The Republican blame-shifting game continues. Representative Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), a member of the Social Security Subcommittee has written a piece for The Hill picking up on the theme the Chairman of her Subcommittee raised earlier that somehow Social Security's hearing backlog exists because we don't have an appointed Commissioner. Walorski adds this new theme:
It’s clear money alone won’t fix the problem. An analyst from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) who recently testified at a congressional hearing agrees: “Is SSA using the resources that they currently have as efficiently and as effectively as they can? We found several instances where we don’t believe they are.” Indeed, there are ways to speed up the decision process that are well within the SSA’s authority. For instance, it’s been decades since the SSA updated many of its processes, policies, and tools for evaluating eligibility.
Of course, it's clear to everyone who has actually looked at the problem that money will certainly fix this problem. In fact, it's the only possible solution.
The GAO saying it has found evidence that Social Security is not being as efficient as it can be is meaningless. First, even in the best run agency there's always going to be something to criticize. A lack of divine perfection isn't a sign that there's waste that has a meaningful effect upon an agency's performance. Second, GAO always finds something to criticize. Always. It's what they do. When it comes to Social Security, GAO's criticisms start at the debatable, go on to the meaninglessly vague and end up at the absurd but almost never amount to anything significant. The best evidence I see that Social Security is a well run agency is how paltry GAO's criticisms are.
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