Tom Cotton: Social Security disability causes drug addiction
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested on Monday that population decline and drug abuse in poor areas could be the result of too many people on Social Security disability.
Speaking to the conservative Heritage Foundation on Monday, Cotton warned that communities with high a percentage of residents on Social Security disability had reached a tipping point that was linked to population decline. But he said that communities which used fewer benefits were enjoying a population increase.
“It’s hard to say what came first or caused the other, population decline or increased disability usage,” Cotton opined. “Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be at least at the county and regional level something like a disability tipping point.”
“When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm,” he continued. “It becomes an acceptable way of life and alternative source of income to a good paying full-time job as opposed to a last resort safety net program to deal with catastrophic injury and illness.”
And according to Cotton, workers compensation law needs a reform and that this was just the beginning of the bad news for communities with above average disability claims.
“At a certain point when disability keeps climbing and become endemic, employers will struggle to find employees or begin or continue to move out of the area,” he said. “The population continues to fall and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once thriving communities into further decline.”
“Not only that, but once this spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime.”
Cotton revealed that he planned to introduce legislation that would single out non-permanent disability recipients and set a timeline for them to return to work.
Disabled people who are not ready to return to work would be forced to reapply for disability benefits, Cotton said.
“These reforms won’t solve all the problems of Social Security disability but they will address one of the most urgent crises in the program,” he concluded. “And the one, perhaps, most corrosive to effected communities.”
Filed under: General Problems
Tim Cotton is our country’s true definition of a BUTT HEAD, every time he opens his mouth, SHIT FALLS OUT!!!!
http://www.disability-benefits-help.org/faq/non-citizen-social-security-disability-benefits
“The lack of contributions to the SSDI fund over the course of these non-citizens’ employment disqualifies them from receiving disability benefits, as they do not meet the basic technical criteria to be eligible for SSDI.”
Now that I am past my initial reaction I have more to say. The current social security disability program that very broken. It requires a person, even one with obvious disabilities to hire an attorney they can’t afford , to wait YEARS with no income and to jump through hoops repeatedly in order to have any hope of getting on SSD. To require them to reapply would do nothing but create more job security for those working in the SSD offices. IMHO the reason some communities have a higher rate of SSD recipients is the same reason a community ends up with a higher than average number of other low income people, they can afford to live there! He would have better spent his time figuring out why the extreme delays in the approval process! While the government plays its games too many people are starving, living on the streets, and doing without health care! It’s a travesty when citizens have to do without while non citizens use a system that they NEVER PAID INTO! Many people waiting to be approved do not qualify for any assistance of any kind! My 35 year old daughter has severe rheumatoid arthritis, she is a brittle diabetic, has several debilitating psych issues and has hep c yet has been denied repeatedly any kind of assistance. Her story is,sadly, one of many. It’s tragic not only an impossible situation for the disabled but also for the families who have to try to support them when in today’s economy they can barely support themselves! Fix the current system, Mr Cotton instead of breaking it further with more legislation that will just make a system that is already broken more impossible for many literally dying to utilize it!
Since Republicans have been in power in the state of Arkansas, there’s been a steady increase in drug abuse and overdoses, suicides, and an increase in people on disability. Therefore, Republican lawmakers are responsible for the heroin and suicide epidemic, as well as a population explosion in the nanny state. #TomCottonScience
The fact is that both parties are responsible for laws that have created an increase in the disabled population, including stripping injured workers of their rights. Corporations are no longer responsible for workers they disable, the government is. Things like COBRA, long term disability insurance, worker’s compensation, and ERISA are just scams, leaving the government to pick up this tab, too, in Medicaid and Medicare.
Once you crawl through all the hoops and Social Security deems you disabled, having to reapply is just an excuse to kick people off the disabled list. It means dramatically increasing the size of the Social Security office. Talk about big government. Republicans have spent years decreasing the size of government, so what’s changed?
Corporate influence in the U.K. has forced disabled patients to continually reapply for benefits, and I guess that corporate influence has aligned itself quite nicely with Republican values here in the U.S.
Give me a break! This is just more proof that we have a bunch of brainless idiots in the position to destroy this country! Best thing we can do is to vote out any and all incumbents even if it means voting for the other party!
They should just get gas chambers and get rid of us undesirable cripples and then take the money we paid into the system and give themselves a nice raise . Better yet just make it like our mandatory health care that we must pay to have and not pay out and make us live under bridges and back alleyways , that would teach us to be sick . I am ashamed to be in the same country as this all knowing God figure who shall rule as if he was not an elected official . He should just encourage suicide so he would save more money instead of wasting it on gas chambers . We are treated like trash , our rights and freedoms are being taken away we are slaves to these unhuman creatures with no compassion for their fellow man and voters who mistakenly put them in position of power that they abuse .
omg,,first off,in order to get disability now a days,u have to hire a dam lawyer, and chronic pain people are not even eligible for disability,,,I know,,take away OUR tax dollars from being spent on thee senates retirement plans ,and give all our government the same raises we got for the last 40 years,,NOTHING,,,,,wow,,,they are sooo far from the every day peoples reality of what live is like now a days in the good ole u.s.a.. its disturbing,,,They have o clue of truths/reality of what its like in America anymore,,,