{"id":182617,"date":"2015-07-23T17:49:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T22:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/07\/23\/this-is-just-fing-evil\/"},"modified":"2015-07-23T17:49:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T22:49:00","slug":"this-is-just-fing-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/07\/23\/this-is-just-fing-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Just F%$#ing Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>And, of course, the targets of such an action are the poor, the mentally ill, and minorities, so the fact that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/economy\/senate-bill-may-kick-200000-social-security-if-they-have-arrest-warrant\">Senate version of the transportation bill will includes a measure that will cut off social security benefits to everyone who has an outstanding warrant<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The large transportation funding bill moving through the Senate would end Social Security benefits for 200,000 people who have an outstanding felony arrest warrant\u2014but have never been convicted by a court, or have a warrant for violating probation or parole, according to disability rights advocates tracking the legislation.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThere are two key issues here,\u201d said T.J. Sutcliffe, income and housing policy director for The Arc, a national disability rights organization. \u201cOne is that the Social Security Trust Fund should not be used for unrelated purposes, no matter how important. And the other is Congress is considering cutting off benefits to 200,000 people who rely on Social Security and SSI [disability] benefits, who, in the case of arrest warrants have never been convicted.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The proposal surfaced in the Senate on Tuesday in a package of amendments (page 949, Section 52303) being added to a transportation bill. The House\u2019s version of the bill only would have extended funds for several months, while the Senate is looking at a six-year proposal\u2014which becomes a vehicle for many other languishing bills.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Slightly different versions of a bill to punish people with outstanding felony warrants, or warrants for violating probation or parole, were introduced in both chambers. Disability and low-income advocates were quick to criticize the proposals, saying that they will punish people who rely on Social Security with little law enforcement benefit.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cIt would not help law enforcement secure the arrest of people they are seeking for serious crimes,\u201d explained Justice In Aging. \u201cLaw enforcement is already notified of the whereabouts of every person with a warrant for a felony or an alleged violation of probation or parole who turns up in the Social Security Administration (SSA) databases.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The anti-poverty law group listed 10 reasons why the proposal was unduly punitive and would have very draconian consequences:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThose most likely to lose benefits are generally those most in need.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">A significant number of people will become homeless when they lose their benefits.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">Some people have had benefits cut off while residing in nursing homes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">A very high percentage of those who will lose their benefits are people with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">An unusually high percentage of those who lose benefits are African-Americans.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">Many will lose Medicare outpatient (Part B) coverage because of inability to pay the quarterly premium.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">Eliminating what may be their only source of income does not help resolve these issues.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">Many people never know that a warrant has been issued for them as warrants are often not served on the individual.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">These warrants are often not easily resolved since many of those who lose benefits live far from the issuing jurisdiction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: blue;\">SSA will have increased administrative costs for processing appeals and requests for waiver of recovery of overpayments.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cA majority of those affected who are receiving benefits based on disability fall into these categories,\u201d it said. \u201cLarge numbers of those who will lose benefits had warrants routinely issued when they were unable to pay a fine or court fee or probation supervision fee.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>OK, it&#8217;s not, &#8220;Just F%$#ing Stupid&#8221;, it&#8217;s evil <b>AND<\/b> stupid.<\/p>\n<p>What the hell is wrong with these people?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And, of course, the targets of such an action are the poor, the mentally ill, and minorities, so the fact that the Senate version of the transportation bill will includes a measure that will cut off social security benefits to everyone who has an outstanding warrant: The large transportation funding bill moving through the Senate &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[998,969,1020,978,1086],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-evil","category-legislation","category-politics","category-social-safety-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}