Majority of senators oppose deep Social Security budget cuts

More than half of the Senate signed a letter urging leaders to reject proposed funding cuts to the Social Security Administration that agency officials have said could result in serious service cutbacks and a staff furlough.

Fifty-two lawmakers joined Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., last week in urging leaders and appropriators to approve SSA funding at the $9.5 billion level described in President Bush's fiscal 2007 budget request.

The Senate version of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill would fund SSA administration at about $400 million less than the president's request, and the corresponding House version would trim about $200 million.

The spending bill is unlikely to reach the floor this year, meaning it will be left to the next Congress to decide on a fiscal 2007 funding level. While the letter reflected support from more than half the Senate, that may not be sufficient to ward off cuts like those in the Senate measure if an appropriations bill is taken up in the new year.

Appropriators will continue to be up against tight spending caps, and 60 votes would be required to override them. If the 51 Democrats in the 110th Senate all support an override, that would require nine of their colleagues to cross the aisle.

Eleven of the 12 Republicans who indicated support for higher SSA funding will return to the Senate in January, but the issue is just one of several wrapped up in the wide-ranging Labor-HHS-Education funding measure.

Alternatively, some Republicans may push for a yearlong continuing resolution to maintain agencies until fiscal 2008, a long-shot scenario that would keep lawmakers from inserting earmarks. SSA spokesman Mark Lassiter said if a long-term CR continued at the level of the one in effect, which funds the agency at about the fiscal 2006 level, agencywide furloughs would be needed.

After the Senate markup of the appropriations bill in July, SSA Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart warned lawmakers that the proposed funding level would require about 10 days of furloughs.

In the recent Senate letter, legislators stressed that SSA staff administer portions of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and have new responsibilities under the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act. "As we prepare for the retirement of the first baby boomers in just two years, it is critically important that we provide SSA with sufficient resources to hire, train and retain an adequate number of field office staff available to help constituents," the senators wrote.

Lassiter said if funding is approved at the Senate level, then Medicare-related services would deteriorate alongside other services such as filings for retirement and disability benefits and letting beneficiaries update contact information and get replacement Social Security cards, because the functions share common phone lines and operators.

Agency officials have said that SSA already is only able to hire one new staffer for every three who retire, and any budget level below the president's proposal will lead to some service cuts. But Lassiter said funding the agency at the more generous House level would avoid furloughs.