Social Security Support Services Crumble as Meager Budgetary Appropriations Constrain Operations

Washington Post: “Social Security advocates fear more cuts in staff and service”

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/social-security-advocates-fear-more-cuts-in-staff-and-service/2014/11/18/d0c087cc-6f5b-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html

In his article “Social Security advocates fear more cuts in staff and service”, Author Joe Davidson illustrates the disintegrating circumstances of Social Security operations. He notes that “wait times for callers to the agency’s 800 number averaged more than 17 minutes in 2014, more than triple the five-minute average wait just two years earlier” and “Between FY 2010 and January of FY 2013, the average wait time for field office visitors without appointments increased by 40 percent.” In his analysis, he ascribes the deterioration in services to the historic lack of funding over the past 3 years by appropriations committees.

Conservative’s efforts to scale back entitlement programs can perhaps most readily be seen here. Unable to immediately reduce the quantity of benefits dispersed, they are seeking to reduce the effectiveness of the disbursement processes. Such actions likely foreshadow more direct, sweeping attacks on entitlement programs as Republicans assume greater congressional power in the months to come.

Personally, the reductions in budgetary allocations to Social Security operations seems petty. While I am sympathetic to conservatives’ impassioned cause to reduce the scale of entitlement programs, I don’t believe this is the right way to do so. While attacking operations in this way may be somewhat effective in slowing the expansion of program recipients, I believe such actions will and have produced many unintended consequences insufficient to justify this agenda. Bureaucrats personally vested in the interests of Social Security recipients may work off the clock in an attempt to service those in need. Additionally, current recipients who are already approved may be unable to receive the service they require and for which there are sufficient funds. If conservatives are interested in reducing entitlement programs, I would rather they do so through formal, transparent channels rather than undercutting existing operations through appropriations, especially at the expense of exploiting bureaucrats and reneging services to approved recipients.