New GOP Congress Fires Shot At Social Security On Day One

 

ByDylan Scott

PublishedJanuary 6, 2015, 5:34 PM EST 111777 views

With a little-noticed proposal, Republicans took aim at Social Security on the very first day of the 114th Congress.

The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.

The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program. The transfers, known as reallocation, had historically been routine; the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said Tuesday that they had been made 11 times. The CBPP added that the disability insurance program "isn't broken," but the program has been strained by demographic trends that the reallocations are intended to address.

The House GOP's rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund -- but only if an accompanying proposal "improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds," per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday. While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts.

House Democrats are sounding the alarm. In a memo circulated to their allies Tuesday, Democratic staffers said that that would mean "either new revenues or benefit cuts for current or future beneficiaries." New revenues are highly unlikely to be approved by the deeply tax-averse Republican-led Congress, leaving benefit cuts as the obvious alternative.

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees estimated last year that the disability insurance program would run short of money to pay all benefits some time in late 2016. Without a new reallocation, disability insurance beneficiaries could face up to 20 percent cuts in their Social Security payments in late 2016 -- a chit that would be of use to Republicans pushing for conservative entitlement reforms.

"The rule change would prohibit a simple reallocation! It will require more significant and complex changes to Social Security," Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday. "In other words, the Republican rule will allow Social Security to be held hostage."

Policy wonks who follow Social Security saw the GOP rule change as a play for leverage.

"Everybody's been talking about entitlement reform. Mr. Boehner and President Obama were pretty close to coming up with some kind of grand bargain, which ultimately fell apart," Tom Hungerford, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told TPM. "Maybe this could be used as a hostage to try to get back to something like that."

For their part, congressional Republicans were fairly transparent about their thinking. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), who has been outspoken on the disability program, co-sponsored the rule amendment. The disability program has been a favored target for the GOP; members were warning last month that the program could be vulnerable to fraud.

"My intention by doing this is to force us to look for a long term solution for SSDI rather than raiding Social Security to bail out a failing federal program," Reed said in a statement. "Retired taxpayers who have paid into the system for years deserve no less.”

Liberal analysts counter, however, that the retirement fund, which pays out $672.1 billion in benefits per year versus $140.1 billion for the disability fund, is more than healthy enough to allow for a reallocation, as has historically been done. CBPP's Kathy Ruffing wrote that, if a transfer was made before the 2016 deadline, both funds would be solvent until 2033.

The Republican angle in preventing that move then seems obvious.

"By barring the House from approving a 'clean' reallocation in 2016, the rule will strengthen the hand of lawmakers who seek to attach harsh conditions (such as sharp cuts in eligibility or benefit amounts) to such a measure," Ruffing wrote.

Above is from:  New GOP Congress Fires Shot At Social Security On Day One

Sen. Steve Stadelman: DCFS problems widespread, systemic - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

joint Illinois House-Senate committee had the first of what could be many hearings Tuesday, sparked by a newspaper’s series that investigated conditions at 50 youth facilities overseen by the Department of Children and Family Services. One of those is Rock River Academy in Rockford.

The Chicago Tribune report “found hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse and thousands of runaway incidents among residents from 2011 through 2013,” the paper said Tuesday about its series.

Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Rockford, said by phone from Chicago during a break in the committee meeting, that the problems at DCFS are widespread and systemic.

“This agency has had no continuity from the top down. It has had seven directors in three years,” said Stadelman. Acting director Bobbie Gregg is resigning Jan. 19. Incoming governor Bruce Rauner will name a new director.

“The hearing got started at 10 a.m.,” said Stadelman at 3 p.m. “The committee is to serve as a fact-finding panel to gather information and look at legislation that will address our concerns.”

Stadelman said DCFS has had problems “going on for 20, 30, 40 years, and according to the Tribune things are not getting better. The issues are very complex. Workers at the residential centers tend to make minimum wage and they’re dealing with very troubled and difficult kids.”

One glaring problem that came out during the hearing, said Stadelman, “was the lack of data. DCFS is a major agency but they don’t have a handle on major problems like who has run away, who’s missing, how many have been arrested. If you’re going to address a problem, you need data, and DCFS doesn’t have the data. It’s unacceptable.”

Read the entire article by clicking on the following:  Sen. Steve Stadelman: DCFS problems widespread, systemic - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

See other postings on this story:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/01/youths-drawn-into-prostitution-while.html

The U.S. has more jails than colleges. Here’s a map of where those prisoners live. - The Washington Post

 

There were 2.3 million prisoners in the U.S. as of the 2010 Census. It's often been remarked that our national incarceration rate of 707 adults per every 100,000 residents is the highest in the world, by a huge margin.

We tend to focus less on where we're putting all those people. But the 2010 Census tallied the location of every adult and juvenile prisoner in the United States. If we were to put them all on a map, this is what they would look like:

The map shows the raw number of prisoners in each U.S. county as of the 2010 Census. Much of the discussion of regional prison population only centers around inmates in our 1,800 state and federal correctional facilities. But at any given time, hundreds of thousands more individuals are locked up in the nation's 3,200 local and county jails. This map includes these individuals as well.

 

 

Read more by clicking on the following:  The U.S. has more jails than colleges. Here’s a map of where those prisoners live. - The Washington Post

Youths drawn into prostitution while living at residential facilities - redeyechicago.com

The young woman offered to truckers for $20 was a juvenile ward of the state who endured a history of abuse before being placed in 2012 at Rock River Academy in Rockford, where officials pledge to keep youths safe and give them a shot at a better life.

Instead she fell into a world of sexual exploitation that seems to be accepted as a fact of life at some of the large residential treatment centers that get millions of taxpayer dollars each year to care for Illinois' most destitute and troubled young wards, a Tribune investigation found.

The prostitution emerges against a backdrop of violence at the facilities where the threat of sexual coercion is common, residents frequently square off in fights, destroy property, abuse medications and attack peers or staff, government records show.

Teenagers who were prostituted told the Tribune they would run away to escape the turbulence and brutality — then do what survival required on streets where they had no money or life skills. At the facilities, experienced residents introduced others to pimps, escort websites and street corners. Some disappeared into this world and never returned.

Rock River promises close supervision and intensive therapy to youths with behavioral and mental health problems, but state records show that Bohanan was repeatedly attacked by tougher girls — punched in the face, hit with a chair and taunted by a peer who poured a carton of milk on her bed.

"The kids do what they want, and the staff can't control them," Bohanan told the Tribune. "To me, it's like a game to survive. There's fighting, there's sexual acts going on with the peers. ... Girls come out worse and have more mental problems."

Bohanan started running away to the streets, according to Department of Children and Family

Read more by clicking on the following:  Youths drawn into prostitution while living at residential facilities - redeyechicago.com

 

Ashley Phillips was wrenched from her home at age 14 in 2012 after enduring violent fights with her mother, records show. One thrashing spilled out of the house and left Phillips hospitalized with cuts, bruises and bite marks. "Let her stay in the streets," the mother told a child welfare worker, according to DCFS reports from the time.

Shuttled through a series of DCFS shelters and temporary foster homes, Phillips said she began to run away, fight foster siblings and abuse alcohol and marijuana. Finally a juvenile court judge placed her at Rock River in September 2012.

She was repeatedly bullied there until she began attacking others, DCFS records show.

At Rock River, Phillips told the Tribune, girls would routinely fake swallowing their psychotropic medicines and then later grind and snort them to get high. "I used to carry all the girls' pills in my sock bun — they never searched it," Phillips said. "Kids bring back weed from the public high school and smoke it."

Some girls prostituted themselves during short runs into the community. "Staff knew, but they couldn't do nothing about it," Phillips said. "It was completely easy to run."

Rock River sent the juvenile court glowing reports about Phillips. One said "overall Ashley's behavior has been very positive" and noted that "she receives group therapy at least three times per day for at least 45 minutes per session."

Read more of this Chicago Tribune story by clicking on the following:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-rock-river-case-files-met-20141203-story.html#page=1

 

 

ROCK RIVER ACADEMY AND RESIDENTIAL CENTER

from internet:  http://rockriveracademy.com/

Rock River Academy

3445 Elmwood Road

Rockford, IL 61103

815-877-3440

Rock River Academy and Residential Center is committed to providing the highest quality mental health care and educational services for females ages 10-21 and adolescents with moderate to severe emotional disabilities.

Rock River Academy and Residential Center is committed to working with agencies, schools, families and other treatment providers to form treatment teams on behalf of the residents served. When working collaboratively to reintegrate the youth back into their communities, success is, most often, the outcome.

We provide exceptional personalized care to each resident. Our team of professionals is comprised of board-certified and child-trained psychiatrists, in addition to a host of master's-level clinicians for treatment programs.

Facility and treatment components include:

• Multi-disciplinary  evaluations
• On-site Psychiatric and nursing care
• Qualified mental health professionals
• Case management
• Individual, group and family counseling
• On-site therapeutic day school licensed by Illinois State Board of Education

A look back at Obama’s vetoes so far

The White House said Tuesday that President Obama would veto a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline on the grounds that the legislation would interfere with the "well-established" executive process for reviewing the pipeline. If he has occasion to carry out his threat, the veto would be only the third of his presidency, as Democrats in Congress have been able to block bills he has opposed until now. That is fewer than any other president in the 20th century. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower each vetoed bills in the triple digits.

At the end of his first year in office, Congress passed a temporary funding measure for the Pentagon along with a regular appropriations bill. Obama signed the regular bill, making the stopgap unnecessary, so he vetoed it.

He killed a second bill the following year, this one dealing with mortgages. The proposal would have required states to recognize notarizations of documents from other states. After Congress passed the bill without fanfare, several major banks were accused of forging documents in order to foreclose on homeowners more easily. Advocates for consumers persuaded the White House that the legislation would have made it easier for banks to evade rules designed to protect borrowers.

Unlike interstate notarizations and defense stopgaps, the Keystone XL pipeline is widely popular, so this would be Obama's first veto involving any political risk. But it probably wouldn't be his last, either.

Scorekeeping change may help GOP pass tax reform - Yahoo News

 

The rules change promises to make it somewhat easier for Republicans to advance legislation such as an overhaul of the loophole-ridden tax code, since the positive economic effects of such legislation would generate greater tax revenue. That means lawmakers would have to come up with less in offsetting revenues to make up for bold cuts in income tax rates.

The House adopted the rule changes on a nearly party-line vote on Tuesday.

Republicans call it "macroeconomic scoring." The rule would direct congressional scorekeepers to incorporate the macroeconomic effects of major legislation into their official cost estimates.

Democrats say the shift to dynamic scorekeeping will drive up the deficit.

"The bottom line is that this is a way to try to fast-track tax cuts for millionaires and make it look like there are not large costs," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee.

The rules change comes as Republicans appear likely to replace Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf, a Democratic appointee, whose term expired last week. Democrats fear that a new GOP appointee to run the agency would be more likely to take liberties with the new scorekeeping mandate to help drive the GOP agenda. There are several competing models for evaluating the economic effects of legislation and estimates can vary widely….

The new scoring approach would only be required for major legislation in which the budgetary effects of legislation — meaning an increase or decrease in revenue, spending or deficits — are at least 0.25 percent of the size of the economy. Had the rule been in effect last year, the threshold would have been $43 billion.  ….

Read more by clicking on the following:   Scorekeeping change may help GOP pass tax reform - Yahoo News

 

Also see this piece on Scoring in Canada’s Parliament :  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/01/who-right-on-dynamic-scoring-ask-canada.html