Kicking the Disabled

[Judi Lynn]

January 15, 2015
How Congress Rang in the New Year

Kicking the Disabled

by DEAN BAKER


Tens of millions of people made New Year’s resolutions, but few were as creative as the one pushed through Congress last week. Apparently, the new Congress decided that its first order of business should be to go after workers who are no longer able to hold jobs due to injury or illness.

It did this in a technical move that is likely to escape the attention of most of the public. The Republican Congress voted to ban any reallocation of Social Security tax revenue between the retirement fund, designated for retirees and survivors, and the disability fund for disabled workers. This matters because the disability fund is projected to face a shortfall some time in 2016. If no steps are taken by that point, workers suffering from cancer, heart disease, or other disabling conditions will see their benefits cut by almost 20 percent.

The easiest way to have addressed this problem would be to simply reallocate money between the funds, as has been done eleven times in the past. But the Republican Congress apparently felt that it would be better to hold disabled workers hostage in order to extract concessions on this or other programs.

~snip~
In recent years there has been a PR campaign to convince the public that the Social Security disability program is riddled with fraud. The facts say otherwise. Three quarters of applicants are turned down on their initial application, and even after appeals, 60 percent of applicants are denied benefits.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/15/kicking-the-disabled/

[Scuba]

1. Attacking the weakest among us. How utterly "Christian" of them.

[Enthusiast]

2. If the Democratic leadership really gave one shit........

they would hold a press conference explaining to the public just how devastating this would be to millions of citizens.

Where is the President on this? Does he believe as the Republicans do?

We aren't hearing a peep from the Party that is supposed to look out for our well being.

People think everything is fine in their lives until, suddenly, it isn't fine. This can happen any number of ways. The most common is a serious illness or an accident. Then they will find themselves in a mess believing they will have social security disability to save them.

We have watched the anti-disability propaganda scheme take place. I have never watched another moment of 60 Minutes since their hit piece. I understand NPR did the same. But I was already boycotting NPR.