U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) called on the U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to better monitor and improve the delivery of trustees reports on the financial status of Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
The Social Security Act requires trustees reports to be issued each year by April 1, however, the 2021 report has not yet been issued. It is 147 days overdue, the longest delay in the history of the reports since 1995, said Crapo, the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.
In a letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Crapo said he would like to see better monitoring of the trustees report development process.
“This [late reporting] is especially troublesome given the massive amount of legislation contemplated by one side in Congress, in willfully partisan reconciliation exercises, that may impact important Medicare programs; given that there have not been public trustees participating in trustees reports development since mid-2015; and, given the unlawful firing by President Biden of the Senate-confirmed Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), which unnecessarily politicizes SSA and destroys the letter and spirit of the Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994,” Crapo wrote.
Crapo is asking for recommendations from the GAO on whether bylaws governing boards of trustees of the trust funds should be modified, or if there should be a legislative solution for flaws in the existing reporting process.
“I urge GAO to continue monitoring the trustees report development process and lack of adequate notification to Congress specifically identifying when trustees reports are expected to be delivered to Congress by the Managing Trustee. To date, the notification process is at best woefully inadequate and at worst almost casually indifferent to the important information contained in the trustees reports regarding the financial status of the funds, which are currently facing eventual exhaustion,” Crapo wrote.