Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Imagine you are in your fifties, successful and comfortable despite an impoverished childhood following your father’s untimely death. Had your mother not qualified for survivor benefits from Social Security, you might have ended up in an orphanage.
Now, 30 years after your mother received the survivor benefits, the federal government believes it overpaid your mother — and because she died ten years ago, the government is coming after you for the money.
This may sound like the plot for an overheated television movie, but it isn’t. It’s actually happening, reports the Washington Post:
The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.
No one seems eager to take credit for reopening all these long-closed cases. A Social Security spokeswoman says the agency didn’t seek the change; ask Treasury. Treasury says it wasn’t us; try Congress. Congressional staffers say the request probably came from the bureaucracy.
It probably did come from the bureaucracy — the bureaucracy at the White House. Someone looking for extra revenue came up with this scheme, which is the moral equivalent of an ex post facto law, and with the help of a conniving member of Congress, sneaked it into the farm bill.
This should be repealed by 1700 EDT today by a unanimous vote of Congress. And if the repeal is vetoed by President Obama, we’ll have proof of the shakedown’s origin.