Jon L. Christensen: “Today represents another step in our efforts to end wasteful Government spending and end the practice of supporting…”

“Today represents another step in our efforts to end wasteful Government spending and end the practice of supporting criminals at the taxpayers expense. Too many individuals serving time in our Nation's prisons currently receive regular Social Security payments, despite the fact that it's against the law. Current law prohibits prisoners from receiving old age, survivors, and disability [OASDI] benefits while incarcerated if they are convicted of any crime punishable by imprisonment of more than 1 year. However, despite current law prisoners are still robbing the taxpayers of their hard-earned money. The House-passed version of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 corrected this wrong by prohibiting prisoners from receiving supplemental security income [SSI] and OASDI benefits while incarcerated. Unfortunately, the OASDI provisions were not included in the final version of the bill before it was signed into law.”