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The Daily Signal
The House Made
It Harder to Steal From Social Security Retirement Fund
Romina Boccia
January 07, 2015
This Tuesday, House Republicans nearly unanimously adopted new rules
for the 114th Congress (H. Res. 5) which set the stage for long-overdue
Social Security reforms to protect disabled Americans and seniors from
indiscriminate benefit cuts.
The new rule strengthens the integrity of Social Security’s separate
trust funds (disability and retirement) by putting a procedural barrier
in place to prevent lawmakers from raiding retirement funds to shore up
the bleeding disability trust fund. Page 32 of H. Res. 5 adds a point
of order against weakening either trust fund, unless the changes result
in an overall improvement to Social Security’s combined trust funds.
This change sets the stage for comprehensive Social Security reform in
the 114th Congress.
With the Social Security disability trust fund projected to run out of
funds in 2016, President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had
suggested that Congress reallocate funds from the Social Security
retirement trust fund to the disability one.
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The problem is that such a reallocation not only would kick the can
down the road on much-needed reforms to a fraud-ridden program that has
expanded far beyond its original mission (it now encourages permanent
dependence among the marginally disabled), it also would raid the
retirement program—which faces an even deeper fiscal hole—of funds. As
Rachel Greszler, senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, wrote:
The [Social Security disability] program is crucial to millions of
disabled individuals who cannot work and would face severe hardship or
destitution without [disability] benefits. These beneficiaries’
well-being is threatened by inefficiencies and unintended growth in the
[disability] program that are unnecessarily depleting its finances. The
[disability] program must be reformed so that it can continue to
provide for individuals who are truly unable to work, without
subsidizing early retirement and long-term unemployment.
If lawmakers allowed the Social Security disability trust fund to run
out of funds without reforms, disability beneficiaries would face an
indiscriminate 19 percent cut which would lower the average benefit to
below the federal poverty level.
Congress should act responsibly by adopting reforms that protect
benefits for disabled Americans who need them, while attacking fraud
and mismanagement. Congress also should adopt reforms that encourage a
return to self-sufficiency among the marginally and temporarily
disabled with a prospective period of disability, for example.
Moreover, employer incentives to provide private disability insurance
would help to provide benefits faster for those who become in need of
them while emphasizing work accommodations over dependence.
The new House rule would protect the retirement trust fund from being
used as a piggy bank to shore up the disability trust fund. By this
action, the House sets the stage for comprehensive Social Security
reform that protects disabled Americans and seniors from indiscriminate
benefit cuts and recognizes a responsibility for stewardship of
taxpayer dollars.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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