Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am just going to speak for a few minutes. I am happy to defer to the Senator from Tennessee, but it shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 minutes.

If the Senator is interested, this is this week's installment of my ``Waste of the Week'' speech. I come to the floor every week to point out some spending of taxpayer dollars that perhaps we should absolutely save. The cost to the taxpayers, as I will point out shortly, is in the tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars on programs that have already been identified by government agencies as worthless, fraudulent, unnecessary, and wasteful. While we have been unable--and the Senator from Tennessee was a very pivotal part of this effort--to come to an agreement on dealing with the larger issue of saving our country from insolvency down the line, the very least we can do is to point out those areas where we are spending money that absolutely does not need to be spent and can be returned to the taxpayer. This week's waste of the week is such that I can't keep from chuckling over how this could happen, but it happens.

Everybody has heard about Ponce de Leon's search for the fountain of youth. Obviously, that hasn't happened. A recently released Social Security Inspector General's report found that 6.5 million individuals over the age of 112 still have active Social Security numbers. How can this happen? Well, it happened because in 1936 when the program started, there were some people even from the mid-1800s who were enrolled in Social Security, and they have never been taken off the rolls. Now, obviously, these people are not all receiving checks, but it opens the prospect for fraud and waste and people getting these numbers, using them, and then receiving Social Security benefits illegally.

In this inspector general's report, the Social Security Administration is faulted for poorly managing data on ``number holders who exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies and were likely deceased.''

Well, to put it mildly, if we have 6.5 million people in America who are over the age of 112, my guess is that most of those people, if not all of those people, are deceased--not likely deceased but are, in fact, deceased.

Of those 6.5 million, the Social Security Administration inspector general has determined that nearly 3,900 numbers were run through the U.S. Government's E-Verify system for people more than a century old. The E-Verify system is used when someone applies for a job. So that means thousands of people over 100 years old are applying for these new jobs. Obviously, someone is fraudulently using the system to report a Social Security number for someone over 112 years of age who is in the E-Verify system as applying for a job.

Auditors also discovered nearly 67,000 Social Security numbers in recent years were used to report wages for people other than the cardholders themselves. The workers reported about $3 billion in earnings between 2006 and 2011, and then those earnings are used to calculate their Social Security benefits.

Obviously, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Auditors have proposed that the Social Security Administration take action to correct death records, but the Social Security Administration says it doesn't want to divert resources away from efforts to improve payment accuracy. I suggest the Social Security Administration might want to reassess their assessment.

A gaping hole such as this undermines the confidence of the American people in our government and in the way we run this business of government in both the Social Security Administration and the Federal Government at large.

Government agencies have estimated that the Social Security Administration can reduce fraud and save at least $2 billion, likely more, if this problem is corrected.

So as I do each week, we keep adding to our gauge of savings that now are approaching very close to $50 billion, just over several weeks of pointing out waste and fraud that has been documented by nonpolitical, neutral Federal agencies. We keep adding more. We are approaching $50 billion. Our goal is $100 billion. I think we will go way past that if I keep doing this every week.

In order to help correct the problem, I have introduced legislation, along with Senator Carper and others, which will update the Social Security system and ensure accuracy in Federal records, not just in Social Security but in other agencies as well. I am just looking at one agency. Wait until we get into some of the others.

The key provisions of our bill include allowing Federal agencies access to the complete death database, because under current law, only agencies that directly handle beneficiary payments may have access to the complete database. The act allows all appropriate Federal agencies to have access to the complete death data program for integrity purposes as well as for other needs such as public safety and health. It requires the use of death data to curb improper payments. Our legislation establishes procedures to ensure more accurate death data.

As I have said before, by simply correcting the death records, the Social Security Administration can reduce fraud and save at least $2 billion.

This is an area that is ripe for reform, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and eliminate this waste, along with the other $49 billion we have identified in just the last few weeks. We would be doing the taxpayers a great service while making our government the efficient, effective government it needs to be, particularly in these times of lack of fiscal discipline.

I thank the Chair for the time. I also thank my colleague from Tennessee for giving me this time.

Mr. President, I know we have important legislation on the floor this week. This ``Waste of the Week'' speech is kind of tongue in cheek. We are moving on to legislation that has historic consequences for the future of America, for our own future, our children's future, and our grandchildren's future.

The debate that will take place this week, led by Senator Corker from Tennessee regarding the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons capability is, in my time of service here in the Senate and in Congress, I think the most consequential piece of legislative debate that I will ever enter into. It will have enormous historical consequences, and we need to get it right.

So I commend my colleague Senator Corker for his efforts in this regard. He has moved the legislation through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with total bipartisan support, which is absolutely key to the success of our efforts and necessary to prevent a catastrophic activity taking place in Iran.

So I appreciate the time to speak, while not focusing all of my attention and effort, as I hope all of my colleagues will, to this extraordinary challenge that we have before us this week that will determine the future for country and maybe the world.

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