DSS Policy Change a Win for Taxpayers

You may have recently heard that the Missouri Department of Social Services was contracting with private corporations to move people off of temporary state aid programs with work incentives and offloading them to the more permanent federal disability program.  Their basic idea was simple: save Missouri tax dollars in the short term by dumping people off onto the 100% federally financed permanent disability programs.  The Governor and his administration endorsed the idea, but the practice came under the ire of the media.  Once it was reported, the legislature moved quickly to investigate.

After repeated inquiry by Rep. Jay Barnes’s committee on Government Oversight & Accountability and Rep. Sue Allen’s committee on Appropriations – Health, Mental Health, & Social Services, the Department has retracted major components of this policy.  The bottom line is that government programs for the disadvantaged should serve the truly disadvantaged.  State government should not contribute to the waste, fraud, or abuse found in federal programs.  This contract had strong incentives for companies (they are to be paid $2,300 per person shifted!) to push people onto the disability roles where there is no motivation to work.  Federal dollars or not, they are taxpayer dollars and we all pay them.  Your government, regardless of whether it is local, state, or federal, should be frugal with your dollars and consider the total impact of its actions, and the House’s actions have forced the Nixon administration to do just that.  I will continue to do all I can to keep government accountable to the people and to bring reform to any bureaucratic agencies that need it.