Off-kilter With Rebecca Vallas

There’s a lot of talk about budgets in Washington—but budget debates are rarely humanized in ways that people can understand in real life terms. And that’s a problem. Because a wide array of critical agencies across the federal government have been getting systematically underfunded over the years, resulting in very real problems for American families.  A prime example is the Social Security Administration (SSA)—which oversees retirement, disability, and survivors insurance as well as Supplemental Security Income. Since 2010, SSA’s operating budget has been cut by at least 16 percent, adjusting for inflation. Its staffing is down 13 percent, and all while the number of beneficiaries has gone up 21 percent. Why? Because Democrats have failed to get Republicans to join them in increasing SSA’s administrative budget, which is so lean already it’s just 1 percent of the benefits the agency pays out.  What this kind of systematic disinvestment in a key federal agency means in human terms was the subject of a recent