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Watchdog: Agency spends more than it makes to collect wrongful payments

1935

The Bureau of Federal Old-Age Benefits, renamed the Bureau of Old-Age Insurance (BOAI) in 1937, was created in December 1935 and was the forerunner of today's Social Security Administration.

 

 The Social Security Administration (SSA) spends more money than it collects when trying to recover payments to individuals who received benefits for which they were not eligible. 
According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the SSA issued $128.3 million in "low-dollar" overpayments between 2008 and 2013, and then spent $323 million to collect them. The agency ultimately recovered only $109.4 million. 
"This resulted in SSA spending over $213.6 million more than it collected," the OIG said, in an audit released Wednesday. 
The OIG defines an overpayment as "benefit payments greater than the amount to which individuals are entitled." 
The overpayments were distributed through the SSA's Retirement and Survivors Insurance (RSI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. 
The SSA issued approximately $16.8 billion in disability insurance overpayments alone in the past decade. 
"Generally, SSA attempted to collect overpayments regardless of the amount," the OIG said. "In some cases, the value of the overpayment was less than what SSA spent to collect the overpayment. Therefore, for some overpayments, collection was not always cost-beneficial." 
A "low-dollar" overpayment is less than or equal to the agency's average cost to retrieve an overpayment.
 

Trump stands by statements on Mexican illegal immigrants, surprised by backlash

Republican presidential candidate and real estate mogul Donald Trump on Saturday stood by statements he made recently that too many illegal immigrants from Mexico are criminals but said he was surprised by the backlash and that his comments are causing financial concerns.
“The crime is raging and it’s violent. And if you talk about it, it’s racist,” Trump told Fox News, three days after a purported illegal Mexican immigrant deported five previous times allegedly killed a woman in San Francisco.
Trump first made his inflammatory remarks during his non-scripted, June 16 presidential announcement speech.
“When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best,” he said during the announcement. “They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting."
Since then, a list of businesses have announced plans to cut ties with Trump’s vast business empire, while fellow Republican candidates and others have questioned Trump’s remarks.
NBC and Univision, for example, have decided not to air the Trump-owned Miss Universe Pageant, Macy’s is dropping his signature clothing line, New York Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered a review of Trump's city contracts and NASCAR is moving an annual banquet from the Trump National Doral resort in Miami. 
“I didn’t know it was going to be this severe,” Trump said Saturday, adding that he was surprised by the NASCAR decision, considering he has a good relationship with the group. “I am a whipping post.”
Still, Trump has drawn support from Americans who say he is openly confronting the severity of the immigration problem that others won’t publicly knowledge.
Trump also said Saturday that the problem isn’t limited to Mexico, that everybody entering the United States is not criminal or problematic and that his concerns are rooted in national security.
“It’s about safety,” he said. “Some of the people coming here are very violent people, not all.”
Trump and fellow GOP White House candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have publicly exchanged remarks since Trump’s presidential announcement, with Rubio saying Trump’s comments about Mexicans were “offensive, inaccurate and divisive.”
After Mexican illegal immigrant Francisco Sanchez apparently killed 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco in a random attack Wednesday, Trump, who has proposed build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, sent a direct tweet to Rubio, the son of Cuban parents who has made immigration reform a part of his presidential campaign.
“What do you say to the family of Kathryn Steinle in CA who was viciously killed b/c we can’t secure our border? Stand up for US,” Trump tweeted.
Federal officials said local authorities repeatedly released Sanchez, who was in their custody as recently as this spring.
On Saturday, Trump said Rubio was “weak on immigration” and that fellow GOP White House candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry “could have done a lot more.”
He praised what he considers fellow candidate and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s tough immigration stance, calling him “very brave.”

  Kathryn Steinle

  
Kathryn Steinle was shot Wednesday evening as she walked with her father and a family friend at Pier 14, one of the top tourist attractions in the city. Police arrested Sanchez about an hour after the shooting of the 32-year-old San Francisco resident.

 Sanchez

Sanchez has seven felony convictions and has been deported five times to his native Mexico, most recently in 2009, federal officials said.

Haley’s Charleston response, Confederate flag stand spark VP talk

First let's do away with the flags and then we can start burning all the books we don't like. 

What a great way FOR ME TO GET A FEW EXTRA VOTES.

South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the Charleston massacre, highlighted by her call to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds, has thrust her back into the national spotlight and re-ignited talk about what role she might play in the 2016 race. 
Not only is Haley poised to be a powerful surrogate, there's already chatter that she could make a solid Republican vice presidential candidate.
"She’d be on anybody’s list,” Mike Huckabee, one 14 GOP presidential candidates and a former Arkansas governor, told Fox News on Tuesday. “She’s done a terrific job in South Carolina.”
Haley has been a high-profile Republican since she won the governorship as part of the 2010 Tea Party wave.
But her call to remove the Confederate battle flag after a white male fatally shot nine black people June 17 inside an historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C., has Republican presidential candidates, political observers and others suggesting her leadership in the aftermath shows she could be a pivotal player in the presidential race.
In addition, the Republican National Committee, South Carolina's U.S. senators and several of the GOP White House candidates have followed Haley in calling for the flag's removal, amid many Southerners’ belief that the flag is part of their heritage, not a symbol of white supremacy.
Haley, an Indian-American and the state’s first female governor, insists her call to remove the flag was deeply personal and beyond politics, repeatedly telling reporters she couldn’t “look her children in the face” while allowing the flag to fly.
But in a presidential campaign season, the political implications are unavoidable.
Juleanne Glover, who has worked on Republican presidential campaigns for Arizona Sen. John McCain and Steve Forbes and is now a senior adviser for the international firm Teneo Strategy, agrees that Haley could be a top vice presidential pick.
But she also argues Haley could play a far bigger role in the White House race that would begin much earlier than when candidates pick a running mate in summer 2016.
Glover suggested Tuesday that Haley’s backing and physical presence at campaign stops across early-voting South Carolina could make or break a candidate’s White House bid and that her voice on such topics as women’s issues, education reform and long-term immigration policy could “create a platform for 2016.” 
“She could play a pivotal role in all of these issues and in the future of the party,” Glover said. “She’s an American success story with a biographical narrative that lends itself to a larger, inspirational story. Friends who know her well have always been evangelical about her potential. They are not surprised.”
The decision by Haley, an elected official, to end her previous support for the flag, which was moved from atop the state capitol dome in 2000, indeed put her at the forefront of the issue.
However, she was not the first high-profile Republican to speak out.
Haley made the announcement, amid mounting public outcry, five days after the incident and three days after 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and 2016 GOP candidate Jeb Bush called it a symbol of racism.
Within the crowded GOP field, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham support the flag being taken down, while Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have not taken a specific public stance. The field is expected to swell to 16 candidates.
As a female and a minority official, the 43-year-old Haley indeed has the potential to become a major figure in the new guard of the Republican Party.
But some political observers suggest she is still a work in progress.
Haley was elected last year to a second term with roughly 56 percent of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a South Carolina gubernatorial candidate in 24 years. But she won in an overwhelmingly Republican state and would likely need to broaden her appeal to be selected as a running mate.
In addition, the former state legislator, who has an accounting degree from Clemson University, has largely focused on job growth and state economic development and less on race and women’s issues.
And she has occasionally clashed with Democrats and Republicans alike in the state legislature.
Haley upset black Democrats in part over her refusal to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare and for supporting a state voter-identification law they consider discriminatory.
However, the week before the Charleston church killings, Haley signed into a law a bill requiring police officers to wear body cameras that was championed by  Democratic state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, killed while leading a bible study inside the church.
She also got support from Pinckney, an ardent progressive, for an economic-development plan to dredge the Savannah River.
Still, College of Charleston political Professor Kendra Stewart said Haley has perhaps an even more “contentious” relationship with the GOP-controlled legislature, with which she has clashed over spending, ethics reform and state agency control.
Stewart said Haley also has offended assembly leaders by criticizing them publicly and vetoing their legislation, which has resulted in efforts to override her vetoes.
Glover thinks Haley has had to battle with the old guard in both parties to achieve her political goals but acknowledges “some of the legislative tussles have not always helped burnished her image.”
Another big issue is simply the political calculations of picking any vice presidential candidate -- which includes such factors as the Democrats’ presidential nominee and whether the GOP nominee is, for example, a strong conservative or more of a moderate who would gain wider appeal with somebody like Haley.
Stewart suggests that Haley’s odds increase if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination or if an East Coast moderate like Christie is the Republican choice.
“If Clinton wins, it would be wise for Republicans to have a female or non-white male on the ballot,” Stewart said. “She’s very appealing to the Republican Party’s more conservative base. She would add some strength to that part of the ticket.”

Clinton campaign ropes off reporters at New Hampshire parade

Campaign aides for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Saturday roped off reporters from the candidate as she walked and talked with potential voters during a July Fourth parade in New Hampshire, sparking frustration from the press corps and outrage from the state Republican Party.
“Hillary Clinton continues to demonstrate her obvious contempt and disdain for the Granite State’s style of grassroots campaigning,” New Hampshire Republican State Committee Chairman Jennifer Horn said in a statement. “The use of a rope line at a New Hampshire parade is a sad joke and insults the traditions of our first-in-the-nation primary.”
Reporters were reportedly allowed to get close to Clinton but were later herded away by campaign aides concerned about crowd control.
“Spectacle of Clinton as candidate -- press being pulled along with a rope,” tweeted New York Times presidential campaign correspondent Maggie Haberman.
The campaign responded to the outrage, telling CNN: “While the GOP might want to spin a good yarn on this, let’s not get tied up in knots. We wanted to accommodate the press, allow (Clinton) greet voter (sic.) And allow the press to be right there in the parade with her, as opposed to preset locations.”
However, the optics of reporters being corralled along at the event, in Gotham, N.H., did not look good and added to the criticism that Clinton, unlike other 2016 presidential candidates, is shielded from reporters and their questions and as a public figure is cloaked in secrecy. 
“Never underestimate @HillaryClinton’s capacity to fritter away natural advantages with poor judgement,” tweeted Politico politics reporter Glenn Thrush.
Reporters and potential voters are often kept at a distance from presidential candidates at large events by what is called a “rope line.” The event Saturday was also marked by at least one person heckling Clinton about what exactly she did as secretary of state before the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed.
Though Clinton, also a former first lady and U.S. senator, is the clear Democratic front runner, primary challenger Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent, has been drawing large crowds at campaign events in New Hampshire. 
He released the following statement Saturday on the Clinton campaign’s use of a rope line to protect the Democrat frontrunner on a public street at Gorham’s annual Independence Day parade:
“Today, Republican presidential candidates marched in parades across New Hampshire that were open to the public without obstruction from their staff. Their efforts to reach out to voters and engage in retail campaigning stand in sharp contrast to Secretary Clinton’s arrogant and shameful behavior.”