red states rule
11-04-2013, 03:51 AM
Once again we see the efficiency of government. A government hat is demanding higher taxes and more power over the people
The U.S. government has a problem with dead people. For one thing, it pays them way too much money.
In the past few years, Social Security paid $133 million to beneficiaries who were deceased. The federal employee retirement system paid more than $400 million to retirees who had passed away. And an aid program spent $3.9 million (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-621)in federal money to pay heating and air-conditioning bills for more than 11,000 of the dead.
These mistakes are part of a surprising glitch at the heart of the federal bureaucracy. Because of a jury-rigged and outdated system meant to track deaths, the government has trouble determining exactly which Americans are deceased.
As a result, Washington is bedeviled by both the living dead and the dead living.
The first group are people who have died but are counted as alive in federal records. Their benefits keep coming. Millions of dollars pile up in unwatched accounts. Millions more are spent by feckless relatives. In one recent record-breaking case (http://www.justice.gov/usao/nd/news/2012/03-05-12-McHenry%20Sentenced.html), a son stole his dead father’s federal benefits for 26 years.
The second group includes living Americans — at least 750 new people every month — whom the system falsely lists as dead. And once you’re on that list, it is not easy to get off. This summer in Utah, one man visited a Social Security office to protest his “death” in person. But the clerks wanted more evidence. They gave him a piece of paper, the man’s son recalled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/agencies-cant-always-tell-whos-dead-and-whos-not-so-benefit-checks-keep-coming/2013/11/03/5e0b89f6-40be-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?hpid=z4
The U.S. government has a problem with dead people. For one thing, it pays them way too much money.
In the past few years, Social Security paid $133 million to beneficiaries who were deceased. The federal employee retirement system paid more than $400 million to retirees who had passed away. And an aid program spent $3.9 million (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-621)in federal money to pay heating and air-conditioning bills for more than 11,000 of the dead.
These mistakes are part of a surprising glitch at the heart of the federal bureaucracy. Because of a jury-rigged and outdated system meant to track deaths, the government has trouble determining exactly which Americans are deceased.
As a result, Washington is bedeviled by both the living dead and the dead living.
The first group are people who have died but are counted as alive in federal records. Their benefits keep coming. Millions of dollars pile up in unwatched accounts. Millions more are spent by feckless relatives. In one recent record-breaking case (http://www.justice.gov/usao/nd/news/2012/03-05-12-McHenry%20Sentenced.html), a son stole his dead father’s federal benefits for 26 years.
The second group includes living Americans — at least 750 new people every month — whom the system falsely lists as dead. And once you’re on that list, it is not easy to get off. This summer in Utah, one man visited a Social Security office to protest his “death” in person. But the clerks wanted more evidence. They gave him a piece of paper, the man’s son recalled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/agencies-cant-always-tell-whos-dead-and-whos-not-so-benefit-checks-keep-coming/2013/11/03/5e0b89f6-40be-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?hpid=z4