We Fight!
Why Accept Your Unemployment Benefits Running Out This Year or Next?
SSDI to the Rescue!
In the August 2012 issue of Newsmax magazine an article appeared entitled “America: A Disabled Nation?”. Fleshing out the statistics in the article regarding the current state of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) disability program this is what the American taxpayer is up against. Allow me to apologize in advance for all the SSA acronyms in this posting. Bureaucrats are rendered inoperable without acronyms! To call the disability program perverse is a gross understatement, in my view. About 5 million more workers have joined the ranks of disability beneficiaries since President Obama took office in January 2009, adding to the approximately 4 million workers already on disability which is a striking addition in such a short time.
The definition of who is too disabled to “do any substantial gainful activity in the national economy” (the loose and imprecise SSA standard to which benefits are awarded has been broadened over the years to cover depression, chronic back pain, bipolar disorder, attention-deficit disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc., etc., etc.). With this subjective standard (a Laundry list of disabilities that can’t show up on an MRI) the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who preside over SSDI appeals apply this standard to the SSA Rules and deny approximately 50% of disability appeals nationwide, yet there are still about 9 million disability beneficiaries in 2012.
Running the numbers a 44 year old worker making $70,000.00 annually (based upon the required 40 quarters or 10 years of reported earnings) he/she would receive a benefit of about $1,900.00 per month according to the SSA benefits calculator on the SSA’s website. This benefit could continue for 20 years until the recipient is 64 years old and then, at age 65, be rolled into the standard SS benefit, much more per month and decades longer than unemployment. There is a recent trend when state unemployment compensation runs out many more individuals are then taking a crack at SSDI benefits. Why not go for the much bigger prize of SSDI? Attorneys are waiting in the wings to assist you in your disability claim. In 2011 the cost of SSDI and SSI (Supplemental Security Income, i.e. welfare based on disability and financial need, not work quarters) payments was 132 billion dollars. Added to this is the 80 billion dollar cost of Medicare. The Newsmax article states that Medicare is awarded after 2 years, regardless of the age of the claimant. The rule is actually 2 years from when the SSA determines the “onset date” of total disability.
Therefore, Medicare could be awarded with the back benefits, and the 2 years is calculated from onset date, not the filing date. A lump sum payment for back benefits is awarded when the claimant receives a “fully favorable” decision from the ALJ after an initial denial of claim appealed to the Office of Disability Adjudication Review (ODAR). Using the $1,900.00 monthly benefit mentioned at the beginning of the foregoing paragraph times 24 months of back benefits (onset date going back 2 years which not unusual) the lump sum payment would be $45,600.00 plus Medicare! In fact SSI beneficiaries receive Medicare and, of course, Medicaid. SSI benefits automatically go together with Medicaid benefits. They’re both welfare based, not work based.
Another aspect of SSDI and SSI is the “ticket to work” program. According to Bloomberg Business Week less than 1% of the disabled ever return to work. And if an individual does choose to return to work the SSA has a program for these individuals known as “ticket to work”. Here we go again (just like my last post on this site)……….. cue up music from The Twilight Zone TV series while I explain “ticket to work” SSA’s program to purportedly facilitate disability beneficiaries returning to work part time. Normally SSA conducts a “continuing disability review” (CDR) every 3 years or so to determine if the beneficiary is still totally disabled or can attempt to return to the work force. However, if a beneficiary, who is presumed to be 100% disabled, applies to the “ticket to work” program regardless of whether he/she ever gains employment no more CDRs are conducted while in the program.
In other words now the beneficiary is magically no longer considered 100% disabled by the SSA and is available to work part time and keep up to a certain amount of earned income as well as the SSDI or SSI benefit payment! According to the SSA’s upside down logic the formerly 100% disabled beneficiary is now not 100% disabled and available to work (whether he/she is actually working is irrelevant) and will never again be subjected to a CDR while in the program even though he/she is, according to the SSA, no longer 100% disabled. Would it surprise anyone to know “ticket to work” is a miserable failure.
This is another very troubling example of a social program created by a federal law originally passed in July 1956 with the best of intentions that has morphed into the massive, tangled bureaucratic web and costly boondoggle we have today. What a surprising turn of events!
Boca Chapter and SF 912 Present: The Pre-Primary Candidate Forum Roundup!
The Boca Raton Chapter of the Palm Beach County Tea Party, in conjunction with the SF912, present the “Pre-Primary Candidate Forum“, for Tuesday, August 7th at 7:00pm. NOTE: Due to the high number of candidates who wish to speak to our audience, we will likely begin EARLIER than 7:00!!! It will be held at the Boca Greens Country Club (Map HERE), and the doors will be open at 5:30pm for a cash bar, and dinner will follow from 6pm to 7pm (as usual, the cost is $15, which includes tax and gratuity). We will have this event in lieu of our normal “Dinner/Speaker” meeting, which we normally have on first Tuesday of the month. Our leadership has concluded that we would like to provide this type of event as a service to both the candidates, as well as the citizens in our county who wish to be better prepared when it comes time to vote- whatever their party of political “stripe”. This is a great opportunity for everyone involved to get to understand more of what the candidates stand for before their big Primary Election vote on August 14th.
The format will be simple: Each candidate will be allowed 5 minutes at the podium and microphone after he/she is introduced. We want each candidate to address the top two or three issues that they want to meet head-on if elected, an how they would be accountable to one or more of the Tea Party’s 3 tenets: Fiscal Responsibility, Free Markets, or Limited Government, and how they will be manifested in your approach towards the office. We ask that each candidate be very specific towards that, so that it’s not just some generic “stump speech”. We will have a volunteer timer, who will hold up cards letting each candidate know when they have 1:00 and :30 seconds remaining. A bell will ring to stop anyone who goes over time allotted.
As of August 6th, the officially confirmed candidate speakers will be: Joe Talley, Cleamond Walker, Susan Bucher, Fran Hancock, Jody Lane, Mike Lameyer, Cindy Tindell, Margherita Downey, Melanie Peterson, Gary Nikolits, Lisa Epstein, Timothy McCarthy, Sharon Bock, James Martz, Tom Thayer, Peter Evans, Peter Feaman, and Robert Weinroth.
This event will be provided in a safe and fair environment which our leadership ensure will be the model of civility. It is not a “Debate”– it is a “Forum”. There will be no mud-slinging, and the candidates are asked to confine their time at the podium to address what their platform is, NOT to attack their opponents.
Due to the number of candidates who wish to address our group, it is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that there will be time left for a Q&A with the candidates. Assuming there is, the microphone will be tightly controlled by our leadership to avoid any questions designed with nothing more than malicious intent towards any of the candidates, determined at the sole discretion of SF 912/PBCTP personnel.
Our President says entrepreneurs are overrated
The Washington Times reports that Barack Obama is now saying on the stump that people who create businesses and hire people are nothing special. The entire American experience is a mystery to this man. Some quotes:
“… look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
For the video and the article, see: Obama – ‘If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen’
Gov. Scott attacks The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) “Obamacare”!
An article appeared in the National Review (online) on July 4, 2012. I will summarize the article:
The media has given little to no attention to the Supreme Court’s second ruling regarding the ACA, so-called “Obamacare” in a 7-2 decision striking down a massive and very costly expansion of Medicaid (which is administered by the states). Barely a day after the decision our governor Rick Scott announced that Florida will not expand Medicaid eligibility to 133% of the federal poverty level (as set forth in the ACA). Earlier, Gov. Scott had declined to establish state insurance exchanges, as allowed for (but not required) in the ACA. The left is going absolutely apoplectic over this one two punch to the ACA in Florida, as I will explain.
The savings on the Medicaid side over about ten years to Florida taxpayers who will not have to foot the bill for the Medicaid expansion after 2017 (when the federal government begins the phase down of the additional funds provided from 2014-2017) will be approximately twenty billion dollars. The ACA provides that most of those who would have been eligible for Medicaid will become eligible for subsidies through the ACA exchanges paid in full by the federal government. But, as Rod Serling stated so uniquely in an episode of The Twilight Zone that you might recall; “Ahhh, there’s the rub!”. If Florida refuses to set up the insurance exchange (which Gov. Scott has done) the ACA gives the federal government the authority to step in and set up the exchange itself. Congress has not appropriated any funds for this purpose and, in this political climate, seems very unlikely to do so any time soon!
Now to “the rub”. Those subsidies under the ACA cannot be offered by the federal government, only by the state run exchanges! In my view, the ACA is not only bad law (with a few good provisions which can be resurrected after the current law is repealed) and terrible public policy for the middle class and small businesses but is so poorly drafted as to contain a huge loophole that may render the law unworkable. We can only hope! Here’s an example of how this loophole could work. The subsidy triggers the penalty (tax?) under the ACA for employers with fifty or more employees who fail to provide workers with insurance but only if at least one employee qualifies for subsidies under the exchange. Therefore, if subsidies can only be provided through state authorized exchanges a state could defeat the employer mandate just by refusing to establish an exchange! Apparently, the towering intellects who drafted this legislation missed this! In any case, the Obama administration and our friends at the IRS claim they have the unilateral right to rewrite the ACA to close this loophole (and others). I don’t claim to be a legal genius like the Obama team but I do have a law degree and practiced law for many years. This claim of a unilateral rewrite is certainly open to legal challenge. Maybe the Supreme Court will get it right this time!
The bottom line is that while the media and the political class pontificate and spin the Court’s decision about whether or not the individual mandate is a tax, etc. the real action (as has been the trend for a very long time) is taking place with governors and state legislators in the fight for fiscal sanity against the ACA, better known as “Obamacare”.
All Politics are Local
Tea Party Activists have at various times affected change on the national and state level, and more recently have become involved in county and city level issues. Case in point:
Last month, the Palm Beach Gardens City Council passed on first reading a charter amendment to go on the November ballot. The original proposal would have “repealed and replaced” the entire charter, and introduced substantive changes in the way elections were conducted, the relationship between the Council and City Manager, and other changes. The rationale was that some “cleanup” was necessary to bring the charter into compliance with state law.
This did not sit right with a number of Gardens residents, including some members of the Palm Beach County Tea Party. A loose coalition was formed, meetings were held, a line-by-line analysis of the charter and proposed changes was performed, and (at the request of the coalition) an informational session was provided by City Attorney Max Lohman who had developed the new charter language. A website was created (PBGwatch.com), letters were sent to the council, word was spread by social media and other means, and many turned out at last night’s Council meeting to speak against the changes or support those who did.
The net result was a change in plans. The most troubling part of the amendment (Proposition Two), which would have eliminated runoff elections in favor of a “plurality” system that gives an advantage to the incumbent, was rejected by the council. The rest of the proposal (Proposition One) was approved, but not without a lot of discussion by the council, who took our concerns seriously by the end of the debate.
It has been my experience working at the county and local level, that most elected officials care what their citizens think about their actions, and in most cases will not plow ahead with something that is wildly disliked by people concerned enough to come to their meetings (there are exceptions of course – see “Obamacare”). The Gardens Council, to their credit, did listen to their constituents on this matter.
Thank you to all the Tea Party members who spoke at the meeting, including Mel Grossman, Terry Brady, Sally Schmiedl, Francisco Rodriguez, Fred Scheibl and Iris Scheibl.
For more information about these issues, please see: PBGwatch.com
“The best government is the one whose actions are constantly observed.” – anon.
Free Phone Frenzy
Your tax dollars at work.
July 4th Mall “Meet-ups”, in Boca, Wellington, and Palm Beach Gardens!
This past Memorial Day, Monday, May 28th, nearly 30 patriots from the Boca Chapter met up at Town Center Mall in Boca Raton. Dressed in full Patriotic regalia, our group met to honor those who served this great country in our armed services. We met quite early, before there were a lot of people there at the mall, but we definitely left an impression on those who were there.
The purpose of meeting up was to take a stand for our country in a very public way, to simply express our love for our country. Clearly, we had gathered intentionally—dressed patriotically, holding flags, and enjoying fellowship with one another. We gathered in a very open and conspicuous area, which was in the foyer area from the main entrance to the mall on the north side. Loosely organized, there was no official “format” or “program” that we followed. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance, sang the National Anthem, and Al Raden read a list of names- the names of every soldier from Florida who was killed in action since the previous Memorial Day. Ron Gaynor read an excellent short speech from Abraham Lincoln. We closed by singing God Bless America.
As we disbanded, a number of people inquired about our group, and we were equipped with Palm Beach County Tea Party business cards, as well as flyers for our upcoming meeting with Slade O’Brien that we just had in June. In all, we were at the mall for just about an hour.
We greatly encourage everyone who can, to JOIN US to do the very same thing on July 4th! Our respective chapter groups will gather at 10:30 am at Town Center Mall in Boca Raton, The Mall at Wellington Green in Wellington, and Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens. Pick the one closest to you, and let your voice be heard! Let us demonstrate solidarity for the future of this country—that there are people who still care—and that the Tea Party is alive and well, and present and accounted for in our communities!!!
Boca Chapter and SF912 Host Florida Senate Candidate Forum with Joyce Kaufman!
The Palm Beach County Tea Party Boca Raton Chapter and the South Florida 912 are joining forces on July 10th for another spectacular evening of like-minded fellowship through the three core principles of the Tea Party. Joyce Kaufman will moderate this FL Senate Candidate Forum with candidates Melanie Peterson, Mike Lameyer, and Geoff Sommers at Boca Greens Country Club (19642 Trophy Drive ). Ellyn Bogdanoff, who will be facing Lameyer for FL Senate District 34 in the GOP Primary on August 14th, was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict. Peterson and Sommers will square off for an August 14th GOP primary for District 25.
This forum is being held in lieu of our normal monthly Dinner/Speaker Event (and we pushed it back one week, to July TENTH, instead of the THIRD, to avoid conflicting with holiday plans for July 4th).
We are fortunate to have local veteran conservative talk show host Joyce Kaufman join us as the moderator, and Lou Galterio will sing the National Anthem. She will be asking the candidates a number of questions put together by our respective leadership teams, and the questions will involve local policy issues, and how the candidates’ positions on those issues might be viewed from the perspective of our three core principles.
As usual, doors will open at 5:30pm and the Cash Bar will be open. Dinner ($15 includes tea, coffee, dinner, dessert, tax and gratuity) will be from 6:00pm to 7:00pm. We will make announcements for the Palm Beach County Tea Party and South Florida 912, and the Candidate forum will commence around 7:15. People are welcome to attend the Forum, at no charge and simply skip the dinner portion. Either way, we still need a head count, and will ask you to click on the RSVP button below.
This event promises to be an exciting evening of getting to know our local candidates, and to get involved in the political process right here, where we live!
Please RSVP now on the button here, and see you on Tuesday!
