A legislative history of the Social Security Protection Act of 2004.

Summary Passage of the original Social Security Act in 1935, Public Law (EL.) 74-271, represented one of the watershed achievements of social welfare reform in American history. For the first time, workers were guaranteed a basic floor of protection against the hardships of poverty. In the ensuing decades, more than 100 million beneficiaries have realized the value of this protection through the receipt of monthly Social Security payments. As this guarantee has endured and progressed, the policies and administration of such a vast and complex program have required ongoing modifications--more than 150 such revisions over the past 73 years. To some extent, these amendments can be seen as an ongoing refinement process, with the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 (SSPA) being another incremental step in the development of a social insurance program that best meets the evolving needs of American society. This article discusses the legislative history of the SSPA in detail. It includes summaries of the provisions and a chronology of the modification of these proposals as they passed through the House and Senate, and ultimately to the president's desk. Introduction Rather than containing one overarching theme, SSPA (P.L. 108-203) compiles many legislative improvements that emanated from various sources, including the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Social Security Administration (SSA). The close working relationship between Senate and House staffs while crafting the provisions proved instrumental in winning widespread support of the legislation, as it emerged--and reemerged--in Congress. House Social Security Subcommittee Chairman E. Clay Shaw (R-FL) captured this collaborative spirit during his discussion of the SSPA: This bipartisan bill does the right thing and has the support of many organizations. It was developed using recommendations from and in cooperation with the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Inspector General. It is also supported by the AARP, Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Conference of State Social Security Administrators, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Association of Administrative Law Judges, the National Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives, and numerous other national and local law enforcement agencies and organizations (Congressional Record [CR] 2003b, H2643). The legislation enabled a wide array of new protections, including provisions to strengthen oversight of SSA's representative payee program, prevent program misuse, reform the attorney fee process, broaden return-to-work opportunities, and simplify the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The protections ultimately provided by SSPA were developed and modified during a process that took 5 years and three Congresses to complete. The very breadth and number of these provisions--54 in all--indicate the wide scope of the legislation and the varied interests that came together as the process unfolded. 106th Congress: Initial Legislative Efforts, June 2000-December 2000 On July 13, 2000, Chairman Shaw introduced H.R. 4857, which would be titled the Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act in its final version (CR 2000, H6051). (1) Although Titles I-III of the bill provided safeguards relating to the use of Social Security account numbers in the public and private sectors, Titles IV and V contained early versions of many SSPA provisions: * Title IV provided for expanded oversight of the representative payee program and included sections on the reissuance of misused payments, bonding and licensing of organizational payees, onsite reviews, liability of payees for misused benefits, forfeiture of payments, and civil monetary penalties. This expanded payee oversight was to become one of the hallmarks, and arguably the standout protection, of SSPA. …