On Monday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged Congress to shift resources from Social Security retirees to support the exploding number of people on permanent disability (SSI, or Supplemental Security Income). It’s part of the Obama administration’s “give away the store” mentality, encouraging the masses to sign up for government programs at taxpayers’ expense.
Even without Congress’s complicity, the administration is doing everything it can to expand government dependence, getting people on Obamacare subsidies, food stamps, earned income tax credits and disability payments.
Federal workers routinely ignore — even blatantly violate — the laws that established these programs in order to maximize giveaways.
The number of people collecting permanent disability has soared to 8.9 million, up 20 percent since Obama took office. And virtually all will stay on the program for life. As a result, the Disability Fund will run out of money by 2016. Lew wants to tap more of your payroll taxes to keep the dependence money flowing.
When you and your employer send in payroll taxes, the lion’s share (5.4 percent of payroll) goes to the Social Security Old Age Fund, but a small portion (0.9 percent of payroll) goes to the Disability Fund. Under Lew’s proposal Grandma and Grandpa will be the losers. The move is predicted to shorten the solvency of the Old Age Fund by at least a year.
Congress should say no to Lew’s proposal.
And the public should demand to know why 8.9 million people are collecting disability. It’s inconceivable that so many — more than the population of New York City — are truly incapacitated. Americans are healthier than ever before, and jobs require less physical exertion.
The answer to that riddle is that the Social Security administrators encourage all comers. Stephen Goss, Social Security’s chief actuary, told Congress that “disability is by nature a very subjective concept.” He said it depends “on a myriad of issues related to a person’s residual functional capacity, past job experience, desire to work, and availability of suitable jobs.”
Ah! Desire to work. If you don‘t have that, you may qualify. No wonder disability rates are higher here than in France, Germany or Italy, countries known for their welfare culture.
And get ready for even more claims, now that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just defined pregnancy as a “disability.”
Obama health officials are working just as hard to give away your tax dollars. A General Accountability Office report disclosed last week that virtually anyone can get a taxpayer funded subsidy for health insurance. If your income doesn’t qualify you, or you’re not a citizen or a legal resident, not to worry.
The GAO sent out 12 investigators to enroll in health plans with fake identities.
Astoundingly, 11 of the 12 applicants succeeded in enrolling, with taxpayers footing the bill. Applicants claiming they had no documents succeeded, and so did applicants using fraudulent documents. Contractors employed by the Department of Health and Human Services to process enrollments passed buck, saying they are not obliged to authenticate any paperwork presented.
HHS reports that so far, about 2.6 million out of the 5.4 million federal marketplace enrollees have not had their income or immigration status verified. Last month the Obama administration announced that anyone enrolled in the federal marketplace will get an automatic re-enrollment this fall. That should be good news for the fraudsters.
Under President Obama, this “free-lunch” mentality has caused dependence on food stamps to nearly double. Once reserved for the truly poor, now almost 48 million people are on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance dole.
Sadly, when it comes to conserving taxpayer money to help those truly in need, Congress doesn’t expect much. In 2010, Congress unanimously passed the Improper Payments Elimination Act. It tries to cap mistaken payments by any federal department at 10 percent. Of course, almost any business would go belly up if it sent 10 percent of its funds to the wrong customers or suppliers.
But even that low bar is too high for the Obama administration. The IRS estimates that 21 percent to 25 percent of earned income tax credits were paid out in error in fiscal 2012.
Betsy McCaughey is a patient advocate, constitutional scholar, syndicated columnist, regular contributor on Fox News and CNBC, and former lieutenant governor of New York. In 1993 she read the 1,362-page Clinton health bill, warned the nation what it said, and made history. McCaughey earned her Ph.D. in constitutional history from Columbia University. She is author of "Beating Obamacare 2014" and "Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution." For more of Betsy's reports, Go Here Now.
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