The Social Security Administration warned Friday that "drastic funding cuts" proposed by the House would dramatically impact service to seniors and other beneficiaries and "needlessly" waste taxpayer dollars.
In response to an inquiry from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue outlined in a letter to Baucus how the House Budget would force the Social Security Administration to scale back operating hours at field offices across the country. The result, Astrue said, would be "long delays and deteriorations in service" to seniors and other Social Security beneficiaries.
"It is critically important that we work to preserve Social Security and protect its beneficiaries and save taxpayer dollars," Baucus said in a statement the same day. "The House's radical plan does nothing more than threaten America's seniors by undermining this critical safety net and severely cuts programs that help the federal budget."
"This severe cut would force us to curtail our service to the public and our program integrity efforts," Astrue writes to Baucus (at left). "The backlog of initial disability claims would continue to increase and our hearings backlog reduction plan would be derailed. There would be long waits in our field offices and on our 800-number because of inadequate staff to address critical public service needs."
