Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Things to Do RIGHT NOW !

 Things to Do RIGHT NOW !

Birmingham Social Security Employees Protest Cuts Wednesday at 11:30



Birmingham Social Security Employees Protest Republican Cuts Wednesday at 11:30
Informational Picket at the Birmingham Social Security Center Social Security Office

Anthony J. Young, President of AFGE Local 2206 Tuesday issued this statement condemning proposed cuts to Socilal Security's opperating budget and calling for the support of other unions and community activists.

AFGE Local 2206 from Social Security will AGAIN be participating in the protest with SSA workers, and other community activists who have been invited to voice their concerns about service delivery at Social Security.

On April 6, 2011 at 11:30 a.m. the employees from Social Security office located at 1200 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr Blvd, will walk an informational picket line AGAIN to protest recent proposals from the U.S. House of Representatives that would cut the Social Security Administration’s budget. This would lead to a month of furloughs at more than 1500 Social Security offices and facilities across the country.

House Republicans have proposed a $1.7 billion reduction in SSA funding for the remainder of 2011.  That includes:

Cutting SSA’s operating budget by over a billion dollars (8.5%) below what’s needed for 2011. That level is $506 million below what SSA actually spent in 2010 to process claims and operate Social Security offices.

Cutting an additional $500 million by draining SSA’s reserve account. Most of the money in reserve is already allocated for this year’s expenses and the rest is budgeted for next year’s planned information technology improvements.

Rescinding an additional $118 million from funds already set aside to build a new National Computer Center, which could delay equipping this mission-critical project SSA is already operating under a partial hiring freeze because of the current continuing resolution, which is likely to result in nearly 3,500 lost jobs for 2011.  These additional cuts could lead to SSA offices closing their doors, stopping all claims processing, and not answering the phones for about a month – one month out of the seven remaining in 2011.  If Social Security shuts down for a month:
 
400,000 people would not have their retirement, survivors, and Medicare applications processed this year, resulting in a large backlog of unprocessed retirement and survivor claims for the first time in SSA history.

290,000 people would not have their initial disability benefit applications processed, which means disabled workers, who already wait months for their applications to be processed, will wait an average of 30 days or longer.

70,000 fewer people will get a disability appeals hearing this year, which means workers waiting to present an appeal to a judge, who already wait over a year, will wait longer.

32,000 fewer continuing disability reviews, which means wasting millions of dollars on improper payments.





House Bill 74 to stiffen the penalty for cockfighting in Alabama Goes to House Floor Thursday



House Bill 74 will go before the Alabama State Legislature House Floor this week on Thursday April 7th.

This bill has never made it this far so this is a huge breakthrough.   If passed this bill, will stiffen the penalty for people convicted of cockfighting in the State of Alabama.

Please call your representative and ask them to support House Bill 74

This would be a huge breakthrough for the State of Alabama, as currently we have the weakest penalty in the country for cockfighting.



The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?"
~Jeremy Bentham


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