Wait Times Are Terrible

      From CNET:

In December about the status of their disability benefits applications. The average wait time for a decision was seven months, the longest it's been in 14 years, according to a recent report from USA Facts.

Jeff Nesbit, deputy communications commissioner for Social Security, said years of inadequate funding means the agency "cannot keep up with the demand for service and our annual fixed cost increases." 

Disability Determination Services, which assesses disability claims, has been hit particularly hard, Nesbit wrote in a September 2022 memo, "due to historically high attrition as workloads become less reasonable with fewer staff."

I'm Sure It Seemed Like Easy Money At The Time

     From a press release:

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Takiyah Gordon Austin, age 47, formerly of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Court Judge Malachy E. Mannion, for a scheme to fraudulently obtain unemployment benefits related to COVID-19 emergency relief funds. ...

Takiyah Gordon Austin engaged in a scheme to abuse her position as a claims specialist for the Social Security Administration in order to obtain the personally identifiable information of unsuspecting individuals. Austin then utilized that information to file for and receive fraudulent Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims and benefit payments.  As part of the scheme, Austin also filed PUA claims for ineligible individuals in exchange for payment from the individuals. 

    The fraud pulled in over $288,000. She was charged with wire fraud among other offenses. Wire fraud has a 20 year maximum jail term.

I Thought We Decided Social Security Was Constitutional Over 80 Years Ago

     From Slate:

... For years now, right-wing litigators have argued that the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] is unconstitutional because it is funded independently: The agency draws its budget from the Federal Reserve, which in turn draws its budget from interest on securities. Because Congress does not directly appropriate money to the CFPB every year, lawyers claimed, its funding violates the Constitution’s appropriations clause. ...

At least seven different federal courts dismissed this theory until it landed in the 5^th Circuit, the nation’s Trumpiest appeals court. In May 2022, Judge Edith Jones—a Ronald Reagan appointee and hard-right bomb-thrower—wrote a 39-page concurrence asserting that the CFPB is funded unconstitutionally. Four other judges joined her. Then, in October, a three-judge panel formally declared that the CFPB’s independent budget mechanism renders the entire agency unconstitutional. Judge Cory Wilson, writing for the panel, revoked the CFPB’s ability to issue or enforce any regulations. (All three members of the panel were appointed by Donald Trump.) Thus, under the current law of the 5^th Circuit, the CFPB effectively does not exist. ...

You might wonder: What does this skirmish over a small financial agency have to do with hundreds of billions of dollars in annual entitlement spending? The answer: everything. In her concurrence, Jones took pains to clarify that her reasoning was not limited to the CFPB. Jones announced that all “appropriations to the executive must be temporally bound.” If Congress does not put a “time limit” on funding, it gives the executive branch too much discretion over spending. Under the Constitution, she claimed, the executive must “come ‘cap in hand’ to the legislature at regular intervals” to ensure that it remains “dependent” and “accountable.” ...

If their view becomes the law of the land, it will empower courts to abolish trillions of dollars in entitlement spending. Why? Because today two-thirds of annual federal spending is “mandatory”—including some of our nation’s most beloved social safety net programs. All of this spending amounted to $5.2 trillion in fiscal year 2021 that would suddenly be at risk of elimination by judicial fiat. ...

Does this principle derive from the Constitution? Of course not. The appropriations clause at question simply states that all money drawn from the treasury must be “in consequence of appropriations made by law.” There is no textual requirement that Congress reauthorize appropriations periodically. In fact, Article 1 of the Constitution suggests the exact opposite: It bars Congress from appropriating money to the Army “for a longer term than two years,” implying that other kinds of long-term appropriations are permissible. If they weren’t, then why would Army appropriations need an explicit time limit? ...

    Be careful what you ask for GOP. You might get it.

Stats On OHO Operations

 

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    This report is for the Office of Hearings Operations (OHO).

We're All In Agreement, Right?

     From USA Today:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., stood up from her seat in the back of the House chamber to heckle President Joe Biden after he said during his State of the Union address Tuesday that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset” while discussing the need to raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid a US default.

“Liar!” she said. Other lawmakers in the chamber booed him. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, seated behind Biden, shook his head in disapproval.  ...

As boos continued, Biden turned toward the House gallery to address an audience member not seen on camera. 

"It's being proposed by individuals," he said. "I'm politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some of you."  ...

As the camera landed on individual lawmakers, it captured a shot of a stunned Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah [who has openly talked about his desire to 'phase out" Social Security], who looked around the room with his mouth wide open. 

“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now,” Biden said. “They're not to be touched? All right. We've got unanimity!"

Cheers erupted in the chamber.

"Tonight, let's all agree, and apparently we are — let's stand up for seniors," Biden said, raising his fists in the air. Speaker McCarthy took to his feet. ...

Why Does Anyone Think That Private Accounts Could Replace Social Security?

     From Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times:

Former Vice President Mike Pence dipped his toes into the presidential campaign waters Feb. 2 with a proposal that would mean the death of Social Security. ...

Pence unearthed the old Republican idea of privatizing Social Security wholly or partially. ...

Pence didn’t say outright that he advocates killing Social Security. Instead, he took the course I reported on just last week. That’s the Republican and conservative habit of employing plausible-sounding jargon and economists’ gibberish to conceal their intention to hobble the program. ...

But make no mistake: Diverting any significant portion of Social Security taxes into private accounts would make the program unworkable, funnel untold wealth into the hands of Wall Street promoters and leave millions of families destitute. ...

[Pence] whined about “this trajectory of massive debt that we’re piling on the backs of [our] grandchildren” and attributed most of it to Social Security and Medicare (the “entitlements”). Never mind that well more than $1 trillion of that debt was incurred when his party passed a massive tax cut for the rich in 2017. ...

He promised, as Social Security “reformers” always do, that he would hold seniors harmless: “To everyone that’s got hair the same color hair as me, nothing’s going to change for you,” but younger Americans would face a changed landscape, “better choices that would also be better for the country.”

This is also a cherished Republican stunt — guaranteeing that their “reforms” won’t harm current retirees and the near-retired. It’s pure politics because they know that seniors would slaughter them at the polls otherwise. But if their ideas are so great, one must ask, why not impose them on everybody? ...

    I won't repeat it here but Hiltzik goes on to eviscerate every premise that has ever supported the notion of private accounts to replace Social Security. No, they're not a pathway to wealth for Americans. No, they're not at all safe. No, they wouldn't begin to replace the protection against disability and early death contained in the Social Security Act. No, they can't replace the inflation protection of the Social Security Act. As Hiltzik concludes:

It’s a crap shoot. And in craps, like any other gamble promoted as a sure thing, it’s the house that wins. Pence is carrying water for the Wall Street firms that will be circling small investors to suck up their assets. When they’re done, there will be nothing left of Social Security.

SSI Regulations Advance

     Almost a year after it was submitted to them for review, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has finally approved proposed rules to omit food from in-kind support and maintenance SSI calculations. However, this does not mean that the proposed regulations will come into effect anytime soon. They must first be published in the Federal Register for public comment. Social Security must then consider the comments and prepare a final version of the regulations which must again be submitted to OMB for approval. This could easily take 24 months, especially if OMB is going to sit on it for a year.

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