The Social Security Administration denying Veterans benefits in record numbers: WHY we ask are there so many HOMELESS Veterans

Personally I find this whole process to be bogus and depressing. If you have depression already, this process just adds to the problem. Their whole position on the matter is to deny everyone. VA doctors send you to the SSA to apply and you get the run around, and we ask why? are there so many homeless veterans. They would rather sleep on the streets, than to be belittled talked down too.

NO VETERAN SHOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION OF JUST BEING ANOTHER NUMBER!

The Many Ways to Define Disability

If you are wondering why the V.A. has approved you for disability benefits, but you got a Social Security Disability denial, the answer may lie in the fact that every government agency and private insurance company has its own definition of disability. Some of the public agencies are state workers compensation, state or county public assistance programs, the Veteran’s Administration, commonly known as the V.A., and the Social Security Administration. Some agencies even have more than one definition of disability, depending on the age of the claimant or other factors.

The Social Security Disability Definition

If you are a disabled worker, to be eligible for Social Security Disability, you must meet Social Security’s definition of disability, which is not the same as the V.A.’s definition. Social Security requires that you be unable to engage in substantial gainful activity in any type of job you have held in the past or, if you are under age fifty, in any other job you can perform. As of 2014, “substantial earnings” was generally defined as $1,800.00 for blind individuals and $1,070.00 for everyone else. You may have been approved for V.A. disability and denied Social Security Disability because Social Security does not make partial disability determinations and the V.A. does. For example, if the V.A. finds you to be 55% disabled, then they will pay you 55% of the full benefit. In contrast, Social Security does not pay such partial benefits. If you are able to earn substantial earnings, as defined by Social Security, then you are not eligible for benefits even if you have lost 55% of your function.

Border failure rocks House GOP leadership

It’s hard to overstate what a humiliating failure this is for the House Republican leadership team, especially House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

House Republican efforts to build support among their more conservative members collapsed Thursday as Congress prepares to cut town for a month-long recess without first passing a funding bill to address the thousands of unaccompanied minors being detained at the U.S. border.

Confronted with the Republican leadership’s inability to shore up enough votes, House Speaker John Boehner pulled the doomed legislation, which would have provided $659 million in emergency aid to the U.S. border.

Congress is still prepared to leave town tonight for a five-week break, but lawmakers will leave having accomplished nothing in response to the humanitarian crisis along the U.S./Mexico border.

There’s still a small chance the House GOP will figure something out – there will reportedly be an emergency meeting within the hour, though it’s unclear what good it will do – but after exhaustive efforts, it appears House Republicans have killed their own party’s policy.

It was the first real test for the new House Republican leadership team and they appear to have failed miserably.

In a statement, Boehner blamed President Obama for Republicans’ inability to pass their own legislation and urged the president to take unilateral action regardless of Congress. The timing is breathtaking: literally yesterday, GOP lawmakers voted to sue Obama for circumventing Congress, and less than 24 hours later, Boehner is publicly urging Obama to circumvent Congress.

The resulting image is a helpless party, lacking leaders, direction, and purpose. House Republicans were desperate to prove they’re capable of being a governing party, and in the process, they’ve proven the opposite.

To be sure, the GOP border bill was, on a substantive level, pathetic. It would have done very little to address the problem, and its demise is a positive development for the country.

But the real story today is one of epic incompetence and a party that’s practically developed an allergy to completing the basic tasks of government.

This is, of course, great news for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who now appears to have more influence over what happens in the House than the actual House Republican leadership team.But in the meantime, John Boehner’s Speakership is turning into something of a tragedy. How many times has he put together a bill, only to be betrayed by his own followers? A Democratic source on Capitol Hill recently sent around a brutal collection of bills Boehner asked his members to support, only to see his own House GOP conference reject his appeals: a grand bargain, a debt-ceiling bill in 2011, a payroll tax extension, a transportation bill, a farm bill, one fiscal-cliff bill, another fiscal-cliff bill, another farm bill, and then yesterday. I think my source might have even missed a couple, including the collapse of Boehner’sdebt-ceiling bill in February 2014.

We’ll have more on this later, but for now Boehner has to be asking himself about the value of a leader with no followers. As if we needed additional evidence, he remains the Speaker In Name Only.