Reports

Legislative Work Through its efforts, the Committee has seen 23 bills enacted into law and 74 bills passed by the House between 2011 and 2014. Notably, the bipartisan Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) was signed into law by the President on May 9, 2014 (p. 35). The DATA Act “requires Federal agencies to publicly report all of their obligations and expenditures–encompassing both external spending, such as ...

Key Findings: ·         All of the 48 ALJ focused reviews conducted by SSA and reviewed by Committee staff showed numerous deficiencies in ALJ decision-making and several disturbing patterns. ALJs conducted few or inadequate hearings, misused vocational experts, failed to properly assess work ability and relied too heavily on medical briefs prepared by claimants’ paid ...

Key findings: ·  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries.  FDIC’s explicitly intended its list of “high-risk merchants” to influence banks’ business decisions.   FDIC policymakers debated ways to ensure that bank officials saw the list and “get the message.” · Documents ...