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Social Security News
Bush Budget Again Includes Private Investment
Accounts in Social Security
Almost $700 billion budget provides $504 million for
new efforts to ensure correct benefits are paid to eligible people
Feb. 4, 2008 – The Social Security budget will grow
by $36.4 billion to $694,804 billion if
the budget submitted today by President George W. Bush is approved. But,
it is not likely to find support in the Congress as presented, since the
President is again making a run at gaining approval for private
investment accounts.
Social Security was once a hot issue for President
Bush, who pushed hard in the early years of his administration for
private investment accounts, which he thought would shore up the
financial stability of the critical program.
Few ever agreed, however, and the President
generally only mentions Social Security as a part of the entitlement
programs, which also include Medicare and Medicaid.
In his budget message today, however, he has it
back again. In a narrative that accompanied the budget for Social
Security, the White House says the budget:
“Proposes voluntary personal accounts funded by a
portion of the worker’s Social Security payroll taxes.
“Account contributions will be capped at four
percent of Social Security taxable earnings up to a $1,400 limit in
2013, increasing by $100 more than the average-wage growth each year
through 2018.
“The President has also embraced the idea of
progressive indexing as part of a solution to restore the system to
sustainable solvency. Progressive indexing would tie the future benefits
of the highest wage workers to inflation while providing a higher rate
of benefit growth for lower-wage workers.
One significant added expense for the budget
“provides $504 million for important program integrity activities that
ensure benefits are paid to eligible people in the correct amounts.”
Below is the budget for Social Security followed by
the objectives that support the budget.
|
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
(In millions of dollars) |
|
|
|
2007 Actual |
Estimate |
|
|
2008 |
2009 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spending
|
|
|
|
|
|
Discretionary Budgetary Resources: |
|
|
|
|
|
Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE) Base 1
|
9,298 |
9,745 |
10,327 |
|
|
Office of the Inspector General |
92 |
92 |
98 |
|
|
Research and Development |
20 |
20 |
28 |
|
|
Total, Discretionary budgetary resources |
9,410 |
9,857 |
10,453 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total, Discretionary outlays |
9,220 |
9,783 |
10,386 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mandatory Outlays: |
|
|
|
|
|
Old-age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance 2
|
581,518 |
610,426 |
645,136 |
|
|
Supplemental Security Income 3 |
36,021 |
41,338 |
43,302 |
|
|
Special Benefits for Certain World War II Veterans |
8 |
10 |
10 |
|
|
Offsetting collections |
−2,957 |
−3,149 |
−3,116 |
|
|
Legislative proposals |
— |
— |
−914 |
|
|
Total, Mandatory outlays |
614,590 |
648,625 |
684,418 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total, Outlays |
623,810 |
658,408 |
694,804 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 The
LAE account includes funding from the Hospital Insurance and
Supplementary Medical Insurance trust funds for services that support
the Medicare program, including implementation of Medicare Reform.
2 In
2007, Treasury refunded the OASI and DI Trust funds $1,297 million due
to the overpayment of voluntary income tax withholding. This did not
impact beneficiary payments. The mandatory total does not include the
refund.
3 Does
not include the effect of State supplementation offsetting collections.
 Social Security Administration
The President’s 2009 Budget will:
● Support the President’s framework for Social
Security reform that strengthens the safety net for future generations,
protects those most dependent on Social Security, and offers workers the
opportunity of ownership through voluntary personal retirement accounts;
● Reduce wait times and cut backlogs in the
disability hearings process;
● Increase program integrity efforts to ensure
benefits are provided to the right beneficiaries— preventing improper
payments; and
● Increase productivity by two percent while
enhancing service to the public.
Strengthening
Social Security
● Encourages a bipartisan approach to
strengthening Social Security.
● Highlights the coming financial
challenge facing the Social Security program and outlines the
President’s approach to reform.
● Proposes voluntary personal accounts
funded by a portion of the worker’s Social Security payroll taxes.
Account contributions will be capped at four percent of Social Security
taxable earnings up to a $1,400 limit in 2013, increasing by $100 more
than the average-wage growth each year through 2018.
● The President has also embraced the
idea of progressive indexing as part of a solution to restore the system
to sustainable solvency. Progressive indexing would tie the future
benefits of the highest wage workers to inflation while providing a
higher rate of benefit growth for lower-wage workers.
● Promotes consideration of long-term
reforms to entitlement programs that are essential to strengthen them
for younger generations and maintain fiscal responsibility.
Enhancing
Customer Service
● Reduces wait times. Improves
processing times and works to reduce the number of applicants waiting
for a decision in the Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) programs.
● Continues ambitious initiatives to
reduce the number of disability appeals that are awaiting a decision
from an Administrative Law Judge.
● Provides funding for projects that
identify those cases most likely to be allowed so that severely ill
applicants can begin receiving benefits on an expedited basis.
● Increases the capacity to process
disability appeals by hiring additional Administrative Law Judges and
support staff.
● Boosts the overall productivity of
hearings and targets overtime to critical areas.
● Improves service to the public.
Assists more than 40 million visitors to nearly 1,300 Agency field
offices in communities across America.
● Prepares for the coming retirement wave
by modernizing applications and service delivery, processing
approximately 67 million 800–number transactions.
Major Savings
and Reforms
● Provides $504 million for important program
integrity activities that ensure benefits are paid to eligible people in
the correct amounts.
● Funds two cost-effective program
integrity activities that have a clear impact on improper payments:
continuing disability reviews and SSI redeterminations.
● Expands efforts to improve the
disability process and SSI asset verification to reduce improper
payments.
● Highlights the fiscal problems facing DI with
a “funding warning” to draw attention to the growing fiscal pressure
that the program will exert on the Federal budget.
● Proposes legislation to synchronize the
treatment of retroactive DI payments with Old-Age and Survivors
Insurance payments, and to make additional modifications to the
distribution of other retroactive payments.
● Proposes legislation to encourage children to
stay in school by lowering to 16 the age at which full-time school
attendance is a condition of entitlement for Social Security child’s
benefits.
● Eliminates the current self-reporting burden
on individuals and improves payment accuracy by proposing a mandatory
system for collecting data on pension income from non-covered State and
local employment.
● Proposes to replace the existing complicated
offset with a uniform offset for DI beneficiaries also receiving
workers’ compensation. The proposal would limit the length of the offset
to not more than five years.
Since 2001,
the Social Security Administration has:
● Improved productivity by 15 percent, enabling
the Agency to provide more effective and timely services with fewer
resources than would otherwise be required.
● Increased work opportunities for individuals
with disabilities.
● Continued to work with other agencies to
expand processes that help employers verify work authorization of
employees.
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