Security Administration’s disability system are becoming a point of contention as the Senate weighs the nomination of Carolyn Watts Colvin as the agency’s commissioner.

Some congressional Democrats have already taken issue with Colvin, who has served as the acting commissioner since February 2013, because she presided over staffing cuts and field-office closures. And earlier this week, Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote a letter harshly criticizing Colvin. “We’d expect that [Colvin] will be pressed on her track record, including the agency’s allowance of hundreds of [administrative-law judges] to rubber-stamp claimants onto disability over the past decade,” says Becca Glover Watkins, the communications director for the committee.

     I think we can now say that the right wing assault on Colvin's nomination has begun in earnest. There will be two major lines of attack. First, service at Social Security is terrible. Field offices are closing It must be Colvin's fault. The real problem is Social Security's operating budget, set by Congress but Colvin has already made the mistake of failing to really call out Congress on this, setting herself up to take the blame. Second, Social Security disability is full of fraud. It must be Colvin's fault. The attacks on Social Security disability are ridiculous but if you keep throwing mud at it, some of it sticks.

Senate Finance Committee Hearing On Disability Benefits Coming This Month

     From Greg Sargent, writing for the Washington Post:

Democrats are bracing for a new assault from Republicans on the safety net that could come as early as this month — in particular, on disability insurance. ...

Senator Orrin Hatch has requested a Finance Committee hearing into Social Social Security Disability Insurance — whose trust fund is set to be depleted soon — and Dems on the committee have agreed. It may take place this month, before the August recess. ...

Republicans such as Senator Tom Coburn have argued that the disability program is being “gamed” by “scalawags,” and that a third of claims are bogus, putting the program in financial trouble.

A View Of The Future?

     From The Globe and Mail of Toronto:

Some Canadians who believe they have been wrongly denied federal disability benefits are being told, under new rules, that they have no right to plead their case directly to the adjudicator of the new Social Security Tribunal who will decide their appeal. ...
[I]n April 2013, the Conservative government eliminated the roughly 350 part-time members of those panels [hearing disability claims] ...

They were replaced by 35 full-time members of the new Social Security Tribunal (SST) which, despite inheriting a backlog of 7,224 cases, managed to hear just 348 appeals in its first year of operation. By last month, the backlog had grown to nearly 10,000, some of them dating back several years.

 New rules introduced when the SST was created allowed adjudicators to hear cases by teleconference, video conference, in person, or by written question and answer. But the adjudicators could also decide, unilaterally, that the written material given to them by the claimants and the government was sufficient and that no further live input was necessary.

In the first 13 months of the SST’s operation, 57 cases were decided on the basis of the existing written record alone. In the same period, 173 appeals were heard by teleconference, 52 by video conference and 123 were done in person.

Dominique Forget, the senior director of the tribunal, said in a telephone interview on Friday: “It’s a question of flexibility and efficiency.” Appellants can express their preference, she said, but “we’re trying to move files and to be as quick as we can.” ...

Making Demands

     Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent an amazing letter to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security making harsh accusations and strident demands. I don't think I've ever read anything like this directed at Social Security. 

     I have no idea whether this portends anything for Acting Commissioner Colvin's nomination to become Commissioner for real. 

     I guarantee that if she submits to these demands that some very different demands will be made at whatever in the future when Democrats control that Committee.

Workers Say They'll Wait Longer To Retire And To Some Extent They Do

 

From the Census Bureau