The Absurdity Of It All

 

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There’s Always A New Scam

      From a press release:

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Social Security Administration (SSA) is warning the public about a new government imposter scam. This scam comes in the form of an official-looking letter identified as a “certificate” on fake U.S. Supreme Court letterhead using forged signatures of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. This high-pressure scam urges individuals to cooperate with the named SSA official, pressuring them to send money or share personal information.

The scam letter is personally addressed to the recipient and claims they are a primary suspect in connection with legal proceedings and criminal charges. The letter may use the real name of an SSA executive and claim that the proceedings “are conducted with the oversight of Attorney General Raúl Torrez” of New Mexico. The letter further claims that according to findings from SSA and the incorrectly named “Drug Enforcement Agency,” the recipient may have been subjected to identity theft, noting that their Social Security number (SSN) has been compromised. The letter states that SSA will issue a new SSN. …

BLS Recalling Staff So Social Security COLA Can Be Computed

      From CNN:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is calling some staff back to work to prepare its closely watched inflation gauge, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, despite the government shutdown, a Trump administration official told CNN.

The latest CPI data was previously scheduled for release on October 15. It’s unclear whether the report will still be released next week or delayed amid the shutdown. The Trump official told CNN that the data would be published before November 1, since that is the deadline to publish the annual increase for Social Security payments. The September CPI data is needed to calculate that adjustment. …

A View Of The Future

      From the Washington Post:

Kinsley Kilpatrick put on a convincing show.

During visits to Atlanta VA Medical Center, the Iraq War veteran arrived in a wheelchair, claiming multiple sclerosis had paralyzed his arms and legs. By the time he turned 35, the onetime athlete said he could barely move from the neck down, leaving him dependent on others to eat, dress and bathe, according to court records.

Obligated to help a former soldier in need, the Department of Veterans Affairs began paying Kilpatrick $7,900 a month in tax-free disability benefits in 2015, the records show. The federal government also gave him $20,000 for a specially equipped Jeep Cherokee to make it easier for his wife to take him to medical appointments.

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The hoax lasted for three years and might have continued indefinitely, if not for a whistleblower who sent VA proof that Kilpatrick was lying: videos of the Army veteran backflipping on a trampoline, prancing around a sports field like a ballerina and swan diving into a playground ball pit. ...

    Why would I be posting this story about VA on the Social Security News blog? This sort of story gets planted when you want to cut a program. You could easily get the Post to do a similar article about Social Security disability and use it to justify making it harder to get on disability benefits and to stay on them. In fact, I imagine that's coming. 

    I can't say how common fraud is at VA but I'm sure that a few vets caught faking it doesn't mean that the program has lax standards. There must be well over a million vets drawing VA benefits. It's inevitable that there will be at least a few crooks among them. Coming up with a few cases like this one prove nothing about the overall program but can sway many members of the public and members of Congress.

Bisignano At IRS

        There are so many issues with Frank Bisignano's position as "CEO" of IRS. Let me list three that I know of:

• Bisignano is the 8th person to serve as head of the IRS in the eight and a half months that Trump has been back in the White House. The IRS can no longer carry out its core missions because it has fired a quarter of its employees. Why would anyone in their right mind want the job of CEO of such a disaster zone? And you thought that Social Security is a mess!
• The head of IRS is supposed to be the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, not the "CEO." It appears that the President is making up a title to get around submitting a new nomination for Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
• Why not submit a nomination? The nominee would face a confirmation hearing where he or she would have to answer questions Trump doesn't want answered, such as whether the nominee will continue illegally sharing data with ICE and whether the nominee will use the IRS to investigate the President's enemies. Also, the chaos at IRS would be a major topic.

For What It’s Worth

      For what it’s worth, the White House is apparently denying that it intends to make any changes in Social Security. 

Just When You Think Things Can’t Get Any More Absurd

      From The Hill:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced the head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) would also serve as CEO of the IRS after the tax agency’s previous, Senate-confirmed leader was ousted.

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano will take on the additional role of CEO of the IRS, where he will oversee day-to-day operations. But Bessent will continue to serve as the acting IRS commissioner, giving him autonomy over the agency. …

Aggressive Action Against Disability Claimants Planned

      From the Washington Post:

The Trump administration is preparing a plan that will make it harder for older Americans to qualify for Social Security disability payments, part of an overhaul of the federal safety net for poor, older and disabled people that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits, according to people familiar with the plans.


Currently, the Social Security Administration evaluates disability claims by considering age, work experience and education to determine if a person can adjust to other types of work. Older applicants, typically over 50, have a better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a limitation in adapting to many jobs.


But now officials are considering eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to age 60, according to three people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. They also plan to modernize labor market data used to judge whether claimants can work, replacing an outdated jobs database that includes obsolete occupations like nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks, following a Washington Post investigation in 2022. …

“We felt that so many more jobs are now available to disabled people,” said Mark Warshawsky, who led work on the earlier proposed rule as the SSA’s deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy during the first Trump administration. “The nature of work has changed.”

Warshawsky, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, predicted that while the new rule under consideration would allow the agency to turn away more older people, more people with mental disabilities are likely to be approved. … 

According to two former officials, starting next year the agency plans to develop a computer-generated database using the modern jobs data to determine which jobs, if any, someone seeking benefits could perform. Disability advocates say they worry that the database will be programmed to come up with a vast array of jobs, particularly if advancing age is no longer a limiting factor, and will end up denying benefits to tens of thousands of claimants every year. …

     As I’ve said recently, doing anything like this would be disastrous for its authors. The people planning this have no idea how radical it is.