Social Security Employee Arrested In Syracuse

      From a press release:

Sean Okrzesik, age 34, of Syracuse, was arrested on March 23 on charges of theft of government property and Social Security fraud related to his diversion of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits into bank accounts he set up in the names of beneficiaries or their representative payees while he was employed in the Syracuse District Office of the Social Security Administration.

     I keep mentioning an ironic fact. In the wake of the Eric Conn fiasco Social Security purchased expensive software programs to spot data anomalies that might indicate fraud. They expected to find widespread fraud by claimants and their representatives but it wasn’t there. What they've found instead has been a modest amount of fraud by their own employees.

Field Offices Are Essential

      A few people who ought to know better think that there’s no need to ever reopen Social Security’s field offices to the public. The AARP gives you some of the reasons why those people are wrong.

I'd Like To Hear The Other Side Of This Story

      From a press release issued by Andrew Saul:

"I want to provide an important update about the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) processing of Economic Impact Payments (EIPs) under the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act.

At each turn over the last 12 months, immediate delivery of EIPs has been, and remains, a top priority for this agency. ...

Since the time that discussions began regarding issuance of EIPs in the ARP Act, weeks before passage, we have worked tirelessly with our counterparts at IRS to provide to them the information they need to issue payments to our beneficiaries. Despite the fact that Congress did not directly provide SSA funding to support our work on EIPs, we have provided countless hours of assistance to IRS consistent with the laws that establish how we may use the Trust Funds that every American counts on us to protect. ...

SSA discussed with Treasury and IRS, both before passage and after enactment of the ARP Act, that the Social Security Act does not allow the agency to use our administrative appropriation to conduct work on any non-mission provision or program. Accordingly, we were not authorized to substantively engage Treasury or IRS prior to the ARP’s passage. Instead, upon passage, we were required to pursue a reimbursable agreement with IRS because we received no direct appropriation through the ARP Act. From the outset of discussions, we kept congressional staff apprised of the hurdles this approach would create for SSA, and we have continued to update them on our progress with IRS as we completed the required interagency agreements.

Once we were free to move forward, we aggressively worked with Treasury and IRS to issue payments. As a result of our efforts, we successfully signed the reimbursable agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) less than one week after passage, on March 17. That process often takes weeks or months to complete, but we got the job done in a matter of days. A few days later, on Monday, March 22, SSA sent initial test files to IRS. IRS confirmed testing success on Wednesday, March 24. Production files were delivered to IRS before 9 AM on Thursday, March 25 – more than a week sooner than we were able to provide a similar file to IRS during the first round of EIPs. ...

     Doing it a little faster than last time doesn't sound like an achievement to me. Of course, it's faster this time because you have the experience of having done it before. I don't understand the statement that "we were not authorized to substantively engage Treasury or IRS prior to the ARP’s passage." Really, why not? Social Security cooperates with many other agencies all the time. What is this obsession with not using appropriations for non-mission programs? That doesn't seem to have prevented a ton of other data matches. Also, why was the agency having active discussions with Treasury and the IRS at a time when it supposedly wasn't allowed to "substantively engage" with them? That doesn't make sense. Why couldn't the MOU have been negotiated prior to passage of the bill and signed immediately after passage? Passage of the bill wasn't a cliffhanger. Why would it take even a week to negotiate a new MOU anyway? This had been done before. Just dust off the MOU you used previously and use essentially the same language. You don't have to re-invent the wheel.

     I'd like to hear the IRS and Treasury side of what happened.

One Week Until New Musculoskeletal Listings Take Effect

      Unless something happens in the meantime to delay or prevent it, Social Security's new musculoskeletal Listings go into effect a week from today. If you haven't read them, they're more extreme than you can probably imagine. I've reproduced the Listings changes below -- just the Listings without the lengthy preambles. Judge for yourself. My opinion is that the public isn't going to be happy with these and that the current Presidential Administration will be blamed, which is exactly what was planned, I imagine. These certainly weren't rushed out while there was a Republican President. Click on each thumbnail to view full size.

Biden's Suggestive History On SSI For U.S. Territories

      I just became aware of President Biden's history with  U.S. v. Vaello-Madero, the case to be heard by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of denying SSI benefits to U.S. citizens who reside in Puerto Rico. On September 6, 2020, a reporter for a Puerto Rican newspaper posted a story about the Trump Administration requesting that the Supreme Court hear U.S. v. Vaello-Madero and then tweeted about the story. Then candidate Joe Biden tweeted the following in response:

Time and again, the president has refused to provide Puerto Rico with much-needed resources. He’s repeatedly insulted Puerto Ricans and this latest action is another example of his disrespect for the island. 

This ends when I’m elected president.

     This isn't exactly a promise to withdraw the request that the Supreme Court hear  U.S. v. Vaello-Madero, although it can be interpreted that way. This twitter history is drawing attention and some are expressing disappointment that Biden hasn't already changed the government's position on the case. Biden's press secretary has said that Biden supports legislation to extend SSI to U.S. territories.

     Biden hasn't yet nominated a Solicitor General, the official who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court. Once he does, I hope that the Biden Administration's position on U.S. v. Vaello-Madero comes up in the confirmation hearing.

Why Are There Delays In Stimulus Checks To Social Security Recipients?

      From a press release: 

Today, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA), Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John B. Larson (D-CT), Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ), and Worker and Family Support Subcommittee Chairman Danny K. Davis (D-IL) wrote to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) to express their concerns over reported delays in automatically issuing stimulus checks to some of the most vulnerable Americans. In previous rounds of direct payments, IRS and SSA worked together to deliver assistance to Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Railroad Retirement Board (RRB), and Veterans Affairs (VA) beneficiaries automatically and promptly. There is no excuse for the delay this round, which puts critical assistance on hold for millions of Americans in need. ...

Don't Listen To This Nonsense

     I have no idea whether Democrats will advance President Biden's Social Security plan in this Congress. However, if it does start to advance, we're likely to see opposition of the sort put forward recently by Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. She is disappointed that the Biden plan doesn't solve Social Security's long term funding issues for the next 75 years!

     Why is it essential or even important that all issues be solved until near the year 2100? First, any projections that far out are inherently unreliable so no plan can conceivable solve all issues this far in advance. Second, if it's important to solve problems that far in advance, why hasn't the Department of Defense already solved our national security issues for the next 75 years? Why adopt any plan to address global warming that doesn't solve the issue once and for all? We don't expect any other sort of legislation to solve problems 75 years into the future. Why should we expect Social Security legislation to do so? 

     Listening to people like Alicia Munnell would make any legislation impossible. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Dismissals Resumed

     From the White Mountain Independent, of all places:

The Social Security Administration has lifted lifted the temporary suspension of issuing dismissals for untimely filed hearing requests and for failure to appear at a scheduled hearing.

That temporary suspension was implemented in October. Effective March 8, absent a showing of good cause, they will resume issuing dismissals in cases involving an untimely filed hearing request, or when neither the claimant nor the appointed representative, if any, appeared at a scheduled hearing.

Before issuing a dismissal, however, they will take additional steps to confirm that they are complying with established notice procedures including conducting quality reviews for these specific dismissals.

If they mail a notice of hearing at least 75 days before the date set for the hearing, but do not receive the acknowledgement form at least 30 days before the hearing, they will attempt to contact the claimant or appointed representative for an explanation.

Similarly, if they mail an amended notice of hearing or notice of supplemental hearing at least 20 days before the hearing date, but do not receive the acknowledgement form at least 10 days before the hearing, they will attempt to contact the claimant or appointed representative for an explanation. ...

For more information, contact Jack Burns, public affairs at Social Security Administration, 866-331-4359.