What Entitlement Program Will Go Broke First?

What Entitlement Program Will Go Broke First? by Sean Hackbarth on FreeEnterprise.com

What federal entitlement program is closest to fiscal collapse?

Medicare? No.

Social Security? Negative.

Medicaid? Uh-uh.

While the three above are in peril, the “award” goes to the Social Security Disability Insurance Fund (SSDI), which is expected to run out of money in 2016.

In the Wall Street Journal, economist Michael Boskin notes the explosion in the people using it and SSDI’s costs:

The number of people collecting disability benefits has soared, especially in recent years, to almost 11 million in June, up from 2.7 million in 1970. The 2012 price tag was $140 billion, up eightfold, adjusted for inflation, from 1970.

In a 2011 paper, MIT economist David Autor put these costs in the context of the rest of the federal budget [h/t Reihan Salam]:

In 2010, SSDI cash transfer payments totaled $124 billion, while the cost of Medicare for SSDI bene?ciaries was $59 billion. These outlays, exceeding $1,500 for every U.S. household, comprised 7.3 percent of federal non-defense spending last year—a sum that is larger than interest payments on the federal debt. In the last two decades, outlays grew at 5.6 percent in real terms, compared to just 2.2 percent for all other Social Security spending. As a consequence SSDI’s share of total Social Security outlays has risen from one in ten dollars in 1988 to almost one in ?ve dollars at present. Perhaps most ominously, SSDI expenditures now exceed by 30 percent the payroll tax revenue dedicated to funding the program.

By expanding the medical conditions that qualify and increasing payments, SSDI has turned into something it wasn’t originally designed to be writes Boskin: “Disability insurance has clearly become, in part, a form of extended unemployment insurance and early retirement, with Medicare benefits.”

This was covered by FreeEnterprise.com in April:

[A]n extensive April 10 report from the Wall Street Journal dug into the explosion in Americans covered by the Social Security Disability Insurance Program since 2007. The number of Americans on federal disability grew by a half million over the course of the 2007-2009 recession, from 7.1 million to 7.6 million.

But since the recession’s end in June 2009, that number has swelled to a historically high 8.9 million. That’s more than double the number of disability beneficiaries in the 1990s, according to Jordan Weissman in The Atlantic, who notes that the eligibility requirements for disability have been relaxed at the same time jobs have grown more scarce.

A significant proportion of the former workers on disability are below the age of 50, the Journal notes. Based on the statistics, it’s unlikely that these workers will rejoin the labor force. In 2011, the Journal report finds, only .5 percent of disability recipients left the program to return to work.

In March, a National Public Radio (NPR) reporter explored the growth of the disability rolls and found that the disability program was essentially serving to “hide” workers who may not be disabled, but are otherwise unemployable due to changes in the economy—suggesting the real unemployment rate is significantly higher than the official 7.6 percent rate.

"That's a kind of ugly secret of the American labor market," David Autor, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tells NPR. "Part of the reason our unemployment rates have been low, until recently, is that a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs are on a different program."

[As a side note, the fact that millions move from being unemployed to being disabled indicates how weak our economy is and how critical pro-growth, job-creating policies are.]

To prevent the SSDI’s collapse Boskin recommends that the program better target the truly disabled:

Eligibility should emphasize objective medical—as opposed to more subjective and vocational—criteria, with a more rigorous appeals process for potential false rejections of meritorious but difficult-to-verify claims. About 40% of disability awards now follow appeals, of which a large majority are successful.

Next, offer better incentives to return to work for those who can. This means early intervention and providing information about job options—before people lose any attachment to the labor market and their skills deteriorate. Today, the disability-insurance program hardly focuses on the return to work. It is a Hotel California—you check in with a disability and don't leave unless you die or convert to Social Security retirement at age 66. In 2009 only a tiny percentage of those on disability, 0.8%, returned to work or gave up the benefits for other reasons.

He hopes fixing SSDI can be a springboard to broader entitlement reform:

With luck, the looming implosion of the Disability Insurance Fund will focus attention on other entitlements (and may dampen some of the happy talk now heard in Washington about the health of Social Security and Medicare). Coming to grips with the disability program also may provide a guide to reform of the larger programs.

The clock's ticking on SSDI, and we can't afford to ignore it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx CATP - Black conservative Deneen Borelli blacklisted from NAACP Convention The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was founded “to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of the United States and eliminate race prejudice.” The organization claims it “seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes.”

Well apparently the NAACP has erected a barrier of its own and blacklisted black conservative, Deneen Borelli.

Borelli, author of book Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation, and Fox News commentator, and her husband, Dr. Tom Borelli, were told there was no room at the 104th conference when they tried to pay for booth space. Photos of the venue, however, clearly showed plenty of available space.

But there was no room at the inn for Doreen and husband, who might have upset the new NAACP meme of discrimination for all BUT black liberals who tow the race-baiters’ line.

The organization once formed to ensure black people could strive, on an equal playing field without fear of bodily harm, to achieve their dreams in America, now only protects the struggles and aspirations of liberal blacks.

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson Inflames Racial Tensions with Hate Speech

Thanks to The Blaze for bringing this story of Congresswoman Frederica Wilson inflaming racial tensions with this hate speech. She is nothing but a racial profiteer like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. And for all her talk about "being guilty for being black", Wilson is certainly guilty of being stupid. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) had harsh words Saturday for those who racially profile black men. An article from The Blaze.

Wilson said that black males “will continue to be singled out and arrested for driving while black, shopping while black, walking while black, eating while black, and just being plain old black.”

Her fiery comments drew loud cheers and applause from more than 300 hundred people who gathered at a “Justice for Trayvon” vigil held in front of the Federal Building in Miami, according to the Miami Herald.

In related news, the brother of Trayvon Martin is interning for Wilson, her office confirmed to NBC News. Jahvaris Fulton attends Florida International University in Miami, according to his Twitter page, NBC News reports.

Fulton is also part of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project founded by Wilson 20 years ago, which aims to prevent drop-outs and mentor at-risk boys in Miami-Dade schools, Wilson’s office told NBC News.

Here’s a clip of Wilson’s racial divisive speech this past Saturday:

IRS Hearings - No Longer Can Obama Deny His Scandal

One of the better rollups of this weeks Congressional Hearings on the IRS targeting of Conservative groups can be found on Town Hall. Many WOW moments from these hearings,......the look on Congressman Ass Hat Cummings' face when it became known from IRS employee Hull that the office of a political appointee of Obama's is where the orders to target Conservative groups came from. Cummings' mug is to the left.  Whoever voted for this hardly literate, Obama apologist should be ashamed of themselves.

IRS Inspector George, a black man mind you, shot down many of the Democrat/IRS apologists arguements that the IRS investigation is a political witch hunt. If this is a hunt at all, it is a skunk hunt.

IRS Inspector General Russell George defused many of the Democrats' lines of attack during his opening statement, effectively "pre-butting" gotcha-style questions. A few observations:

(1) George reminded the committee that the IRS acknowledged and apologized for its improper targeting of conservative groups prior to the release of his audit in May. Don't forget that the agency's own internal review -- which predated the IG's audit -- came to similar conclusions about the malfeasance, including who was victimized. Both investigations were prompted by complaints from conservative, not liberal, groups regarding excessive wait times, interminable delays, and abusive questioning. During the hearing, George and his team told committee Democrats that their relatively narrow field of inquiry was initially limited by so-called BOLO (be on the lookout) terms provided to them by the IRS itself. George said that throughout his investigation, employees at multiple levels of the agency all confirmed that "Tea Party" (and related terms) was the relevant targeting nomenclature.

(2) Responding to accusatory statements from Democrats -- especially the contemptible Gerry Connolly -- about his political roots, George confirmed that he was appointed by President Bush and had worked for several Republicans many years ago. He also revealed that he worked at the 1980 DNC and helped found Howard University's College Democrats. That took the wind out of the "he's a Republican hatchet man!" line of argument. Also, as pointed out by Rep. Jim Jordan and Chairman Darrell Issa (and yours truly), if George had been working in concert with the GOP, he would have made this scandal public before the 2012 election.

(3) The Inspector General said that since his audit was published, more information has come to his attention regarding BOLO lists that included liberal-sounding buzz words. He said he's looking into those reports, and the investigation remains ongoing. That status also applies to his work with the FBI and DOJ. The witnesses said their inquiry into IRS officials' emails and conduct was fairly limited -- for instance, Lois Lerner's emails haven't yet been probed. Chairman Issa said he hoped that any potential evidence (re: Lerner) remained intact, in light of her decision not to incriminate herself in Congressional testimony. Rep. Jordan commented how unlikely it is that the IRS would have admitted to targeting one side of the aisle if they'd actually been treating both sides equally. He said a few extraneous examples of other BOLO lists and liberal groups possibly being screened have only emerged as Democrats have grappled for fig leaves in the wake of the scandal. Chairman Issa said that if there are any left-leaning groups who were abused the way conservative organizations were (never-ending delays, inappropriate questions, burdensome paperwork, etc), he'd like to see the evidence. And if those examples exist, were they proportional to the Tea Party's blanket treatment? All indications point in one direction. One piece of evidence:

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

(4) A few Democrats bizarrely claimed that George had "withheld" his lack of evidence that the Tea Party targeting was explicitly political. It was in his written report, and he's testified to that effect several times. One Democrat, Rep. Jackie Spier of California, advanced the long-debunked claim that the IRS was only trying to "streamline" their review system due to the huge influx of new applicants. I also feel compelled to commend Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts for another fair-minded performance today. It's clear he's a loyal Democrat, but he also seems genuinely interested in the truth and put off by the partisan misdirection tactics employed by some of his colleagues.

(5) In summary, the rancor that I anticipated this afternoon never really materialized. Mr. George and his colleagues explained their actions well, and assured members on both sides that their investigation continues. Democrats continue to hope that at least one example of improper scrutiny of a liberal group emerges, although that's not what the IG has found so far. Which makes sense for numerous reasons:

Zero Tea Party conservative groups were approved for tax-exempt status over a period of 27 months, while dozens of lefty groups received the green light. Conservative organizations were deliberately buried in burdensome paperwork, fraught with wildly inappropriate questions and outrageous demands. This emanated from, and was sometimes micromanaged by, DC. The IRS' former commissioner testified under oath that only conservative-leaning groups were mistreated this way. When the House Oversight Committee held hearings featuring the IRS' victims, committee Democrats couldn't produce a single liberal witness. Oh, and the IRS admitted and publicly apologized for their wrongful targeting of conservatives following their own internal investigation, and before the IG report was published. If the truth was "we did it to both sides!" they would have presented that evidence early and often. They didn't.

Parting thought: If, as Democrats suggest, the targeting impacted both sides and this is all a big non-scandal, where is the "progressive-assigned" version of Elizabeth Hofacre? That is to say, where is the IRS employee tasked with screening dozens of targeted liberal organizations whose superiors wouldn't permit any resolutions for months (and ultimately years) on end? If such an employee exists, don't you think we'd have heard about him or her by now?