Republicans at Fault for Delays in Social Security Disability Claims Decisions, New York Times Editorial States
A "case in point" that the Bush administration has "shortchang[ed] important domestic programs" is the "worsening bureaucratic delays at the chronically underfunded Social Security Administration that have kept hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans from timely receipt of their Social Security disability benefits," a New York Times editorial states. The Times on Monday examined how the backlog of applicants for disability claims has increased to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000, with an average wait of more than 500 days for an appeals hearing.
According to the editorial, the "cause of the bottlenecks is well known." There are "simply too few administrative law judges -- 1,025 at present -- to keep up with the workload," the Times states. The editorial continues, "The blame for this debacle lies mostly with the Republicans" in Congress, who for "most of this decade ... have appropriated less than the administration requested." The Times adds, "Now the Democratic-led Congress wants to increase funding to [SSA], and the White House is resisting."
Maintaining funding at current levels through a continuing resolution "would likely, among many other domestic problems, crimp any new hiring at [SSA] and might require furloughs, leading to even longer waits," the editorial states, concluding, "Bush should back down from his veto threat and accept a reasonable compromise. Both sides should ensure that real efforts are made to reduce these intolerable backlogs" (New York Times, 12/11).
