February 5, 1973
Page 3309
ROBERT M. BALL: AN EXTRAORDINARY SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I wish to pay special tribute today to Robert M. Ball, a truly remarkable public servant.
Bob Ball began his career with the social security system in 1939, shortly after the enactment of this landmark program.
He has served the Social Security Administration in many capacities, and always with distinction. In 1962, he became Commissioner, a post he held through three administrations.
Bob Ball served Democratic and Republican Presidents alike, but he was always vigilant in keeping politics out of the social security system. With his leadership, the integrity of the social security program was maintained at the highest level – free from corruption, scandal, or mismanagement.
During his 11-year tenure as Commissioner, some of the most monumental improvements were enacted into law, including:
Medicare;
Five social security increases aggregating almost 84 percent to raise benefits to a more realistic level;
Automatic cost-of-living adjustments to help make social security inflation-proof ;
A new special minimum monthly benefit for persons with long periods of covered employment and low lifetime earnings
Liberalization of the retirement test and provision for future automatic adjustments in the exempt earnings limitation; and
Extension of medicare coverage to nearly 1.7 million disabled persons under age 65.
These are just a few of the contributions which he and the Social Security Administration helped to advance to improve the lives of present and future retirees.
Now the Social Security Administration has been given important new responsibilities: The administration of the supplemental security income program which will, for the first time in our history, build a floor under the income of older Americans. Beginning in 1974, this program will replace the existing adult categorical assistance mechanism – aid for the aged, blind, and disabled.
A major reason for assigning the Social Security Administration this vital function, I believe, is because of the high degree of public confidence in the system. The system works, and it works well. Quite clearly, Bob Ball deserves a great deal of credit for the efficiency of the Social Security Administration.
He has made an indelible imprint upon the system during his 30-plus years of service.
For these reasons, I urge President Nixon to exercise the utmost attention and concern to insure that his successor possesses the same outstanding attributes as Bob Ball. In describing the essential qualifications to be the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Bob Ball gave this candid assessment:
He should be someone with experience in running a large Federal agency, he should be nonpolitical and a humanitarian.
His sound and sensible advice should, in my judgment, be heeded by the President when he chooses a successor.
Several recent articles and editorials have described the extraordinary qualities of Bob Ball.
Mr. President, I commend these news accounts to the Senate and ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the items were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Evening Sun, Jan. 25, 1973]
BALL SAYS SSA PROVES GOVERNMENT CAN WORK
(By Anne S. Philbin)
Robert M. Ball, retiring commissioner of Social Security who has served three presidents, hopes Americans will remember that social security "is at the very least, a big exception" to widely expressed views that government isn't working.
"There seems to be a lot of feeling today," he said in a farewell interview in his ninth floor office at Woodlawn, "that federal programs, particularly many Great Society programs, are not working well.
"If this is true, and I am not sure it is," he added, "I think Americans shouldn't forget social security is a big exception.
"It is by far the largest of federally financed programs in the area of health, education and welfare, and accounts for almost one-fourth of the country's entire budget."
Explaining this, Mr. Ball said that in 1974 the Social Security Administration will be paying out about $70 billion, with one out of every eight Americans in the country receiving a monthly check.
The $70 billion figure includes $54.73 billion in social security cash benefits, about $10 billion for Medicare payments, $408 million in "black lung" benefits to miners and their widows and children, and an estimated $3.5 billion to be paid out under the Supplemental Security Income program effective January 1, 1974, for the needy aged, blind and disabled.
MINIMUM INCOME
SSI guarantees a uniform minimum income of at least $130 a month for an individual and $195 monthly for a couple; it is a 100 per cent federally financed and federally administered program.
Mr. Ball said he believes SSI is a "very good addition to the social security law. The federal payments will be higher than those now paid by more than half the states," he said.
"The amount is getting closer to what people need to live on," he added, "and certain onerous and restrictive features of some state welfare assistance programs such as home lien laws, will be removed."
Mr. Ball said he thinks social security cash benefits, which have increased more than 70 per cent in the last five years, have "reached a new level of adequacy."
"We now have the automatic provision which will keep benefits up to date as the cost of living goes up. Also, benefits rise as a worker's earnings rise. Medicare coverage has been broadened to include disabled persons under age 65.
"Over a hundred other changes in social security and Medicare have improved the protection of present and future workers and their families. Americans are paying more but they are getting more," he commented.
SOUNDLY FINANCED
Mr. Ball said the social security program is "completely and soundly financed, under present law, to the year 2011."
Touching upon administrative policies and leadership which have molded the Social Security Administration into what President Nixon has called a "model for other government agencies," Mr. Ball said he is very proud of a number of things that have happened during his 11-year tenure as commissioner.
"We have made a great deal of progress in training minorities for better jobs with SSA, opened up more career opportunities for women, pioneered in fair housing for our employees, sponsored a volunteer program whereby our employees respond actively to community needs, and supported a substantial educational program.
"We have a strong union (American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1923) which does a good job in protecting employees; it is aggressive, but responsible," Mr. Ball said.
"And I think SSA has had a positive impact on the Baltimore area in the 19,000 jobs it presently provides here plus the 3,000 that will be needed to implement the recent legislative changes."
NEW BUILDINGS
Mr. Ball said the agency's expansion program would include new buildings "here at Woodlawn and also in downtown Baltimore."
Although he said it would be difficult to leave SSA at this particular time in history when the agency faces major problems in implementing H.R. 1's legislative changes, Mr. Ball indicated his departure was a "mutual agreement" between the President and himself.
He said he plans to write, answer questions raised by those who attack the social security system, and help in the development of long-range policy on national health insurance. On the latter, he said "the question today is not if we need it, but how we can accomplish it."
Mr. Ball began his federal career in 1939 as a field assistant in a New Jersey district office at an annual salary of $1,620. He worked his way up through the ranks and by 1954 had become deputy director of the former Bureau of Old Age and Survivors Insurance. Through government reorganization, this bureau was to become the Social Security Administration in the early sixties.
Since April, 1962 when President John F. Kennedy appointed him commissioner, Mr. Ball has been serving "at the pleasure of the President, for the time being."
SHOCKED SURPRISE
Between then and now, he has submitted four pro-forma resignations to Presidents Johnson and Nixon. When the fourth was accepted by the White House early this month, the announcement was greeted in SSA and official Washington with shocked surprise, principally because Mr. Ball is as respected for his management leadership as his knowledge of social insurance.
He is also well-known and well-liked on Capital Hill, having testified at every congressional hearing on social security since the Fifties.
In describing the qualifications needed by his successor, Mr. Ball, in the judgment of his peers, has used the words they would use to best describe him.
"He should be someone with experience in running a large federal agency, he should be nonpolitical and a humanitarian."
During his 30 years of federal service, Robert M. Ball has placed his indelible stamp upon the social security system. Of all the schemes generated to promote the welfare of the nation's people, social security stands almost uniquely in its absence of associated scandal and accomplishment of its mission.
[From the New York Times, Jan. 25, 1973]
POLITICS, POLITICS EVERYWHERE
(By Wilbur J. Cohen)
ANN ARBOR, MICH.– The recent forced resignations of key personnel in the department of Health, Education and Welfare is an ominous omen of worse things to come.
The termination of Dr. Robert Q. Marston, the distinguished director of the National Institutes of Health, has already been viewed by scientists as the possible politicalization of the institute, which no previous Republican or Democratic Administration has ever attempted. Dr. Marston has been recognized as a nonpolitical and able administrator of an important, difficult and scientific assignment. No reasons were given for his termination from a position so vital to continued expansion of our medical research capacity.
The resignation of Robert M. Ball, the outstanding commissioner of Social Security, is a further recognition that the Nixon Administration fails to understand the importance of retaining its key administrators in its key programs. The Social Security program has always been run on a nonpartisan basis. There has been up to now no political interference in the program by any Administration since it was established in 1935. Ball's superior competence has been recognized by all previous secretaries of H.E.W. His departure prior to the implementation of the massive and far-reaching legislation recently passed by Congress and approved by the President is premature and unfortunate. Next year, total expenditures under Mr. Ball's supervision will exceed $70 billion.
Certainly, changes in personnel in governmental programs are desirable and inevitable. But there is a difference between wholesale and retail changes. The Nixon Administration appears to be trying to tell employees in the various departments that they must recognize who is the boss – the White House.
Government programs such as medical research and Social Security must depend upon the professional competence and morale of the employees who administer them. This is a delicate, sensitive and precious set of elements. It may take many years to build; it can be destroyed in a moment. There is a lack of understanding in high places of the political importance of nonpolitical administration of services vital to the American people.
Prof. John R. Commons, the distinguished labor economist of the University of Wisconsin, used to tell his students that an inadequate law which was well administered was to be preferred to a good law, badly administered. The Nixon Administration appears to want to prove that it can administer good laws badly on a reduced budget without first class administrators – a dangerous experiment.
The forced resignations of many able persons in other agencies of government – such as the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Geoffrey Moore – tend to support this dismal conclusion. The Commissioner of Labor Statistics is a four-year-term appointment. No other Commissioner of Labor Statistics in any previous Administration has been asked to resign before his term expired.
In 1969 the Nixon Administration also fired the chief of the Children's Bureau which no Administration had ever done in the 57-year, nonpolitical history of that bureau. No Administration has such a record of interference in statistical and early childhood development programs.
These personnel changes must be viewed in terms of the repeated White House interference and reversal of Secretary Richardson's recommendations, to name but two: the rejection of his compromise with Senator Ribicoff on the welfare-reform bill, and the lack of consultation on the veto of the Hill-Burton hospital construction amendments.
Coupled with the unprecedented Presidential vetoes of H.E.W. appropriation bills, and the attack by John D. Ehrlichman of the White House staff on the employees in the department prior to the election, why should competent men and women of stature and integrity take any of the jobs vacated? The health, education and welfare of all of the American people are too important to be sacrificed for political purposes.
[From the Evening Star and Daily News,
Jan. 15, 19731
OUSTER AT SOCIAL SECURITY
The word "bureaucrat," like the word "politician," has gathered a distinctly deprecatory ring to it. The public has grown more distrustful of big government, and so it has become fashionable, even in this town that lives by big government, to dismiss the man who works for government as something of a second-rater.
It is all too bad. For though second-raters, and third-raters, abound in government, as they do in private employment, the disparagement of the bureaucracy ignores the hard-working and the able in government ranks, and it ignores those relatively few people who can fairly be called superb public servants.
Robert M. Ball is in that last category of bureaucrat. He will be, at least, until his successor is named and takes over as commissioner of Social Security. Whatever bothersome questions that have arisen about the legislative principles and the financing of Social Security, there is almost universal agreement that here is one government program that works: The computers whirr; the checks go out; public confidence in the system remains high. Bob Ball can take some of the credit for this.
Ball has been with Social Security since 1939 (or almost since its inception. He has been commissioner for the last 10 years, a period in which the system experienced a mighty expansion in size, scope and complexity. As an administrator, keeping on top of the legislation, knowing what had to be done, and doing it in an apolitical way, Ball rode the expansion tide in admirable fashion.
All of which brings up the question: Why did President Nixon accept Ball's pro forma resignation? Ball, it is known, wanted to stay on. And he had reason to stay on, for in light of 1972 legislation further expanding the system to include all the nation's adult welfare programs, Social Security faces a challenge at least as complex as in the move eight years ago to establish Medicare within the system.
What the White House has in mind may become clearer when Ball's successor is announced. In the meantime, we believe the burden of proof is on the administration to show that it can come up with someone of Ball's stature, and someone who will not politicize this key position.
Congressman Wilbur Mills, whose knowledge of the system is unequaled on Capitol Hill, says he'll be "watching carefully" the choice of a successor. That's good to hear. We hope a lot of other people, in Washington and elsewhere, will do the same.
BALL LEAVES TOP SSA POST
Veteran Social Security Commissioner Robert Ball resigned under what he termed "a mutually acceptable decision" with the White House.
The 58-year-old career federal official was named commissioner of the vast Social Security Administration by President Kennedy. He was in the forefront of the fight for Medicare and other expansions of Social Security, and was regarded as one of the government's most knowledgeable officials.
No successor was announced.
Although he ran Social Security with an expert hand and generally managed to steer clear of political involvement, Ball was a firm believer in the ability of Social Security to handle larger responsibilities, such as Medicare.
His convictions clashed with those of former chief Social Security actuary Robert Myers, who resigned several years ago after accusing Ball of pushing unlimited expansion of Social Security.
In his letter to President Nixon, Ball said his "personal preference after nearly 11 years as commissioner of Social Security, has been to ask you to accept my resignation, effective at the beginning of the new term. I have refrained from doing so only because of my concern for the program and the Social Security organization during the coming period of great challenge.
Ball's resignation follows the departures – some voluntary, some not – of the entire top echelon at HEW's health department. Only Food and Drug Commissioner Charles Edwards, MD, remains. He is reported under consideration for promotion.
[From the Scranton Times, Jan. 13, 1973]
NIXON MISTAKEN IN FIRING BALL
(By Bruce Biossat)
WASHINGTON.– President Nixon's dismissal of Robert M. Ball as commissioner of Social Security raises some serious questions about how to achieve and maintain skillful management in the government bureaucracy.
Since the agency has always been deemed to be off-limits politically, it would be a bad slip if the President were to name a successor whose experience suggested he was less a qualified social insurance expert and more an out-and-out political appointee.
But, actually, that is the shallow, obvious aspect of the matter, easy to judge. There is a deeper issue.
Ball has headed the Social Security Administration for nearly 11 years, and for roughly an equal time before that he was deputy commissioner of SSA's predecessor agency. His entire working career falls within the social insurance realm.
Does this kind of service make a man go stale and leave him empty of new ideas?
There is a school of thought that would say yes, automatically. The proponents of this view contend that turnover at the top level should occur fairly frequently. The argument can be guessed. Change assures regular infusion of fresh ideas, new energies, flexibility. Men of long tenure, it is suggested, cannot fill this need.
The argument has undeniable plausibility. The woods are full of executives and administrators whose energies flag and whose imagination runs thin. Rigidity and complacency often set in all too quickly. Against this very real prospect, change – even systematic change – looks like a sound rule.
Yet there is a strong counter-argument put forth steadily in the field of public affairs. Its core is that there are always men with a great capacity for self-renewal, continuing growth, and adaptability to altered circumstances and problems. Such men not only can meet new challenges, but have a way of searching them out.
Here again, the contention has undoubted force. The corporate and government landscape is well dotted with figures whose long service in top posts is a consequence not of power but of demonstrated abilities maintained through markedly changing times.
Proponents of this point argue, incontestably, that to dispense with or shift such leadership from its proved realm is to waste human resource, to deprive a society of commanding individuals who serve its institutions as a keystone holds an arch together.
Does Robert Ball deserve such an accolade as this? There are a good many men in the U.S. Congress and many practiced observers of public service performance who believe he does.
He has presided over Social Security during its transformation from an agency of modest scale to one of enormous size and increasing complexity, and seen it hailed as the best of bureaucracy. In 1965, he laid over it the huge framework of the Medicare program, a task reasonably pictured as one of the greatest peacetime administrative assignments in history. He is a tireless innovator who knows his field as he knows the lines in his hands.
In 1972, Congress handed SSA new challenges for 1973 and 1974. Everything in the record suggests Ball was the man above all to meet them. His expertise is unmatched and at 58 his powers and talents seem undimmed. He is a public servant of genuine distinction. In casting him out, President Nixon has made a gross error in judgment.
[From the Port Arthur (Tex.) News, Jan. 15, 1973]
WAS BALL DISMISSAL MISTAKE?
President Nixon's dismissal of Robert M. Ball as commissioner of Social Security raises some serious questions about how to achieve and maintain skillful management in the government bureaucracy.
Since the agency has always been deemed to be off-limits politically, it would be a bad slip if the President were to name a successor whose experience suggested he was less a qualified social insurance expert and more an out-and-out political appointee.
But, actually, that is the shallow, obvious aspect of the matter, easy to judge. There is a deeper issue.
Ball has headed the Social Security Administration for nearly 11 years, and for roughly an equal time before that he was deputy commissioner of SSA's predecessor agency. His entire working career falls within the social insurance realm.
Does this kind of service make a man go stale and leave him empty of new ideas?
There is a school of thought that would say yes, automatically. The proponents of this view contend that turnover at the top level should occur fairly frequently. The argument can be guessed. Change assures regular infusion of fresh ideas, new energies, flexibility. Men of long tenure, it is suggested, cannot fill this need.
Yet there is a strong counter-argument put forth steadily in the field of public affairs. Its core is that there are always men with a great capacity for self-renewal, continuing growth, and adaptability to altered circumstances and problems. Such men not only can meet new challenges, but have a way of searching them out.
Does Robert Ball deserve such an accolade as this? There are a good many men in the U.S. Congress and many practiced observers of public service performance who believe he does.
He has presided over Social Security during its transformation for an agency of modest scale to one of enormous size and increasing complexity, and seen it hailed as the best of bureaucracy. In 1965, he laid over it the huge framework of the Medicare program, a task reasonably pictured as one of the greatest peacetime administrative assignments in history. He is a tireless innovator who knows his field as he knows the lines in his hands.
In 1972, Congress handed SSA new challenges for 1973 and 1974. Everything in the record suggests Ball was the man above all to meet them. His expertise is unmatched, and at 58 his powers and talents seem undimmed. He is a public servant of genuine distinction. In casting him out, President Nixon has made a gross error in judgment.
[From the Asheville Times, Jan. 6, 1973]
AN UNFORTUNATE NIXON FIRING
President Nixon's shakeup of the federal bureaucracy perhaps moved a step too far when he accepted the requested resignation of Robert Ball as head of the Social Security Administration.
The word out of Washington hints that Ball, who worked his way up from the civil service ranks and was named Social Security Administrator by President John F. Kennedy, had too many close contacts in Congress for the liking of the White House.
If so, it is a pity. Robert Ball served with considerable distinction as head of the vast Social Security Administration. He was one of the architects of Social Security's disability and Medicare provisions, and received the Rockefeller Public Service Award for the supervision of the vast social insurance program which now provides benefits to one of every nine Americans.
Ball can bow out with a very clear conscience. Knowledgeable observers in Washington rate the Social Security Administration as perhaps the best of all the federal agencies. There has never been a breath of scandal connected with it, and the experts hold that administratively it functions with a minimum of waste and lost motion. People who have had occasion to do business with regional Social Security offices can testify to the fine courtesy and efficiency of the staff members.
The nation owes a debt of thanks to Robert Ball. It's too bad that he had to fall victim to the Nixon pruning hook.
[From the News American, Jan. 8, 1973]
CHANGE AT WOODLAWN
The resignation of Robert M. Ball as commissioner of the Social Security Administration is regrettable.
Mr. Ball was planning to retire, but it was his hope that he could stay through the crucial period over the next few years when far-reaching provisions of House Resolution 1 are being implemented.
President Nixon, bent on replacing top federal administrators with men of his own choice, decided otherwise. The job is a presidential appointment.
Mr. Ball was supported by powerful congressmen, And a fight could have been made over his ouster, but he chose to avoid one on the sensible grounds that no one wins or loses in such circumstances.
Baltimore, the national headquarters of Social Security, has a keen interest in the person picked to run the agency. Whoever is selected will have a difficult task filling Mr. Ball's shoes. Not only was Robert M. Ball a career agency employee, he also was intimately acquainted with the changes made in H.R. 1.
This measure, enacted by the 92nd Congress, contained provisions so broad in scope that the Woodlawn headquarters will be working overtime in the months ahead to implement them.
Social Security, for example, will be assuming the states' responsibility for old-age assistance, aid to the disabled and aid to the needy blind in 1974. Its responsibilities in the administration of Medicare have grown. The agency, in short, has been handed a gigantic task by Congress, and the post of commissioner is no place for a novice.
Mr. Ball's consolation is the knowledge that he presided over Social Security during a time of great change, including the creation of Medicare, and successfully led the agency through the period with a minimum of turmoil. It is unfortunate that he will be unable to remain through the final days of change.