Why Would We Do This?

Posted on February 22, 2017 by granny g

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about Social Security benefits being payed to people without Social Security numbers. What? Having a Social Security number means that you have had money taken out of your paycheck to pay into Social Security. Not having a Social Security number is an indication that you have not paid money into the system. What brand of insanity is this?

The article reports:

The Social Security Administration paid $1 billion in benefits to individuals who did not have a Social Security Number (SSN), according to a new audit.

The agency’s inspector general found errors in the government’s documentation for representative payees, otherwise known as individuals who receive retirement or disability payments on behalf of another person who is incapable of managing the benefits themselves.

The audit released Friday found thousands of cases where there was no SSN on file.

Over the last decade, the agency paid $1 billion to 22,426 representative payees who “did not have an SSN, and SSA had not followed its policy to retain the paper application.”

“Furthermore, unless it takes corrective action, we estimate SSA will pay about $182.5 million in benefits, annually, to representative payees who do not have an SSN or paper application supporting their selection,” the inspector general said.

The inspector general also found the agency paid $853.1 million in benefits since 2004 to individuals who had been terminated as representative payees by the agency.

Social Security has enough trouble paying its bills without paying people who never paid into Social Security.

The article includes the government’s defense of the practice of paying benefits to people without Social Security numbers:

The government defended the issuance of benefits to noncitizens and persons without an SSN.

“Representative payees play a significant role in many beneficiaries’ lives,” the SSA said. “We have approximately 5.7 million representative payees managing annual benefits for approximately 8 million beneficiaries. When appointing representative payees, we adhere to guidance in the Social Security Act (the Act).”

“Specific to this audit, the Act permits us to appoint, in certain circumstances, an undocumented alien, or applicant who resides outside the United States without a Social Security number (SSN) to serve as payee,” the agency said. “Specifically, the Act states we should verify a person’s SSN (or employer identification number) in our investigation of the payee applicant. However, the Act does not state that the applicant must have an SSN to serve as a payee.”

The “absence of an SSN is not a criterion preventing an individual from serving as payee,” the agency added.

First of all–the term ‘undocumented alien’ is a politically correct term for ‘illegal alien.’ Why in the world are we giving money to people who broke our laws to come here?

This is simply more of the swamp in Washington that needs to be drained.

Putting Law Enforcement People At Risk

Posted on November 25, 2015 by granny g

There are some real questions as to President Obama’s attitude toward police. A recent executive order really raises more questions.

Fox News reported Wednesday that:

President Obama issued Executive Order 13688 in January after the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Mo., amid concerns about the “militarization” of the police fueling a heavy-handed response.

The article explains:

Sheriffs using the program are outraged, saying that the main focus of the initial backlash – the armored tracked vehicles – are purely defensive vehicles that save lives in crisis situations, and double as rescue vehicles in areas with rough terrain.

Sheriff Mike Bouchard of Oakland County, Mich., told FoxNews.com of a situation in which an active shooter was holed up in his house shooting out of the windows, hitting nearby homes. Bouchard said they were able to use the vehicle to evacuate residents from houses, while also protecting police officers from being shot. During the siege, over 500 rounds of ammunition were exchanged.

“There’s no question that saved lives,” Bouchard, who is also a former senatorial and gubernatorial candidate, said. “We have letters from people we evacuated saying ‘we don’t know what you could have done to save us without that armored vehicle.’”

Bouchard said the federal government’s crackdown on the equipment is an example of the disconnect between Obama’s claims and reality.

“His verbiage calls these tanks. These aren’t tanks. There is no offensive weaponry mounted on a tracked armored vehicle in any police department. These are big safe boxes,” he said.

This is not the time to ask local police departments to give up weapons and machines that keep them safe. We are under a rather severe terrorist threat, and local police departments need all of the weapons they can get.

The executive order to take these weapons away from local police was part of President Obama’s response to the events in Ferguson, Missouri. We need to remember some of the specifics regarding the events of Ferguson. The policeman involved did not use excessive force, the criminal (yes, he had robbed a convenience store) had already attempted to steal the policeman’s gun and was charging the policeman. Remember that at one point in the Baltimore riots, the police were told not to restrain the rioters. These are things to think about.

Stop and think for a moment. If the local police force is stripped of all of its heavy weapons, who will have those weapons? Do you trust a federal government with weapons that would be overwhelming to local police forces? Do local police forces need safe vehicles to use in the case of terrorist attacks?

At the same time, ask yourself why in August of 2012 it was reported that Social Security Administration had purchased 174,000 rounds of ammunition, adding the agency to a growing list of federal agencies that have purchased multithousands of rounds of ammo over the last six months. This was reported in The Examiner on August 15, 2012.

I support the right of local law enforcement to have whatever armor and weapons they feel are needed. I also support the right of individual citizens to own guns.

This May Be One Of Many Reasons ObamaCare Is So Expensive

Posted on August 14, 2015 by granny g

On Tuesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about an Inspector General audit of the Department of Health and Human Services. The purpose of the audit was to determine if the ObamaCare healthcare sign-up sites were monitoring the people who were signing up to see if they were eligible for ObamaCare.

The article reports:

The IG found that the internal controls did not always correctly verify Social Security numbers, citizenship status, annual household income, and family size information to determine eligibility.

One applicant understated her income by $7,000. According to the IG, the marketplace should have compared this income data to available electronic data sources and realized that the applicant’s income was more than 10 percent below the income listed on these data sources. Then, the marketplace should have asked the applicant for additional evidence of income.

Instead, this applicant was not only verified, but was approved to receive the advance premium tax credit.

Another example of weak internal controls was found in efforts to verify citizenship status. The marketplace did not always verify this information through the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, as was required.

The IG found that not only were there problems with internal controls, but once discrepancies were found, they were not handled properly.

…This report comes on the heels of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found Healthcare.gov approved coverage for fake accounts. GAO performed undercover tests and fabricated personal data of fake applicants for coverage under Obamacare. In 11 of 12 of these fake applications, the online marketplace approved coverage and granted each account $30,000 in premium tax credits.

Sounds like a typical government program to me.

Disarming America–One State At A Time

Posted on April 12, 2013 by granny g

Yesterday I posted a story about state police in New York mistakenly taking away a law abiding citizen’s guns. Today I have another story. Breitbart.com reported yesterday that during an investigation of the states new driver’s licensing system, it was discovered that the Missouri State Highway Patrol twice gave a database of concealed carry permit holders to federal authorities.

The article reports:

The investigation into leaked personal information began after suspicions arose over new drivers license rules requiring citizens to bring in numerous personal documents–including concealed carry permit information–to be “scanned and retained.”

Replogle said the names were turned over to “cross-check… names on the concealed carry list with [the federal] agency’s list of those with disabilities attributed to mental illness to find possible evidence of fraud in the system.”

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has been denying that “concealed weapons permits were turned over to a ‘magical database’ for federal agents to ‘mess with.'”

The article states that the information was given to the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General in Nov. 2011 and again in Jan. 2012. Replogle claims the information was encrypted and the discs holding the information were destroyed.

Excuse me if I am a little skeptical of the fact that the information was destroyed and that there are no copies floating around anywhere.