Pittsburg Supporting Boyda

Another encouraging op-ed in the Pittsburg Morning Sun today, detailing the support for Rep. Nancy Boyda in the 2nd District.

Dear Editor:
It has been a reassuring two years since Congresswoman Nancy Boyda was elected to the Second Congressional District. Nancy hit the ground running and has aggressively worked for the people. She has been available to all of her constituents on a regular basis. As a freshman, she wrote a successfully passed bill which eliminates retirement benefits for members of Congress convicted of wrongdoing.

Nancy recognizes the elderly and retired have not been helped by a Congress which passed a confusing Medicare pharmaceutical bill that has not lowered the cost of drugs. She understands universal health coverage is not only the humane thing to do, in the most advanced society in world history, but is economically sound policy because it provides the 47 million uninsured and the 20 million underinsured with comprehensive preventive care.

Nancy has supported every single issue which helps ordinary working people and has steadfastly refused to accept money from lobbyists who represent large multi-national corporations that have the political and economic power to influence unhelpful domestic and foreign policies affecting us all.

How nice it is to have a congressperson who can write legislation which benefits ordinary folks and who wants to end the ill advised decision to invade and occupy Iraq. It is now time for a change in the senate and the executive branch.
Harry L. Humphries
Pittsburg

We certainly agree with Harry's assessment. Rep. Boyda has gone above and beyond to look at issues that help our families.

Boyda blocks closure of Social Security offices

In some non-FISA related news, Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, along with Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS) announced on Feb. 11 that they had successfully prevented the closure of the Social Security field office in Kansas City.

In what amounts to a blessing for thousands of people in Kansas and Missouri, Boyda and Moore stopped a pilot program that would have limited office hours at the Kansas City field office- with the idea limiting business hours would allow the small numbers of employees to catch up with the tremendous backlog of cases they currently have.

The American Association of People with Disabilities released a report in August 2007, showing that of Social Security disability beneficiaries residing in Kansas, over 26 percent of those are still waiting for their cases to be heard – the worst rate of disability backlogs in the country.

The backlog is very really, but cutting the number of hours the administration offices were open to help was simply not an option that could have been on the table.

“Kansans already wait an average of two years to have their Social Security appeals heard. The Social Security Administration’s proposal to cut their Kansas office hours could have made a bad situation much worse,” Rep. Boyda said. “Congressman Moore and I appreciate the SSA’s willingness to address our concerns. We look forward to finding ways to reduce the backlog while keeping the doors of the federal government open to Kansans.”

“We’re pleased that this project has been delayed indefinitely, but that alone doesn’t improve the current backlog for Kansans," Congressman Moore said. "Congresswoman Boyda and I will continue to find ways to improve the efficiency and quality of service so that beneficiaries aren’t unduly punished by extended delays."

He wasn't just whistling dixie. In a piece that appeared in Sunday's Lawrence Journal-World, Congresswoman Boyda said that, hopefully, the new funding added to this year's budget by the Democratic majority might just help add much needed staff to the Social Security Administration.

Even with improvements, waits grow longer as the pile of claims coming into the agency continue to climb. Both the Kansas City and Wichita offices ended the fiscal year with 1,000 more cases than what they started the year with.

While Social Security staffing levels are at their lowest in more than 30 years, baby boomers are filing claims in record numbers.

“The baby boomers, and I am one of them, are in the middle of our most disability-prone years now,” Garlinger said. “And it is only going to get worse.”

U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., said the boost in this year’s federal budget will be just enough to “stop the bleeding” after consecutive years of declining personnel.

“Cutting this many people out of administration right as the baby boomers were coming on was a sure way to crash the system,” Boyda said.

Congresswoman Boyda and Congressman Moore need to be commended for their work protecting the very most vulnerable in our society. Hopefully Boyda is right, and with the new funding provided by the Democrats, the backlog can be eliminated and applications can be processed in a swift manner.

More done in one year than in 10

We've said it over and over and over again, and we're happy to say it again today: Congresswoman Nancy Boyda will be re-elected on the backs of her fantastic constituent services staff.

Congress on Your Corner, a program that has taken Boyda and her staff into every single county in the district at least once (there have actually been 31 of them- there are 26 counties in the district), is only a small part of the excellent work she and her staff have done.

Recently an article was placed on her official web site detailing all of the casework handled by her offices in Topeka, Pittsburg and Washington, DC. That article shows that in one year Boyda and her staff helped more than 2,000 with all sorts of problems relating to the federal government.

In brief:

• Boyda and her staff helped more than 350 people with military/ veterans issues, ranging from correcting veteran's benefit problems or obtaining medals never awarded.

• They assisted more than 170 groups and individuals going through the federal grant process.

• Cases directly related to the disasters early in the year, and helping people deal with FEMA, took up a significant amount of time, and the article mentions for many that process is ongoing for many victims.

The story that article tells about the Social Security disability backlog is particularly poignant- 3 years for an appeal to work it's way through after someone has been rejected the first time and no improvement in sight:

Of course, disability applicants are generally unable to work, so this kind of wait puts them in a terrible place. Our office has worked diligently to find a solution to this problem, and throughout the last half of 2007, we worked with the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review to shepherd cases through the bureaucratic mess. Since then, many of our constituents have been able to obtain the benefits they need. The Social Security Administration is also working with us to help reduce the backlog so that others won't have to face going years unable to work without the benefits they have earned.

We're sure many of you remember the passport crisis that hit international travelers in the beginning of 2007, and in what might be the most stunning number related in the whole article, Boyda's district staff helped nearly 800 people receive their passports in a timely manner.

OK, actually, that's not the more stunning number in the article, this one is: Boyda and her staff sent more than 60,000 letters to constituents in response to letters on all sorts of subjects.

Just that much more fact to support the idea Congresswoman Nancy Boyda is always there for all of us.