Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on the announcement from the Social Security Administration that it will suspend debt collection of payments more than 10 years old. The announcement came after The Washington Post reported on agency debt collection efforts on survivor benefits paid to now-deceased beneficiaries. Just before the Social Security Administration’s announcement, Grassley sent letters to the Social Security Administration and the Treasury Department, seeking information on how the agencies interpreted their authority to pursue the old debts as they have.
“Payment beneficiaries have to be accountable for overpayments from the government, but the government has to be reasonable and use common sense. Is it fair and reasonable to pursue debts from the surviving children for payments to the parents, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred? The agency is right to revisit that point. However, it shouldn’t take embarrassing media coverage and lawsuits for this step to take place. Agencies should be able to apply common sense and fairness without a public firestorm. And Congress needs to be careful about legislating one line in an unrelated bill that an agency then develops into something possibly beyond what Congress intended. The statute of limitations language didn’t give the agency permission to collect debts where the debtor is deceased. It’s not clear where that authority came in. There’s a difference between collecting decades-old debt from the debtors and decades-old debt from their kids. I still expect responses to my letters.”
Grassley’s letters are available here and here.