Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (Extensions of Remarks)

Floor Speech

Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, our nation encourages personal savings in a number of ways throughout the tax code and now with the ABLE Act we are adding one more, specifically for individuals with disabilities. As we acknowledge through this legislation the importance of saving for individuals with disabilities and their families, it is important to place this policy in context and ensure the public and policymakers appreciate the continued need for effective asset tests in means-tested programs.

The ABLE Act explicitly ignores ABLE account balances and withdrawals for purposes of determining eligibility for Medicaid and other means-tested programs; under the SSI program, the first $100,000 in account balances is not counted as resources and withdrawals, except for those relating to housing, are not counted as income. This treatment is designed to provide generous new incentives to save for individuals with disabilities and their families, which current policy limits.

It would be a mistake for the public and future policymakers to argue that similar treatment should be afforded all low-income individuals under existing means-tested programs. Indeed, recent advances in administering resource limits suggests that such tools should be used more aggressively in making proper determinations about whether other individuals have sufficient personal means of support before asking taxpayers for government benefits. These advances rebut recent claims that administering resource limits is overly time consuming and burdensome, and suggest that State and Federal agencies are increasingly able to apply these limits in a cost-effective and efficient manner. For example, on March 11, 2011, the Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee heard testimony from the Social Security Inspector General about the use of electronic tools such as the Access to Financial Institutions (AFI) program, which allows the Social Security Administration to automate the process of checking for assets, limiting the burden on recipients and field office employees who administer the program.

Another argument for ensuring the use of effective resource limits for non-disabled individuals involves program cost. Especially if able-bodied individuals have significant assets or other resources on which to depend, they can and should be expected to use those resources first to support themselves before turning to taxpayer support. The alternative would be a significant expansion of taxpayer spending on able-bodied individuals who have significant personal resources they can and should turn to first for support. Recent years have seen examples of that through significant degradations in the effectiveness of the resource test in the food stamp program.

As of November 2010, thirty-three states and D.C. excluded the value of all vehicles in making food stamp eligibility determinations and in the last five years nearly every state has chosen to not have an asset test for food stamp benefits at all. Not surprisingly, due to these changes and other factors, the food stamp program has grown from 17 million recipients in the year 2000 to nearly 48 million recipients today, at four times its former cost to taxpayers. In July 25, 2012 testimony before the Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, Professor Doug Besharov of the University of Maryland described this phenomenon as ``eligibility creep,'' or ``The process through which programs are successively expanded through a series of small steps, many of whose impacts are imperceptible at the time.''
Future policymakers need to protect against such eligibility creep and continue to ensure that limited taxpayer dollars are properly targeted to individuals needing assistance. Just as the ABLE Act allows parents to ensure sufficient resources are available to support their disabled children after they no longer can do so, we need to be good stewards of taxpayer-funded programs to ensure they are sustainable in the future. Continuing to effectively and efficiently administer income and resources limits, especially with regard to able-bodied individuals, is critical to achieving that goal.

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