Dear Friends,
Last week, along with Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. Mike Lee, I introduced legislation to address a serious problem related to the solvency to one of our mandatory spending programs: disability insurance. H.R.5409 Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Return to Work Act will modernize SSDI to keep its benefits available to those who need them most.
Many Arkansans currently depend on this important program, and more will depend on it in the future. It is Congress' responsibility to ensure that those who need SSDI will continue to have access to it for years to come.
The status quo is not working, and according to the Congressional Research Service, many disability insurance beneficiaries will never re-enter the workforce. In fact, in 2013, only 0.4 percent of all beneficiaries were removed from disability rolls due to receiving employment. Between 1981 and 2013, the employment rate among working-age individuals with work-limiting disabilities fell nearly in half, from 24.4 percent to 14.4 percent.
Those who can work should work, and we should incentivize them to get off the disability rolls and back into the workplace. Our bill will do just this while eliminating the taxpayer funds wasted on those abusing the program.
SSDI was developed to be a safety net for those who suffer from a permanent, debilitating disability and to provide temporary assistance for those with a recoverable illness or disability while they heal. But, today, some working-age individuals use it as a welfare and retirement program, and this isn’t fair to those who truly need it.
This bill creates new disability classifications for individuals receiving Social Security disability benefits. Those whose conditions are expected, likely, or probable to improve are limited in how long they can collect disability payments. This is a reform that will incentivize those who are able to rejoin the workforce, but more importantly it protects the program for those whose livelihoods are entirely dependent on it.
Sincerely,
Representative French Hill |
Photos for the Week
Rep. Hill enjoying a break during his float and hike at the Buffalo National River, Arkansas's first national river. |
Rep. Hill with Army officials in Little Rock celebrating the 241st birthday of the U.S. Army. |
Rep. Hill with Troop 99's newest Eagle Scout, Michael Harris, and his grandmother, Janice Goodwin. |
News for the Week
Local political leaders on Orlando shootings
THV 11
Sunday afternoon, the Governor, Mayor Mark Stodola, and others gathered at Saint Mark Baptist Church for what was supposed to be a happy decision. The church opened a new youth center to help combat violence in the 12th Street Corridor. The shootings in Orlando changed those conversations Sunday morning.
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Washington news in brief
Arkansas Online
U.S. Rep. French Hill last week introduced what he is calling the Social Security Disability Insurance Return to Work Act. The measure "would help keep the program solvent and its benefits available to those who need them. The goal is to develop effective and innovative projects that will incentivize and assist people that want to get off of the rolls and back to work," the Republican from Little Rock said in a news release.
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Orlando Shooting
After this past weekend's terrorist attack in Orlando, Rep. Hill released the below statement:
"This weekend's attack in Orlando was a coward's attempt to spread his own intolerance through unimaginable violence. We are again witnessing the horrors of radical Islam and its hateful message. ISIS remains a threat to democracy and it needs to be neutralized immediately. This president and the next need to engage these terrorists and their evil ideology with the sole intention of removing them from the face of the earth."
Entire Government Wins Golden Fleece for June
This week, Rep. Hill announced June's Golden Fleece Award to the entire federal government for wasting $126 billion on overpayments last year. The overpayments were made on a litany of government programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Following the announcement, Rep. Hill stated:
"The biggest threat to the long-term health of important government programs is the wasting of the taxpayer dollars used to fund them. This across the board government failure is unacceptable, and hopefully by highlighting this failure, we can encourage the administration be more thorough and accurate in how they conduct business."
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Rep. Hill on KARN
As part of his weekly radio interview with KARN's Kevin Miller, Rep. Hill discussed his SSDI legislation, Speaker Ryan's initiative to eliminate poverty, and the Puerto Rican debt crisis.
Click the image below to listen to the interview.
You can hear Rep. Hill on KARN every Thursday at 7:08 AM CT.
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UALR Robotics in DC
Monday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette featured a story on students from University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) coming to Washington to participate in an open house sponsored by the Congressional Robotics Caucus Advisory Committee.
Rep. Hill stopped by the event to meet with UALR representatives and see their work in person.
Rep. Hill gets a robotics demonstration from a UALR student.
Rep. Hill with UALR Systems Engineering professor Cang Ye.
Here is an excerpt from the Democrat Gazette story,
"For six hours Thursday, UALR representatives took their place beside researchers from MIT, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Rice University and other top-tier colleges, showing off their high-tech gadgets and highlighting their advances.
"Participants wore I Love Robots buttons, picked up free copies of Robotics and Automation Magazine and scooped up packs of 2016 Robot All-Stars trading cards. (The MVP of the collection, arguably, is Milo R25, an ethical robot mediator who can "express non-verbal social cues.")
"Last week's event celebrated the fifth anniversary of the National Robotics Initiative, a program kicked off by President Barack Obama in June 2011.
"The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Defense Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were early backers. The White House said the initiative focuses on "developing robots that work with or beside people to extend or augment human capabilities, taking advantage of the different strengths of humans and robots."
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