Hot Air posted an article today about Social Security Disability payments.

The article reports:

Social Security overpaid nearly half the people receiving disability benefits over the past decade, according to a government watchdog, raising questions about the management of the cash-strapped program.

In all, Social Security overpaid beneficiaries by nearly $17 billion, according to a 10-year study by the agency’s inspector general.

Many payments went to people who earned too much money to qualify for benefits, or to those no longer disabled. Payments also went to people who had died or were in prison.

Social Security was able to recoup about $8.1 billion, but it often took years to get the money back, the study said.

“Every dollar that goes to overpayments doesn’t help someone in need,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “Given the present financial situation of the Social Security Disability Insurance trust fund, the program cannot sustain billions of dollars lost to waste.”

It is time to look into the management of Social Security. This sort of mistake would not be accepted in the private sector; there is no reason it should be accepted in government.

The article concludes:

Here’s an idea. One of the easier changes they could start with is to invest in more investigative resources using their massive government employee payroll and cut out the remaining waste and fraud. While doing their investigations, they could create some sort of code for those with obviously permanent disabilities and stop wasting time chasing them every couple of years. Between those two adjustments they could likely find more legitimate fraud and save money in the long run. We can save the battle over changes to the program until the wolves are truly at the door I suppose.