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Testimony by Commisssioner Barnhart
Before House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources
On the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program
April 29, 2004
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for inviting me to appear today before the Subcommittee to discuss the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Although this is the first time I have had the privilege of coming before this Subcommittee as Commissioner of Social Security, I would like to thank the Subcommittee for its work over the years to improve the integrity and public confidence in the SSI program, while protecting the millions of low-income aged, blind, and disabled individuals the program was designed to assist.
In March 2004, 6.9 million individuals received federally administered monthly SSI benefits. This group is composed of 1.2 million individuals who receive benefits based on their being aged 65 or older, 5.7 million disabled recipients, and 95,000 blind recipients. The monthly benefit paid to these eligible individuals averages $425. In calendar year 2003, more than $36 billion in benefits were paid under SSI-$32.4 billion in Federal expenditures and nearly $4 billion in federally administered State supplementary payments.
SSI is a complex program, which poses tremendous challenges and opportunities for SSA.
Today, I would like to touch on several areas:
- the administrative challenges facing the agency, the progress we have made in meeting those challenges and current initiatives;
- progress in simplifying the SSI program;
- my approach to improving the process for determining disability; and,
- opportunities for those disabled SSI recipients who want to begin or return to work.
Before I describe our challenges and accomplishments, I would like to briefly give you some idea of the people the SSI program serves.
SSI beneficiaries are among the most vulnerable members of our society. All of them are either blind or disabled, or aged 65 and older. All have very limited incomes and little or no assets. The maximum income an individual can have and still be eligible for SSI represents less than 75 percent of the poverty level for a one-person household, and the maximum income a couple can have and remain eligible for SSI represents less than 85 percent of the poverty level for a two-person household. Only 35 percent of SSI beneficiaries receive other cash benefits such as Social Security benefits. It is clear that without SSI, the vast majority of beneficiaries would be destitute.
The current maximum Federal SSI benefit rate is $564 per month for an individual and $846 for a couple, when both members are aged, blind, or disabled. Of the 1.2 million individuals who receive SSI benefits based on age, more than half are over age 75 and about 70 percent are women. About half of all SSI elderly beneficaries live alone. The average age of the nearly 4 million adults receiving SSI benefits based on disability is about 45 years old and 60 percent are women. In addition, there are 760,000 SSI beneficiaries who came onto the SSI rolls as blind or disabled individuals who are now aged 65 or older.
By any measure, SSI recipients are among the poorest of the poor. For them, SSI is truly the program of last resort and is the safety net that protects them from complete impoverishment. In administering this program we must recognize both the vulnerability of those served by it as well as our obligation to the American taxpayer to ensure that payments made under the program are consistent with the program's requirements.
Administrative Challenges
As its name indicates, the SSI program is designed to supplement an individual's income up to a minimum floor of income. The definition of income in the SSI program includes cash and in-kind income, and is anything that a person receives that can be used to obtain food, clothing, or shelter. It includes cash income such as wages, Social Security and other pensions, and unemployment compensation. In-kind income includes food, clothing, and shelter. Generally, the amount of the cash income or the value of the in-kind income is deducted from the maximum Federal benefit rate. In computing the SSI benefit, the first $65 of earnings is disregarded and then $1 is deducted from the benefit rate for each $2 of earnings. Unearned income--for example, Social Security--causes the benefit rate to be reduced $1 for $1 after the first $20 is disregarded.
Individuals' SSI benefit amounts also may change if they move into a different living arrangement--whether a person lives alone or with others, or resides in a medical facility or other institution affects benefit levels. For instance, when individuals move into nursing homes, their benefits generally are reduced to not more than $30 per month. If they move from their own household into the household of another person, and that person provides food, clothing, or shelter, their benefits also may be reduced. If their income or resources in a month exceed the limits specified in the law, they may be ineligible. The design of the SSI program requires SSA to take into account the many changes in an individual's financial and personal life and make adjustments in benefit payments to reflect those changes.
SSI eligibility is based on a monthly means test for income and resources. It is a practical impossibility for SSA to obtain information from all recipients about every change in their income, resources, or living arrangements every month. Some overpayments and underpayments are inevitable. Additionally, even if individuals report timely, requirements to notify individuals of how a specific change affects their benefit amounts can create a lag in adjusting the benefit, also causing overpayments and underpayments.
The very design of SSI as a program that provides for current needs, leads to some amount of overpayment. Certain amounts of overpayments are unpreventable because of due process notification requirements or because an individual's income increases during a month after the SSI benefit has already been paid for the month. Overpayments can occur when recipients report benefit-changing events too late or do not report them at all. In addition, some amounts of overpayments occur because SSA is unable to act promptly on reports of changes because of insufficient resources and competing workloads. Regardless of the various causes of improper payments, SSA is committed to preventing such payments where possible, and where not, acting quickly and efficiently to correct such payments.
In 1997, the GAO designated SSI as a high-risk program. At the time, GAO said that SSA lacked an effective plan to address the level of debt created by overpayments. Further, GAO said that SSA had difficulty determining initial medical and non-medical eligibility for the program, as well as continuing eligibility of program participants. GAO also noted what it perceived as SSA's emphasis on adjudicating initial disability and aged claims and providing beneficiary services over program integrity.
Corrective Action
When I became Commissioner I made it a priority to address GAO's concerns about the administration of the SSI program. In fact, Deputy Commissioner James B. Lockhart and I met personally with Comptroller General David Walker to discuss GAO's concerns. In developing a corrective action plan, we focused on four areas: commitment to timely processing of continuing disability reviews (CDRs), improved prevention of overpayments, increased overpayment detection, and increased collection of debt. SSA developed a Corrective Action Plan directed at the issues raised by GAO in its designation of SSI as a high-risk program.
The Corrective Action Plan identified the root causes of problems in the SSI program, provided solutions and provided for substantial additional near-term measures, primarily improved program administration and higher payment accuracy. Our efforts to develop and implement the Corrective Action Plan paid off. In January 2003, the General Accounting Office (GAO) took the SSI program off its high risk list.
Still, much remains to be done. With the enactment of the Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA) of 2002, SSA has increased its focus on reducing payment errors by refining and improving upon the Corrective Action Plan so that it can be an increasingly effective program, integrity planning, and tracking tool. The Plan is reviewed and updated monthly and I hold specific senior agency officials accountable for its results. Major ongoing initiatives under the Plan involve electronic death registrations, electronic bank account verification, and improving debt collection strategies. In addition, to simplify wage reporting for beneficiaries, SSA has conducted a pilot project designed to test beneficiary reporting of income using touch-tone and voice-prompt telephone technology. The Plan has been the impetus for helping SSA meet the improper payment reduction targets that are being established pursuant to the IPIA. Through the Plan, SSA is implementing administrative sanctions, online data matching in the redetermination process, and improved collections of overpayments through netting, credit bureau referrals, administrative offsets, and mandatory cross-program recovery.
When conducting a redetermination, SSA reassesses SSI recipients' incomes, resources, living arrangements, and all non-disability factors of SSI eligibility. While we will continue to refine our redetermination selection process to make it more effective and efficient, the number of redeterminations that we can do in a year are directly related to the resources that are allocated to us by Congress.
Redeterminations and CDRs are the most effective means of preventing erroneous payments. Redeterminations return about $7 for every $1 it costs to administer. CDRs, during which we determine whether an individual continues to be under a disability, have a savings-to-cost ratio of roughly $10 to $1. We expect that the present value of SSI program savings resulting from the CDRs conducted in FY 2003 will be close to $2 billion. And that redeterminations conducted in FY 2003 will produce an estimated $2.7 billion of overpayment prevention and recoveries. While we are considering a number of ways to improve the redetermination process by better targeting the types of cases we select, budget restraints could adversely affect these ongoing important program integrity efforts. Doing fewer CDRs and redeterminations would mean that fewer erroneous payments would be prevented and detected.
However, as you know for FY 2004, SSA's appropriation for administrative expenses was significantly lower than the President's budget request. I found that I had to balance the need for CDRs and redeterminations against the need to process claims filed by aged and disabled citizens-arguably the most vulnerable of our population. And we are not going to be able to do as many CDRs and redeterminations as I had originally planned.
Prisoners and Felons
A very important area of program integrity in which we continue to improve involves non-payment of SSI benefits to prisoners, fugitive felons, and parole and probation violators. These non-payment provisions are in the SSI law because of Chairman Herger's and this Subcommittee's diligence. As you know, the fugitive felon prohibition was recently extended to the Social Security program as well in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004.
Since its inception, the SSI program has prohibited the payment of benefits to individuals who reside in public institutions--including prisons, jails, detention centers, and other types of correctional institutions. Social Security recipients in correctional institutions also generally are not eligible for benefits. Even though we conducted matches with correctional institutions, we were not always able to identify all of the individuals who should have their benefits suspended. Under this Committee's guidance and leadership, legislation was enacted that provided for incentive payments to state and local correctional institutions that furnish information resulting in the suspension of SSI payments. Under the provision, SSA pays up to $400 to state and local correctional institutions for each report that results in the suspension of an individual's benefits.
SSA currently has agreements with jails and prisons under which the Agency is provided lists of inmates to match against our recipient records. These agreements are with institutions that house 99% of all prisoners in the country. Since the incentive payment program began in 1997, SSA has paid 5,196 penal institutions over $113 million in incentive payments. Suspension of benefits to prisoners saves approximately $500 million annually. In fiscal year 2001, there were over 89,000 prisoner suspensions.
Another very important SSI program integrity provision prohibits fugitive felons from receiving benefits. A key to its implementation is having access to records of outstanding felony warrants. We have entered into matching agreements with a number of Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to facilitate electronic matching of warrant information.
For example, SSA and OIG have matching agreements for obtaining fugitive warrants in place with the FBI; the FBI's National Crime Information Center, the U.S. Marshal's Service, State agencies, and metropolitan police departments. Currently, SSA has access to all Federal warrant information, all felony warrant information from 40 States, the District of Columbia, and three major metropolitan jurisdictions.
When we obtain warrant information from any of these sources, we first verify the social security numbers by matching them against our Enumeration and Verification System. We then match against our SSI beneficiary files to determine if any of the fugitives are receiving SSI benefits. Results of the second match are forwarded to OIG for action.
OIG works with both the FBI Information Technology Center the (ITC) and with the U.S. Marshals Service to verify that the felony probation or parole violation warrant is active. The ITC and U.S. Marshals Service provide the address information in SSA's records about each SSI recipient to the appropriate law enforcement personnel so that they can apprehend the individual. Over the years, these leads to law enforcement have resulted in the apprehension of 19,000 fugitives.
Since the inception of the fugitive felon program in August 1996, SSA has suspended nearly 78,000 SSI payments under this provision, and the number is growing every year. In FY 2003 alone, we processed nearly 24,000 suspensions. For FY 2001 (the most recent year for which an estimate is available), we estimate that the 5-year Federal SSI program savings from suspensions processed in that year amount to over $25 million. Additionally, the suspension of SSI payments to fugitive felons and parole violators also saves both Federal and State Medicaid expenditures.
The provision in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 extending the fugitive felon prohibition to OASDI payments is estimated to reduce OASDI program expenditures by $800 million over 10 years. We are currently working toward implementing this provision by its January 2005 effective date.
The core of program integrity involves making sure that individuals meet all SSI eligibility factors before benefits are paid and assuring that only correct amount of benefits are paid on an initial and ongoing basis. In those cases in which individuals are overpaid SSI benefits, we pursue recovery. SSA has a number of tools to collect overpayments from deducting amounts from benefits to referring the debts outside of the agency for collection. I would like to give you an idea of some of our more recent successes that have been accomplished in the debt collection area.
Debt Collection Efforts
As part of the Corrective Action Plan, we implemented a new system in FY 2003 to measure and report the status of various types of debt. This allows us to identify debt that had been previously determined to be uncollectible but may now be recoverable because the overpaid individual is again eligible for SSI or has become eligible for OASDI benefits from which the debt may be collected. Previous to the Corrective Action Plan, we were unable to track debt in such situations because often the old debt was not carried over onto the newer benefit record. The plan has also been the catalyst for several other changes. These include collecting overpayments using new "netting" software that automatically recovers overpayments when an underpayment is discovered, mandatory cross-program recovery, and new administrative offset and credit bureau referrals.
These debt collection improvements contributed to increased recovery of SSI overpayments at reduced cost. Specifically, SSI overpayment collections in FY 2002 totaled $859.6 million and in FY 2003, they totaled $941.6 million (up nine percent), with almost $100 million of that total being attributed to the automated netting technique. SSA also worked with Congress to develop new authority for expanded cross-program recovery of SSI overpayments from OASDI benefits, which included lifting the restriction on the amount of offset that can be applied to retroactive checks. An estimated savings of over $200 million over 10 years is expected from the enactment of this provision in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004.
SSA refers delinquent debtors to credit bureaus and delinquent debts to the Department of the Treasury for offset of Federal payments being made to the individual. The credit bureau reporting program led to the voluntary repayment of $20.9 million during FY 2003. In FY 2003, SSA referred 158,484 debtors to credit bureaus; the total debt owed by these individuals was $525 million. The Treasury Offset Program has also been very successful. For example, SSA collected over $35 million in FY 2003 through this program.
Overpayment prevention, overpayment detection, and overpayment collection are vital parts of our overall program integrity efforts. Many overpayments are the result of SSI beneficiaries not reporting changes or SSA not acting on reported changes in time to correct the benefit payment. Some overpayments are caused by due process requirements that are a matter of law. And, a number of overpayments are caused by complex program policies that can be difficult to administer. In all cases, regardless of the cause of the improper payment, SSA is committed to tracking and reporting these payments, setting aggressive reduction targets, and taking the necessary steps to ensure that reduction targets are achieved.
Program Simplification
I previously mentioned the recent enactment of the Social Security Protection Act of 2004. I thank this Subcommittee for including SSI provisions in the bill. While the bill includes many important Social Security program integrity and improvement provisions, I want to point out those SSI provisions that simplify the program.
One provision excludes small amounts of income paid as interest or dividends on an SSI beneficiary's countable resources. Currently, an SSI individual cannot have countable resources of more than $2,000 if he or she is single or $3,000 if married. Thus, an interest bearing bank account with a balance close to the resource limit would yield only a small amount of interest income perhaps no more than $1 to $2 a month. Prior to enactment of the provision in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004, SSA field office employees would have to obtain documentation from the individual or the bank about the amount of the interest paid, record it in the SSI file, and make adjustments to the benefit payment, which resulted in a small overpayment. We would then take appropriate action to recover or waive recovery of the small SSI overpayment caused by a small interest payment. All of these actions of identifying, recording, and recomputing are no longer necessary making the program simpler to administer and avoiding overpayments.
Another provision increases from $20 to $60 a quarter the amount of infrequent unearned income an individual can receive in a quarter without it affecting his or her SSI benefit. Again, by eliminating the reporting and recording of these very small amounts of income-cash birthday gifts or small payments for babysitting, for example-administration of the SSI program is simpler, overpayments are avoided and the program is more equitable and easier to understand.
Yet another provision eliminates the unreasonable situation in which income received in the first month of eligibility is counted three times even if it were only received once. The reason for triple counting the first month's income is because in all initial eligibility cases the law required that there be a transition from current month accounting to retrospective accounting without considering income received prior to the first month of eligibility. Although the law recognized exceptions for certain types of income such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), refugee relocation assistance, and Bureau of Indian Affairs payments, it did not include a general exception for other income that ended. For example, a relative provides cash assistance only until the individual begins receiving SSI benefits. This triple-counting of one-month's income caused beneficiary confusion and was difficult for SSA employees to administer and explain.
Two provisions in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 helped military families. The first extended the current-law exception for SSI eligibility outside the United States to children of military personnel who were born or became disabled overseas while accompanying their parents on duty assignments. This makes the treatment of disabled children of military personnel consistent whether or not they first received SSI while they were in the United States . The second provision simplifies the program by providing SSA with the authority to count compensation reported on a monthly leave and earnings statement issued by the military reflecting compensation earned in the prior month as compensation received in the prior month. The provision is a significant administrative simplification in that it eliminates the need to review multiple payment statements from different periods to determine countable compensation for a month.
These provisions are an important first step in simplifying the SSI program. I assure you that we will continue, with the help of Congress, to improve and simplify SSI.
President's Budget SSI Proposals
While the enactment of the SSI provisions in the Social Security Protection Act of 2004 was very helpful, there may still be many areas in the SSI program that might lend themselves to simplification.
For example, a proposal in the President's FY 2005 budget would provide more help for military families with disabled children while at the same time simplify the administration of the SSI program. Under current law, only basic pay is counted as wages for SSI purposes. But, there are 30 types of military compensation that are not basic pay, and therefore are treated as unearned income. (The distinction between earned and unearned income is important in determining the amounts to be deemed from a parent or spouse in military service. Higher disregard amounts apply to earned income yielding less countable income and, often, higher SSI benefits.) Determining the difference in the types of military pay is time consuming and error prone, and the guidelines for making such determinations covers 14 pages in SSA's operating instructions.
The proposal would treat most cash military compensation as wages and, thus, as earned income. The provision would treat cash military compensation and civilian wages alike, and thus eliminate the present unfair and disadvantageous treatment of cash military compensation other than basic pay under SSI. The proposal would increase SSI benefits for most military families with disabled children, which are currently about 3,000 families. It would be a significant program simplification in these cases and would have a relatively small program cost of only $2 million over 10 years.
Enactment of this proposal would complement SSI policy changes relating to military families that I made a year ago. One of these changes ensures that any additional pay received by military personnel deployed to a combat zone cannot be used to reduce SSI benefits paid to their children or spouse. The other changes the SSI treatment of privatized military housing enabling some military families living in such housing who lost SSI payments and Medicaid coverage to regain those benefits.
The President's budget includes another proposal that would help families with disabled children. Currently, in cases in which relatively large retroactive SSI payments are due disabled children, SSI law requires that those payments be placed in "dedicated" bank accounts and the monies used only for specified purposes related to the children's impairments. The dedicated account provision is viewed negatively by parents and advocates of disabled children due to the conflict between the rigid nature of the uses permitted for the money from the accounts and the unpredictable nature of the needs of disabled children. The proposal would eliminate the requirement to establish a dedicated account if the representative payee is the parent of the disabled child. It recognizes that parents act in the best interests of their children and know best how to address the needs of their children. At the same time, the proposal protects the retroactive benefits of children who have representative payees other than their parents.
Modifying the dedicated account requirement would improve service to SSI beneficiaries and their families and make the program simpler to administer. There are currently about 40,300 dedicated account cases. About three-fourths of these are cases in which the parent is the child's representative payee. The President's proposal would eliminate an estimated 30,000 dedicated account cases. Reducing the number of dedicated accounts that would be required to be established and monitored would not only ease some of the day-to-day burden on parents of disabled children, it would also ease some administrative burden on SSA. We would be able to redirect the estimated $5 million per year in administrative resources to other error reduction and debt collection activities.
We note that this Subcommittee has included the President's proposal for pre-effectuation review of State agency SSI blindness and disability determinations in H.R. 4, the TANF reauthorization bill. Reviewing the cases before benefits are awarded would be a significant program integrity effort and would save an estimated $1.7 billion SSI and Medicaid program dollars over the first 10 years.
One other proposal in the President's FY 2005 budget that I would like to mention would temporarily extend the current 7-year period for SSI eligibility for refugees and asylees to 8 years effective October 2004. This proposal recognizes that some refugees and asylees have been unable to become U.S. citizens within the 7 year time period, and would give them an additional year to naturalize. The extension would expire after September 2007. The proposal would benefit about 4,000 SSI beneficiaries each of the three years it is in effect.
Up to now, I have discussed program integrity and simplification issues that deal with program policies and, as such, are relatively limited in scope. I would like to turn now to a much larger process simplification that affects many of the nearly 1.5 million Americans who file for SSI disability benefits each year and all of the SSA and the State Disability Determination Service (DDS) employees who work on those disability applications.
I know that everyone is concerned about the length of time the disability determination process takes and, quite frankly, I think that in too many cases the length of time is unacceptable. I have a strategy for reducing these delays.
The linchpin for my strategy is the development and implementation of an electronic disability claims system, the Accelerated Electronic Disability System (AEDIB). AEDIB is a major Agency initiative that is moving all components involved in disability claims adjudication and review to an electronic business process through the use of an electronic disability folder. These components include the field office, regional office, the program service center, State DDSs , the hearings and appeals office, and the quality assurance staff. When the process is fully implemented, each component will be able to work claims by electronically accessing and retrieving information that is collected, produced and stored as part of the electronic disability folder. This will reduce delays that result from mailing, locating, and organizing paper folders.
SSA field offices are currently collecting disability information for initial adult and child cases using the Electronic Disability Collect System (EDCS). Also, claimants can now use the Internet to submit disability information. I am especially proud to announce that we began national roll-out of AeDIB in January 2004 starting in Jackson, Mississippi, and we have estimated it will be complete by June 2005. In fact, the roll-out is going well and we're right on schedule.
Approach for Improving Disability Determination Process
Early in my tenure as Commissioner, I began a comprehensive service delivery assessment to thoroughly examine all of SSA's workloads. We began that assessment with the disability claims process and mapped out each step from the initial claim through a final administrative appeal. Our analysis of the process showed that the length of time required to move through the entire appeals process was 1153 days -- 525 days due to backlogged cases and 628 days to move through the process.
Based on that analysis, I developed a Service Delivery Plan which now forms the basis of our annual budget submission.
To tackle the management and process issues, we developed both a short-term and long-term strategy.
The short-term strategy is focused on identifying areas where immediate action was possible, while the long-term strategy would focus on improving the overall disability determination process. Over the past two years, we have implemented a number of short-term initiatives. These include:
- The participation of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) in early screening for on-the-record decisions;
- developing a short form for fully favorable decisions;
- creating a law clerk (attorney intern) position;
- deploying speech recognition technology to hearing offices;
- ending the practice of rotating hearing office technicians among different positions;
- using scanning technology to track and retrieve folders;
- eliminating the tape transcription backlog, and
- eliminating delays in presenting cases to the U.S. District Courts.
We are in the process of implementing two other initiatives:
- allowing ALJs to issue decisions from the bench immediately after a hearing; and
- expanding video teleconference hearings.
And we are preparing to implement an initiative to digitally record hearings.
I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress. In FY 2003, we exceeded our Agency-wide productivity goal. SSA offices processed over 2.5 million disability claims-an increase of more than 350,000 from FY 2001. Administrative Law Judge productivity rates were the highest in history-at 2.35 cases per day. SSA's Office of Hearings and Appeals processed 40,000 more hearing decisions than FY 2002 and almost 80,000 more decisions than in FY 2001. In November 2001, the average time to appeal an unfavorable hearing decision was 467 days. In November 2003, it took 252 days.
But these short-term efforts, important as they are, do not address the fundamental problems. If we are to see long-term results, we must look at the entire process as a whole, and make systemic changes.
When I introduced my approach for improving the process, it was the first step of what I believe must be -- and have worked to make -- a collaborative process. I am working within the Administration, with Congress, the State DDSs and interested organizations and advocacy groups. To be successful, perspectives from all parts of the system must be considered.
I believe that if we work together, we will create a disability system that responds to the challenge inherent in the President's questions about why it takes so long to make a disability decision and why can't people who are obviously disabled get a decision quickly. We will look beyond the status quo to the possibility of what can be. We will achieve our ultimate goal of providing accurate, timely service for the American people.
Work Incentives and Opportunities
When the President asked me about the disability determination process he asked why, other than pride, anyone would want to risk going back to work after going through such a long process to receive benefits. With the SSI program, the question could be expanded to include not only those individuals who return to work, but also those disabled individuals who go to work for the first time. Regardless of their reasons for working, a surprising number of individuals who have been determined to have disabling medical conditions do try to work. Nearly 330,000 individuals who receive SSI disability benefits were working in September 2003. This represents nearly 6 percent of all SSI disability recipients.
The SSI program encourages individuals with disabilities to work through a number of program incentives and opportunities. I will briefly describe these provisions, many of which have been an important part of the program for at least 20 years, and then turn to the newest work opportunity provision in the SSI program.
Generally, after the first $20 is excluded, income reduces the SSI benefit $1 for $1, unless the income is from work in which case it is treated more generously. The first $65 of earned income is excluded and then the SSI benefit is reduced only $1 for every $2 earned. These higher exclusions for work recognize the additional costs associated with work, and also assure that SSI beneficiaries who work have higher incomes than those who do not work. In addition, other amounts of earnings may be excluded under specific circumstances. For example, as incentive for working and remaining in school, up to $5,520 a year of a student's income is excluded. Similar to the DI program, an individual's work expenses attributable to his or her impairment are also excluded in SSI. Blind individuals have additional impairment-related work expense exclusions.
A very important work incentive is the plan for achieving self-support or PASS. Under an SSA-approved PASS, an individual is permitted to set aside income and resources for a work goal. The amounts of the set-aside income and resources are not considered in determining an SSI beneficiary's continued eligibility or benefit amount. The income or resources set aside are used to pay for goods and services needed to reach the goal, such as education, vocational training, starting a business or purchasing work-related equipment. A PASS may be approved for the length of time that is determined reasonably needed for the individual to attain his or her goal. Currently, about 1,785 SSI beneficiaries have established a PASS.
A common fear that individuals have expressed about going to work is the potential effects that work may have on their medical coverage under Medicaid. The SSI program addresses this concern by providing continued Medicaid coverage after an individual's earnings cause his or her income to exceed the level at which cash benefits could continue to be paid. Under this section 1619(b) provision, a working individual's Medicaid coverage continues even after SSI stops as long as the individual has earnings, remains disabled, and the earnings are below the individual and state threshold amounts. Currently, about 73,500 beneficiaries continue to qualify for Medicaid through this provision. For individuals whose earnings exceed the threshold and live in one of the participating states, individuals can continue to receive Medicaid through the Medicaid Buy-In programs authorized by the Ticket to Work legislation.
The most recent provision in SSI law that provides an opportunity for beneficiaries to work is the Ticket to Work Program, which was enacted in December 1999.
First, let me briefly describe how the program works. Under current agency regulations, an SSDI or SSI beneficiary with a disability receives a Ticket to Work if he or she is between the ages of 18 and 64 and has a medical condition that is not expected to improve in the near future. Approximately 2.5 million, or 63 percent, of all SSI beneficiaries with disabilities who do not also receive Social Security benefits meet this standard.
Under the Act, SSA enters into agreements with Employment Networks (ENs) and with State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies ("State VR Agencies"). ENs are qualified State, local, or private organizations that offer employment support services. These organizations include One-Stop Career Centers established under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998; single providers of services; or groups of providers organized to combine their resources into a single entity.
A beneficiary who receives a Ticket to Work can choose to assign it to any EN that provides services within the community or to the State VR Agency. Together, these organizations are referred to as "Ticket Providers." An EN may decide whether or not to accept the assignment of a Ticket. ENs may only be paid based on their success in assisting beneficiaries to secure and maintain employment and move beneficiaries off the disability benefit rolls.
Once a Ticket is assigned by a beneficiary to a Ticket Provider, the beneficiary and the Provider jointly develop and implement a plan of employment, vocational, or other support services designed to lead to and maintain employment. Providers may provide these services directly or by entering into agreements with other organizations or individuals to provide the appropriate services at no cost to the beneficiary.
SSA is implementing the Ticket to Work program in three phases. During the first phase of the program, from February through October 2002, about 723,373 SSI beneficiaries in 13 states received Tickets to Work. During the second phase, which ran from November 2002 through September 2003, we mailed Tickets to approximately 718,886 SSI beneficiaries in 20 additional States and the District of Columbia. Then beginning in November 2003, we started releasing Tickets to the more than one million SSI beneficiaries in the remaining 17 States and the U.S. Territories during the third and final implementation phase. By September 2004, nearly 2.5 million eligible SSI beneficiaries will have been mailed a Ticket to Work, and any eligible beneficiary who has yet to receive a Ticket to Work in the mail can obtain one by asking for it. To date, we have certified almost 1,100 ENs to participate in the Ticket program, and about 22,000 SSI beneficiaries have assigned their Tickets to an EN.
The impact of the Ticket to Work program is being evaluated both inside and outside of SSA. Preliminary findings from these reviews are that SSA has made progress in developing such a system to assist individuals with disabilities to find work and remain in the workforce. But, given our experience so far and the comments we have received, we are taking a comprehensive look at the Ticket program. We will be happy to provide the Subcommittee with the results of these reviews, which we expect to be available shortly, and will also be happy to brief you on their findings.
The President's budget for FY 2005 includes $8.878 billion for the Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE), a 6.8 percent increase over our FY 2004 appropriation. We believe this increase in funding reflects the President's desire to meet the needs of Americans who apply for and benefit from SSA's program, including beneficiaries of SSI.
I want to assure that we are committed to continuing to improve the administration of the SSI program. Program integrity efforts for debt prevention, debt detection, and debt collection are being monitored and improved through our Corrective Action Plan. We are looking at all of the most complex areas of SSI program policy to see if changes-even small incremental changes-can be made to make the program simpler and less error prone. The disability approach will be a major simplification with regard to the taking and adjudicating of SSI disability applications, and the approach is already yielding improved processing times and decision making accuracy. There has never been more focus on helping beneficiaries become self-sufficient so that they no longer have to rely on SSI. The Ticket to Work program along with increased emphasis on the other SSI work incentives are providing real opportunities for individuals to work.
As for the longer term, we do not anticipate that there will be any early 1990's-like spike in program growth over the next 25 years. Each year, SSA's Office of the Actuary publishes a report on the SSI program and sends it to the President and Congress. This year's draft report projects that the projected growth in the SSI program over the 25-year period is largely due to the overall growth in the U.S. population. Program expenditures in constant dollars are estimated to increase from $34.5 billion in 2004 to $43.8 billion in 2028, an increase of 1 percent per year. When compared to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), SSI expenditures are projected to decline over time, from the current level of 0.30 percent of GDP in 2003 to 0.24 percent by 2028.
I assure you that we will continue to look for ways to improve service and ensure fiscal stewardship. I believe that working together, SSA and the Subcommittee can find common ground for legislation to improve and simplify SSA's ability to administer the SSI program in a way that evokes increased congressional and public confidence in both the program and the Agency.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee. I will be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.


text:
Look with me at the tenth chapter of Matthew...Matthew chapter 10. Our text continues to be verses ?4 through 42, Matthew 10:24 through 42. And we're looking at the characteristic of a true disciple...the hallmarks of genuineness.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, quote - "There has never yet been a man who led a life of ease, whose name is worth remembering." end quote.
Certainly when the Lord calls us to be His disciples, He does not call us to a life of ease.
A missionary who has influenced my life greatly because of what I read is a man named Henry Martyn. He went to India and spent a lifetime, really, there. Already in India he had done more than his share of missionary service when he announced that he was going to go to persia because God had laid it upon his heart to translate the New Testament and the Psalms into the persian language.
By then he was an old man.
They told him that if he stayed in India he would die because of the heat. And then they told him that persia was hotter than India. But he went nonetheless.
Studied the persian language. Translated the entire New Testament and the Psalms in nine months. And then he was told that he couldn't print it or circulate it until he received the Shah's permission. So he traveled 800 miles to Tehran, and he was denied permission to see the Shah. He turned around and made a 400 mile trip to find the British ambassador. The ambassador gave him the proper kinds of papers and so forth and sent him back to the Shah. And so he traveled another 400 miles...that makes l?0O miles. He rode this at night on the back of a mule, and rested during the daytime...protected only by a strip of canvas from the sweltering desert heat.
He finally arrived and was received by the Shah who gave him permission for the Scriptures to be printed and circulated in persia.
Ten days later in igl2 he died. But shortly before he had written in his diary this statement: "I sat and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God. In solitude my Companion, my Friend, and Comforter."
Certainly not a life of ease but a life worth remembering.
Bound up in the spirit of Henry Martyn is the key to genuine discipleship. It is to be so utterly consumed with the cause that you have no thought for your own life. Look with me at verse SS of Matthew 10. "And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. And he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it."
Now that is the heart of our text. That really says it.
This is a text all about commitment and all about dedication and all about self-denial, and all about self-sacrifice, and all about cross bearing. It is a text about genuine discipleship' selfless sacrificial discipleship. It is a text about commitment to the divine will at any cost. It is a text about the Lordship of Christ.
Now there are many people who claim to follow Jesus. There are many people who claim to be His disciples, and there always have been. But our Lord points to the proof here of genuineness.
And may I remind you that this message about genuineness is a common message from the Lord. But seemingly one that has been much overlooked in the Christian church in contemporary times. The Lord repeatedly speaks about genuineness, true disciples as over against false, the real as over against the fake. For Him this matter of who is real is essential. And so He talks about real salvation as opposed to that which is facade very frequently.
In Matthew alone it is a constant issue. For example. if you go back with me to chapter 5 verse ?0, the first message our Lord gave, He said this: "For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." And here He says there is a genuine righteousness, and there is a false righteousness and unless you have the real thing you'll not enter the kingdom. And He is focusing on the non-reality of the righteousness of the Pharisees.
If you go to the seventh chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, you will find in verse lS the same focus. "Enter in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be who go in that way. Because narrow is the gate and hard, or compressed, is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it." In other words, He says there are these two roads which seemingly go to God but the one is real and the other is false. The one leads to life, the other to destruction. Make sure you're on the right road.
And in verse l7: "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall...what?...
know them." And again He contrasts the genuine and the false. Then in verse ?l again He says: "Not everyone that says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom, but he that does the will of My Father."
And then in verse 24 to 27 He says: "There are two people who build religious houses. One builds on a rock, and it stands. And one builds on sand,and it falls."
Now, go with me for a moment to chapter lS, and the Lord begins the chapter with a discussion of a sower and seed. And the sower in verse S went forth to sow. And when he sowed some of the seed, verse 4 says, fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them.
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth; and forthwith sprang up because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But other seed fell upon good ground and brought forth fruit, some hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
In other words, the Lord says in response to the preaching of the Gospel, there are at least four different things that occur.
And only one of them is really genuine reception. And He goes on to describe all of that clear through verse 2S.
He speaks in verse 24 of the same issue again. This time it is a parable of a man who sows wheat in a field and an enemy who sows tares, and the inability to tell them apart and the fact in verse SO that they have to grow together until the Lord tells them apart. For He alone is the one who knows whose real.
You find it also in verse 47 of chapter l3, the kingdom is like a net cast into the sea and gathered every kind in it. When it was full they drew it to shore and sat down and gathered the good into vessels and threw the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the age, the angels will come forth and separate the wicked from among the righteous and cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
In a sense, the church is that net. And it pulls in all kinds of things that have to ultimately be separated...the true and the false.
So, we're not surprised now when we go back to chapter 10.
And we find a lesson on genuineness again because this fits our Lord's pattern of thinking as He approaches who is a real disciple.
The Apostle Paul put it this way, and I think its...its a good word for us to remember in this context. In Romans he said:
"All Israel is not Israel." That's a very, very provocative insightful statement. All Israel is not Israel. In other words, all who are outwardly Jews are not inwardly Jews. All who are outwardly identified as the people of God are not inwardly the people of God. And we could say then, all disciples are not disciples. All followers of Jesus are not followers of Jesus. We could even say all the church, as we see it, is not the church. And that's what our Lord is saying here. And here we find the marks in Matthew 10:24 to 42, of a genuine disciple. The marks of the real thing. And in this passage our Lord is preparing His disciples, sending them out, and He gives marvelous instruction to them, then broadens His instruction to encompass the whole of discipleship. And I really think the message here is a message, first of all, about genuineness.
Secondly, its a message about effect. Who is a real disciple and how does he affect his world, and how is he affected by his world.
Now let's go back to verse ?4 and find the initial hallmark of discipleship that we've been mentioning. The first characteristic of a true disciple is that he is like his Lord. He bears the character of Christ. That's why in Acts il:28 they were called Christians...Christiani...iani means belonging to the party of.
They were little Christs. They belonged to Christ. They manifested His character. They bore the marks of His pattern of life. A true Christian not only wears the name of Christ but he bears the character of Christ. And that's what it says in 24, "The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord, but it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord." And we went into that in great detail. A true disciple is going to manifest the character of Christ. Oh, they'll be lapses, to be sure, because of our humanness, but nonetheless there will be evidence of Christlikeness in the life of a true believer.
So, basically, the hallmark is that we are like Jesus Christ.
If we say we abide in Him, I John 2, we ought to walk as He walked.
That is the only verification there is. Christ's life produced in us, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ live it in me. And that must be made manifest. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away and all things have become new." That newness must be manifest.
So, the mark then is Christlike attitude, character manifestation.
But, the secondary hallmark is that if we are like Christ, we will find ourselves being treated like Christ was treated, that's in verse ?5 also. If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? So, what does it mean to be genuine? It means to manifest the character of Christ and thus to be treated as He was treated. When we move into the world with Christlike character the world will react to us the way they reacted to Him. That's the message of John 15 and 1B, isn't it? Don't be surprised if the world hate..hates you because it hated Me. So then, a true disciple is Christlike and is treated like Christ was treated.
So, if you're genuine you can expect the world to reject you.
That's what it means to be identified with Christ. Therefore we can now understand how to tell a true disciple by how he reacts to what the world does. So the Lord then, having given the principle in verse 2? and 25, then moves on and gives five marks of a true disciple. And they are sort of notations about his response to the pressure and persecution of the world.
First of all, we said that a true disciple fears not the world.
verses 28 to 8l. And we've already gone into that in detail, but a true disciple is not afraid of the world. He's not intimidated by the world, first of all, because he knows he will be vindicated.
verse ??.
Secondly, because he venerates God, or worships God, verse 27, and 28. And thirdly, because he knows how valued he is by God who will care for him, verse 2? to Sl.
So, a true disciple is not intimidated by the world. He's not afraid of the world. When the world is hostile, when the world is persecuting, when the world ??ves against him, when the world ostracizes him, or alienates him, he's not afraid, because he commits himself to the Lord. He is utterly and totally given over to the Lordship of Christ at any price, even the hostility of the world.
Secondly, and we studied this last time, a true disciple favors the Lord. A true disciple favors the Lord. Verse 32 and SS indicate that he will confess Christ before men, and thus be confessed before the Father by Christ. He will not deny Him, but he will confess Him. In other words, when the heat is on,and the pressure is on,and the persecution's on, and the world is attacking the true believer will confess Christ. He won't bail out. He won't deny his faith. He won't recant. He'll stand up and proclaim Christ no matter what happens. And he is the one whom Christ will confess belongs to Him.
So, a true disciple, a true believer, a true Christian is one who fears not the world. He is so committed to the Lordship of Christ that he's not afraid of what men might do to him, and he favors the Lord. When he comes to the point of having to confess, he will confess and not deny Jesus Christ no matter what it costs him.
Let's go to a third, a true disciple forsakes the family. A true disciple forsakes the family. Verse S4, our Lord says: "Think not, or don't be under the illusion, that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword." Now this is a most dramatic statement. He says - Now some of you who are real will confess Me when you're brought to the tribunals, and the courts of men, and you have to face men even in day to day life.
Some of you will deny Me because it isn't that important to you.
and you'll save your neck and your reputation, and whatever else.
And that just proves that I have come to bring a sword, I cause divisions. I force people to decisions that separate one from another.
The very fact that some confess Christ and some deny Christ indicates the coming of Christ causes divisions. And so Jesus builds on that reality.
Now the Jews pretty well had figured out from the Old Testament that when the Messiah came He was..He was coming to bring peace. And we understand that. That's part of it. They were aware of that. They were aware that Isaiah ? said that He was to be the prince of peace. They were aware, for example.
of the psalmist and it's a marvelous word of hope in Psalm 72, as it talks of the kingdom. It says the mountains shall bring peace to the people. It says in the days...in His days, rather, the days of Messiah, shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace as long as the moon endures. In Isaiah chapter 2 verse 8 it says, "Many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the "Mountain of the Lord," this is in the millennium, "to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." And then it says: "He shall judge among the nations, shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation.
neither shall they learn war anymore." In that day there won't even be any weapons because there won't be any need for them' there won't be any war. There will be peace. And so they knew that the Messiah was coming to bring peace.
And as Jesus is speaking to the disciples, you see, they had already begin...begun to experience the peace in their hearts that came with being with Jesus. And they may have been anticipating that this bliss would just extend to everybody.
That is, they were sent out to preach, the whole world would fall at their feet. That the Messiah had arrived. And that He was...a King of peace, and !hey were experiencing this euphoria of being with Him. And everybody would just respond and it would all be a wonderful, peaceful kingdom.
But they didn't want to be just...just isolated to that view.
That wouldn't be the picture. So the Lord says - Don't be under an illusions about me coming to bring peace. I've come not to send peace, but a sword. Now its expressed in that verse as if it was the intention of our Lord's coming, and consequences are often expressed as if they were intentions. For in the ultimate sovereignty of God they have to be seen that way. But here the direct result of His coming is described as if it were His deliberate intention. And this is, in a sense, a paradox. The Lord is saying on the one hand - I'm a prince of peace, on the one hand I've come to sa..to bring peace, but on the other hand you have to realize that there's going to be a sword.
And the Old Testament saw both of these things, in a way.
The Old Testament saw the...the fracturing, it saw the breaking asunder. For example, in the sixth verse of the seventh chapter of Micah it says this, talking about the time when the Lord comes:
"The son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies are the men of his own house." That is almost directly quoted by our Lord in the next verses.
So, the Old Testament saw the Messiah as a King of peace, but also saw a division as potentiated by His coming. Because there would be some that would accept, and there would be some that would reject. And you know, the Jews also believed this. In some of the Rabbinical writings we find this statement: "In the period when the Son of David shall come, a daughter will rise up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
The son despises his father, the daughter rebels against the mother' the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are they of his own household." end quote. That is in the Rabbinical writings.
So, they knew on the one hand the Messiah would come for peace, but on the other hand He would come to cause a division.
It's as if Jesus is saying - It's just going to be the division that you're going to see for the moment. The intervention of God in history through the incarnation of Christ is going to split and fracture the world into segments, into parties that will be pitted against one another. So don't be under any illusion as you go out as a disciple to think the whole world's going to fall at your feet. You're going to go rushing home and tell everybody you've become a Christian. You're going to tell everybody at school, you're just...and everybody's going to wonderfully line up to sign on the dotted line. It's not going to happen.
In fact, Martin Luther said: quote: "If our gospel were received in peace, it wouldn't be the true gospel." end quote. And he, if anybody ever saw it divide, saw it divide. Stuck in the Catholic Church he preached the truth and it didn't bring peace, it created the biggest rift in the history of religion. It effectively shattered the complacency of the Catholic Church and gave birth to the protestant Reformation.
Now, in a real sense verse S4 is paradoxical because we should expect the Lord to bring peace. After all John the Baptist was His herald and he..he was to talk about peace. And when the angels proclaimed His birth they said, "peace on earth." And Jesus in John 11 said, "My peace I give unto you." And in John i8 He said:
"In the world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world," and again promised them peace.
The Apostle Paul in Romans, at least three places, talks about the peace that God has given us. Well, there is peace in the heart of the one who believes. But as far as the world is concerned there is nothing but division. Yes, He brought peace to the heart of a believer, the peace of God, peace with God, peace from God. And someday there will be a kingdom of peace, but the Old Testament didn't see a difference between the first coming and the second coming, didn't see that time in the middle. The first coming brought a sword, the second coming will bring ultimate peace.
Oh yes, the first coming brought a partial peace, that being the peace that comes to the hearts of those who believe. But the Lord says - You just remember this as you go out, you're going to cause division. You're going to cause a fracturing and a rending and a splitting apart.
The Gospel does that. It is the refiner's fire that consumes.
It is the shepherd's separation of the sheep and the goats. It is the husbandman's fan when he throws the grain into the air and the chaff is blown away. There's a separation. The entrance of Christ splits, tears apart.
If Christ had never come the earth would have gone on in unity to hell...doomed. But when He came a war broke out.
In Luke chapter 12 we see something of this in verse 4g. "I am come to send fire on the earth," He said. "And what will I if its already kindled?" Verse ?l: "Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth, I tell you, No, but rather division and from henceforth there will be five in one house divided; three against two, and two against three, and the father divided against his son, and the son against the father, and the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, and the mother-in- law against the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law. I came to bring fire. I came to bring a sword, not peace."
And the worst possible expression of this is in the home because it gets right down to the most meaningful relationships.
Right? And so what He's really going to say here is this - If you're a true disciple, you'll be willing to even create a division in your own home which goes against the grain of your nature, doesn't it? Cause that's the place you want the peace. That's the place you want to keep intimacy. That's...that's...those are the people you love. You don't want to be at odds with them. But you will be true when you commit yourself to Jesus Christ with such commitment to His Lordship that even if it fractures your home you're willing to pay the price.
Look at verse S5, and here's how He expresses it: "I am come to bring a sword, even to this extent that I would set a man at variance against his own father." By the way, the word at variance is a rare word, used only here in the New Testament, it means to cut asunder. I will cut a man off totally from his father. "And a daughter from her mother, and the daughter-in-law against a "mother-in-law." And He extends it from that very immediate family to the family by marriage. I'll fracture families every way possible. It's just the way it's going to be.
Now this is the worst rending that occurs. I mean, it's not so bad when you're at odds with your neighbor, or your boss, or your friend, or..or your acquaintance, but when it gets into the family and you're commitment to Jesus Christ means that you are set at variance against your family, that's where it really begins to rub. It goes against your...your affection and your love for them.
It goes against a harmony that you have to live with. But it will come right to that level. And being a Christian and following Jesus Christ may mean that you have created a division in your own home. But that's the mark of a true disciple. He's not going to hang on to those relationships to the extent that he will not commit himself to the Lordship of Christ.
Remember the ninth chapter of Luke verses 8l and 82, this guy came along and he was going to follow Jesus. And he said -I want to follow You but first let me go home and bid farewell to my family. And Jesus said, "No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom." Jesus said, I'm not going to accept you. Because you're too attached to your family. You'll never make the break. You'll never pay the price.
There are wives that will not come to Christ for fear of separation from their husband. There may be husbands who will not come to Christ for fear of separation from their wives. There are children who will not come to Christ for fear of their fathers or mothers...visa versa, and etc. People who will not take a stand for Christ because they want to maintain that family thing.
But Jesus said - The true disciple will forsake his family.
Now it doesn't have to be that way. I thank God that I didn't have to forsake my family to be a Christian. But when it comes this will be the test, you see, if it comes.
I talked to a girl two weeks ago at Hume Lake who said she has become a Christian from a totally pagan family and she said my father will not speak to me. He will not have anything to do with me. He will not even talk to me if I call him on the phone, he hangs up. And then she said - I..I would think that he would be happy that I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not a drug addict, that I'm not a criminal, and not walk in the streets like a prostitute, that I'm not...haven't been in some terrible accident, crippled, or injured. I've never had such joy in my life and he won't talk to me. And I said that's because of the sword.
It fell between Cain and Abel, didn't it? Abel was a righteous man, Cain was an unrighteous man and the cleavage was so great that Cain couldn't stand it and he murdered his brother.
In I Corinthians chapter 7 it tells us how it comes right into a Christian marriage. It says if you have an unbelieving wife, and she wants to stay with you, don't divorce her. And if you women have an unbelieving husband who wants to stay with you, then let him stay. Because there's a sanctifying that occurs. "But if the unbelieving departs then let him depart, a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, for God has called us to peace."
That's the other side of it. Once the sword falls, then God's called us to peace and if he wants out, let him out. It's going to happen.
It happened with Cain and Abel and its still happening.
Somebody in a family commits himself to Christ and some of you know what I mean by this, and everything breaks loose. And then it comes down to the reality of that commitment. The real disciple will forsake his family if it has to be.
You see, beloved, what we're talking about is the Lordship of Christ and I saw this again and again, but its got to be repeated until people begin to hear it, becoming a Christian is affirming your commitment to the Lordship of Christ to the point where you forsake everything. It isn't just sticking up your hand, signing a card, walking down an aisle and saying - I love Jesus. It is by faith, not by works but the manifestation of true faith is a commitment that cannot be swayed by any influence.
Yes, you love your family and you love your children and your parents and your husband and your wife, and those people in immediacy to you, but your commitment to Christ if you're a real disciple is so deep and so profound and so far reaching that you will say no to those which are the normal extensions of your affection for the cause of Christ, if need be.
John Bunyan knew all about this, only in a kind of a special way. They told John Bunyan to quit preaching, but he said - I cannot quit preaching because God has called me to preach. And they said - If you preach we'll put you in prison. And so he said to himself - If I go to prison who cares for my family?
But how can I close my mouth when God has called me to preach?
And so he committed his family to the care of God and was obedient to the call of God and preached, and they put him in prison. And since then he's blessed millions of families because it was there that he wrote pILGRIM'S pROGRESS.
Listen to what he said: "The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place, as the pulling of the flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I have besides. O the thought of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces...But yet, recalling myself, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you; O I saw in this condition, I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children; yet thought I, I must do it, I must do it." end quote.
I pray to God I never have to make that decision, don't you?
And for some of us it doesn't have to be but for some of us it may.
Some of you have had to make a choice. You've confessed Jesus Christ and its alienated from...your family from you, but that's the way we prove the reality, you see. The one who says I'm not willing to make that sacrifice isn't genuine.
Verse S8 says: "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." That's true. Christ came to bring a sword, and the sword falls in the house.
And then verse S7: "If you love your father or your mother more than Me, you're not worthy of Me." Reversing it, if you love your son or daughter more than Me, you're not worthy of Me.
You can't be My disciples is what He's saying. You can't receive the salvation I offer if you're family means more than I do. You must make that break.
Now there is something even more apt to rob Christ of His rightful place in the heart of an individual, even more than the family. You know what it is? The love of his own life. You might want to be willing to take Christ and lose your family, but would...would you be willing to take Christ and lose your life? Now you're getting right down to where I live. Right?
I mean, I might say okay to the family deal. And so the Lord goes one step further and talks about giving up your life.
Now we're getting serious about whose a Christian, aren't we? And so we say the true disciple fears not the world, favors the Lord, forsakes the family, and fourthly, follows the call.
Verse SS: "He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." The whole point of this section is to stress one thing, verses SS and S?, listen, it is to stress total self denial to the point of death.
Now mark this, total self denial to the point of death. The Lord is really zeroing in who is a true Christian. One who is not afraid of the world, he is not intimidated by the world. One who favors the Lord and confesses Him, not matter how hostile the forces may be. One who says I love You more than I love the people that are closest to me in this world, and if it comes to that I'll choose You over them. And now it says, I love death for Your sake better than life for my sake.
Now you're getting down to whose real. Now verse 88 puts it so simply, "He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me." Now you've heard a zillion devotionals on that verse...bearing your cross, taking up your cross. And you probably have heard, like I have, so many definitions of what the cross is...your wife, my wife is my cross, your husband, my husband is my cross. I've got this one teen-ager, he's my cross. Your mother-in-law...your I??? Chevy...your leaky roof...your particularly distasteful class at school...a teacher that drives you crazy...your neighbor...your boss...the guy who works next to you. No, those are not your cross. I hate to do that to you, you've got to find a new category for all of them. What is your cross? And He...He said to them, "You have to take up your cross." Now what did they think about that? Well, I've even heard people say - Well, they were viewing Calvary. They didn't view Calvary, they hadn't even heard about Calvary. They didn't even know Jesus was going to die on a cross. I mean, after He told them they still didn't understand it and they hadn't even told them yet. They don't see Calvary here, this isn't some weird, mystical deal about the cross they don't understand, and it isn't some devotional thing about some person or object in their life. When He said - Take up your cross.., they knew immediately what He was talking about. He was talking about dying, just plain old dying.
How they'd know that? They were of...they were from Galilee with the exception of Judas Iscariot, all eleven others were from Galilee. And very recently there had been an insurrection in Galilee lead by Judas of Galilee, and Judas had gathered a band together and decided to throw the Romans out. And the Romans won.
And the Romans crushed Judas and his insurrection, and the Roman general Varus, V-a-r-u-s, wanted to teach the Jews a lesson so he crucified over two thousand Jews. And he put their crosses up and down all the roads of Galilee so everywhere the people went they saw them hanging on these crosses along the roadside. And every Jew that was crucified carried the crossbeam for his own execution on his back as he marched to the cross. And these Galileans had seen all of that. And Jesus is talking to them in historical context and He is saying - He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me. You need to be willing to die, He says...rather than deny Me. This is a symbol of painful, torturous death. The most excruciating death man has ever invented is crucifixion. It's slow and the slumping of the body on the wounds that are created by the nails not only causes excruciating pain at the point of the wound, but eventually suffocates the internal organs.
And He's saying - You take up your cross, you must be willing to go to the most excruciating painful torturous death imaginable.
Now I'm telling you, He really has the standard up there. I mean, Jesus isn't somebody you just say - Yeah, man, I'd like to have Jesus so I'll just say a little deal, a prayer, whisst, add it to the rest of my life. Committing your life to follow Jesus Christ means you would not only forsake your family, if need be, the people closest to you that you love the most, you'd lose your life. That's a mark of genuineness. And you're never to be intimidated by the world, you'd confess Christ in the most hostile environment, its the mark of your genuineness.
They understood that He meant death. They understood that to take up the cross means abandoning myself to the Lordship of Christ if it means I pay with my life. You see, the love of Christ has to overrule the normality of family love and the love of Christ has to overrule the instinct of self-preservation.
Then He adds this rich thought in verse 3g; "He that findeth his life shall lose it." What do you mean by that? Finding his life means securing his physical safety by denying Christ under pressure. Boy, if you're trying to hang onto your life and make sure that you don't ever get in too hot, or in too deep - Boy, I'm not willing to make that sacrifice, boy, I'm not going to give my life for the Lord. I'm not going that far. Man, I'm going to bail out. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to recant. I'll say -Hey, forget it. I just became a non- Christian. Don't throw me to that lion. I mean. I'll be anything. I'll be a...I'll worship any-body, just don't put me in there.
In finding you life. in securing your physical life you just lost your soul. But, if you're willing to lose your life for My sake, you'll really find eternal life...in the end. It doesn't mean you get saved by being a martyr. it just means that if you're a genuine Christian you..you're willing to do that. When the issue is between the Lord and me, whether I live for me or die for Him, that's the ultimate test. The confessor who suffers death.
the one who confesses Jesus Christ and dies for it is far better off than the apostate who escapes death by denying Christ and receives eternal damnation. That's the issue.
Bunyan was brought before the magistrates when they put him in prison, and he said -"Sir, the law of Christ hath provided two ways of obeying: The one to do that which I in my conscience do believe I am bound to do, actively; and where I cannot obey it actively, there I am willing to lie down and suffer what they shall do unto me."
He was right. You do it actively and aggressively. and you pay the price. You see, it is better to lose everything. It is better to lose your ease and your comfort and to be hassled and intimidated, badgered by the world, it is better to even lose your family, it is better to even lose your life than to forsake Jesus Christ. And bless God, it is not that we will necessarily have to do all these, it's that if we're real when it comes to this we will do it. What a powerful lesson on true discipleship. These are the real ones.
See, up to now its all been kind of negative. A true disciple fears not the world no matter how intimidating they are. no matter how they try to threaten or scare us. A true disciple fears not the world. Secondly, favors the Lord, when they call for a confession he gives the confession boldly. Oh, there may be lapses.
as I said, but where there are lapses there will be repentance and sorrow. And a true disciple is willing to follow if it means loss of family, or loss of life. But that's all so negative. Isn't there a positive? I mean, is being a Christian just sort of being hassled by the world and having to confess before men and forsaking your family and giving your life...don't we do anything but create problems in the world? Sure we do. And the text ends on a positive note, and it is thrilling.
Verse 40, now just relax, and I want you to get this, don't be in a hurry to go anywhere, this is the best part. Fifth, -a true disciple fosters rewards...a true disciple, as well as creating war, and strife, and division, and separation. and friction, also fosters rewards. We do have a positive effect. You see. we are the destiny-determiners in the world. When we bring the sword that separates, on the one hand are the unbelievers, but on the other hand are the...what?...the believers. And when we preach and when we live and when we give our testimony, some believe, don't they?
And for them everything is so positive. Not everyone is going to refuse the message of the disciple, some are going to believe, some are going to receive them, some are going to receive their Lord.
And since we have limited ability to reward their faith, the Lord will do it for us.
Look at verse 40, this is great. "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me."
This is incredible. Let me tell you what's in the word receive here.
When you go out and you represent Jesus Christ and you speak of Jesus Christ and you give Jesus Christ's message, the people who believe it are the ones who receive you. It is a full receiving...
that they accept you and your message. And when you go out and they don't all get hostile, but some receive you, the ones that receive you are receiving the Lord. And the ones receiving the Lord are receiving the One who sent the Lord. So you know what? You become an agency of men receiving God Himself. What a marvelous thing, isn't it?
On the one hand you create this antagonism, on the other hand you create this marvelous reality that people receive God through you. Every time somebody says to me - You know I was saved when you preached...or, I received Christ when you talked, or when you told me the Gospel...I..I am thrilled beyond the ability to express.
Aren't you? Because God has used a frail, human instrument as an agency. And when someone receives us, they receive the Lord and the Father who sent Him. What an incredible thought. We give people the trinity, as it were. That's like John 14, you know, everything is bound up, I in the Father, and the Father in Me, and we'll both make Our abode with you. Great thought.
It goes beyond that even. Look at verse 41, "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward." That's a tremendous divine principle. By the way, a prophet is what he says, and a righteous man is what he is...and they really speak of the same individual. For a true disciple lives what he says. Right? He speaks and he is. He speaks the word forth and he is righteous.
The prophet is his task, the righteous man is his character. But he's a representative of God. And He says - When you go out representing God by your life and your lip, by your speaking and your living, those who receive you will receive the reward that you receive.
Now wait a minute. What does that mean? That just means exactly what it says. It could be a pastor, or a teacher, or a missionary, or an evangelist, or anyone who presents Christ, the one who receives that one will share that one's reward. If the Lord gives to me a reward for proclaiming to you, He'll give you the same reward for receiving what I proclaim. And we all share.
So, I then become a means to your blessedness. Do you understand that? So on the one hand when I proclaim - some are alienated. But on the other hand when I proclaim - some will receive the very reward that God has promised to give the one who preaches. So you become the instrument by which others are blessed.
You want to be a blessing in the world? Then confess Christ before men. Then stand up boldly and don't mitigate your testimony, and don't be ashamed of Christ. And let your life become the source of their reward. Great thought.
Look at verse 42. When you think of prophets and righteous men you think of kind of high class people. But the Lord brings in to verse 42 a wonderful thought. "And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no way lose his reward."
What is the little one here? Young disciples, babes, a little nobody disciple. And by the way, that's what the twelve were right now, did you know that? At this point in their career they were a bunch of unproven nothings. Remember our series in the beginning of chapter 10? The company of the unqualified? They were nobodies.
And He says - When these go out to preach and to present Me, if you receive them, and you can demonstrate that by giving them just a cup of cold water because they're My disciples. In other words, you're helping them in the simplest way, responding to them in a simplest way, you in no way will lose your reward. People then will be rewarded when they believe our message because they'll receive the salvation we preach. They will be rewarded when they receive us because they will share in the very reward we have for proclamation.
And they will be rewarded when they help us along in our ministry because God will not hold back a reward to those who have shared in the minister....and his ministry.
So, you know what its saying? We then become the source of blessedness for others. We give them the privilege of hearing and receiving. We give them the pleasure of receiving and being rewarded. We give them the pleasure of giving to us and being doubly rewarded. So the good thing you do for the messenger will be rewarded. The fact that you receive his message, you'll share in his reward. The fact that you receive his Savior, you'll receive his Saver's salvation.
A disciple then is a person who is a determiner of destiny.
And even the least of us shares with the greatest of us in what God does in blessing us.
There was a lad in a country village. And after a great struggle he reached the ministry. All through his days of study there was a cobbler, shoe repairman, in the village who had helped him. He was a simple man but a well read man and a man who loved God with all his heart. In time the young lad whom he had helped became licensed to preach, and on the day of his ordination the cobbler said to him, - Young man, he said, I always had in my heart the desire to be a minister of the gospel, but the circumstances of my life never made it possible. You are doing what was always my dream, but never reality. I want you to promise me one thing, said the cobbler. I want you to let me make your shoes for nothing, and I want you to wear them in the pulpit when you preach and then I'll feel you are preaching the gospel I always wanted to preach, standing in my shoes.
You receive a prophet, and a righteous man in the name of a prophet and a righteous man. In other words, because of who they represent you receive a disciple no matter how meager he is because of whose disciple he is. And in effect, in that true receiving you're receiving the message they bring and the message is the Savior and the Father, and you will...you will embrace the whole of the blessedness of God's eternal gifts to those who are His own.
I'll tell you. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is pretty fantastic. You become the source of conflict for half the world, and for the other half the source of blessing. But you and I who are the disciples of Christ, we are the issue in the world. We draw the lines. I pray, God, we'll be willing to follow the Lordship of Christ at any price, that some may be antagonized and some may be blessed.
In the LEGEND OF THE EAGLES, George D'Espartes says, "The most heroic piece of self-sacrifice known to history occurred in the building of a bridge." It is an incredible story. It was in the dead of winter. And the French army was pressed on all sides by the Russian Cossacks. The Cossacks had destroyed all the bridges and Napoleon was at his wit's end. He had no way to go to escape. Suddenly there came an order that they might build a bridge across the river immediately behind them. And the men nearest the water were the first to carry out the almost impossible task.
Others, after a few minutes, sank through cold and exhaustion.
Some were swept away with the force of the moving icy water. But more and more men came and the work proceeded as fast as possible.
At last the bridge was complete and the army reached the opposite bank and was completely safe. And then followed the most dramatic scene, and one of the most touching recorded in the annals of history. When the men who had built the bridge were called to leave the water, not one of them moved. Clinging to the pillars, says the historian, they stood silent and motionless, frozen to death. And even Napoleon shed tears.
In a real sense God may call on you and me to give our lives to build a bridge for someone to cross into the presence of God.
If you're real, you're willing. Let's pray.
Just as we close this morning, would you just in your heart refresh your commitment to our Lord? Let the Holy Spirit give you words to pray silently. Would you renew your commitment to Him?
Be an obedient disciple who submits totally to His Lordship. And where there have been those lapses, would you confess them? And renew that commitment to stand for Christ.
Father, thank You for our time this morning, for Your Word and its power and penetration in our hearts. Bring us back tonight again with excitement and anticipation of what You have to say to us. And may we be true disciples, willing to follow You, not intimidated by the world, loving You more than our families, yes, more than our own lives. And knowing that while there is hostility created by our confession we also become the source of blessedness for those who believe. For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
To overcome critical software development challenges and reduce development costs, the software engineering field has developed practices such as requirements engineering, analysis and design technologies, process engineering, and the like. Many of these practices apply to the implementation phase of development; for example, coding standards, refactoring, inspection, and static analysis. Among them, coding standards are the fundamental way to improve code readability, help individual developers produce consistent code, and prevent error-prone coding styles.
Samsung Electronics has focused on improving code quality by defining and enforcing internal coding standards. Wethe QA teamused a coding standards conformance checker for this purpose, but we did not regularly apply this initial checking tool to our software development. Because of tool weaknesses, we used it only sporadically during final audits. As a result, we saw only minimal improvement to code quality.
More recently, we evaluated Parasoft's C++test and applied it throughout an on-going project ("Mobile"). In this article, we describe our experiences and share what we learned. Here, a "coding standards item" is a guideline described in the company's coding standards or conformance documents; a "coding standards rule" (or just "rule") is a codified programming rule in an automated coding standards tool.
Samsung Electronics is a major consumer electronics company. Although Samsung started as a hardware-centric vendor, software is quickly becoming a major concern for us, as it is for most other consumer electronics vendors. The Mobile project is a Samsung Electronics C/C++ development project designed to develop a reusable and extensible object-oriented software framework mainly targeting mobile devices. Our QA team is an independent group responsible for testing software produced by Samsung Electronics. We invest considerable time evaluating automated tools in an effort to minimize routine work.


text:
Prandelli defends Balotelli after gesture
Italy coach Cesare Prandelli has defended Milan's Mario Balotelli following his yellow card for a gesture towards the home fans at Cagliari.
Balotelli was cautioned by referee Daniele Doveri for unsporting behaviour after scoring an 87th-minute equaliser in Sunday's game, which Clarence Seedorf's men went on to win 2-1 thanks to Giampaolo Pazzini's late header.
The booking will see Balotelli miss Milan's next Serie A match at home to Torino through suspension, and he was fined for a similar incident against Inter in February last year.
However, Prandelli, who manages the former Manchester City forward at international level, insisted Balotelli still has his full support, while also praising the way new Milan coach Clarence Seedorf handled the situation.
"Balotelli will learn. He will need much love, he is a guy who we grant much to and who for Milan is important," the 56-year-old said.
"I believe that Seedorf has said the right things and that with his help we can pull out the good things that Mario has inside.
"With Balotelli, Seedorf has used the right words. I'm not sure if he will have a lot of patience for him, but definitely a lot of love, because he is a boy who we hold very dear.
"Will he never learn? He will learn, he will learn."


text:
If Only Newspapers Put As Much Effort Into Correcting Errors That Didn't Involve Captain Kirk & Captain Picard
from the trouble-with-tribbles deptOn the Media points us to a rather extensive and amusing correction from News.com.au concerning its mistake in suggesting Captain Kirk was in charge of Captain Picard's spaceship in Star Trek:
YESTERDAY, a news.com.au article incorrectly stated that the Star Trek starship USS Enterprise-E, otherwise known as model NNC-1701-E, was the successor to Captain Kirk's original USS Enterprise.It goes on from there, noting additional concerns about "the incorrect use of the term 'hyperspace' in describing warp drive technology." Obviously, this is a very tongue-in-cheek mocking error correction (and, if you don't believe that, just check out the photo they included with the article), poking fun at people who take Star Trek just a bit too seriously.
It has since been brought to our attention that the NNC-1701-E in fact came two models after Captain Kirk retired and was under the command of Captain Jean Luc Picard.
User "Your Mum's Lunch" led the charge of those who correctly pointed out that after losing the original Enterprise to the Klingons, Captain Kirk was given the Excelsior Class Enterprise-B as a stop-gap measure until the refit of the Enterprise-A was completed.
Kirk's last ship was the Ambassador Class Enterprise-C.
Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E were in fact, the first of the Galaxy Class models and were under the command of Captain Picard.
Furthermore, not to jump on the Star Trek nitpick wagon here, but even the correction itself is in need of correction. Any Trekker worth their salt knows that the Enterprise's designation is "NCC-1701-E" and not "NNC-1701-E."
That said, however, what struck me is how rarely you see any sort of actual correction of this nature for important stuff that publications actually do get wrong. Usually, they just make the changes to the article, and maybe append a small note at the bottom about how "changes were made," but rarely do they explain the mistakes that were made, or publish a separate article explaining the errors. And that's why the original, error-filled stories often get more attention than the corrected versions.
Filed Under: corrections, errors, journalism, star trek


text:
STAGE TUBE: Watch LES MISÉRABLES' 'One Day More' Now!
LES MISERABLES might not open in movie theatres until Christmas day, but that doesn't mean you have to wait another week for a sneak peek. Check out 'One Day More' from the movie below!
Under the direction of Tom Hooper, the film will star Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Russell Crowe as Javert, Sacha Baron Cohen as Thernardier, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, Aaron Tveit as Enjolras, Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, Samantha Barks as Eponine, and Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thenardier. Original stage stars Colm Wilkinson, Frances Ruffelle and more will reprise their roles from the London production.
Les Miserables originally opened in London at the Barbican Theatre on 8 October 1985, transferred to the Palace Theatre on 4 December 1985 and moved to its current home at the Queen's Theatre on 3 April 2004. When LES MISERABLES celebrated its 21st London birthday on 8 October 2006, it became the World's Longest Running Musical, surpassing the record previously held by "Cats" in London's West End. In January 2010, The West End production broke another record by celebrating its historic 10,000th performance.