Obama's Social Security Disability Policy Busting California General Fund

Calwatchdog.com ^ | Sept. 28, 2012 | Wayne Lusvardi

[WayneLusvardi]

Here’s the dirty secret of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 tax increase of $8.5 billion. Most of it would not go to education, as advertised. Instead, it indirectly would go to plugging a gaping budget hole created by the Obama Administration’s policy of taking people off unemployment rolls and putting them on permanent disability benefits. The Obama policy blew a $11.7 billion budget hole in California’s budget.

The Obama Administration’s loosened eligibility requirements for Social Security Disability have swelled the number of those on Medicaid in California. It is Obama’s relaxed requirements for Social Security Disability — put into place by Obama Administration appointees and coupled with declining federal funds — that is busting the California general fund budget at this time.

Medicaid in California has grown $27.1 to $38.8 billion, an $11.7 billion increase over just the last five years.

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Brown’s 2012-13 state budget is predicated on an expected $8.5 billion in new taxes from Proposition 30 on the November ballot. It now appears that most of Brown’s tax increase would really have to go toward plugging the increase in Medicaid costs due to Obama’s SS Disability policies.

Brown is claiming that 89 percent of Prop. 30’s funds would go to K-12 schools and 11 percent to community colleges. But budget line items are fungible or interchangeable. So by funding $8.5 billion to K-12 schools and community colleges, this frees up an equal amount of funds to be allocated elsewhere — such as to Medicaid.

[Venturer]

Social Security wasn’t in trouble enough to begin with , now Obaam sends those who’s unemployment has run out to the Social Security disability rolls.

How are we going to survive this Muslim MF’er and his corrupt administration?

Another 4 years? I dread the thought.

[WayneLusvardi]

Additional Note: To get Federal funds for Medicare each state has to come up with a share of matching funds. The average of the matching percentage is 43 percent for all states. So California’s $11.7 billion Medicaid program increase would require the state to come up with $5.0 billion in matching funds ($11.7 billion x 0.43 = $5.0). So it is Medicaid, not public education, that is busting California’s General Fund budget.

[firebasecody]

Something which irks me about these reports, is their failure to distinguish between SSDI and SSI. If folks go on SSDI, they receive Medicare, not Medicaid. SSI is a disability program with much looser requirements, for low income folks. SSI has a different funding stream, not from the SSA.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

All part of the Cloward-Piven mandate to "overwhelm the system."

[NonValueAdded]

Parking 1.5 million formerly employable people on SS Disability has lowered the official national and California unemployment rates. This is a strategy borrowed from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he came into office in 1997 to make the unemployment rate look better.