Top 10 Agency Excuses

1. We could not have anticipated recent events. (Use this excuse when events were not only predictable but certain, e.g., demographic changes and retirement of Agency personnel.)

2. We know about that problem and are working on it. (Use this excuse especially if there is no realistic expectation that the problem will ever be solved.)

3. Identifying the problem is a big part of the problem. If critics would just shut up and if the news media would get back to its proper business (following Paris and Britney), Agency personnel, especially senior management, could get back to work.

4. The private sector has problems too. (Use this excuse when the Agency tries to limit the private sector from serving the public and when inefficiencies particular to government are at issue.)

5. Federal courts interfere in Agency functioning. (Use this excuse particularly when a federal court finds that the Agency is not following its own mandatory rule.)

6. Agency programs are too complex. The Agency cannot be expected to do things right. If Congress wants the Agency to get things right, it should eliminate or truncate Agency programs. (Use this excuse especially when the Agency itself plans to complexify program rules.)

7. Agency policy does not mean what it says. (Use particularly when Agency policy means exactly what it says.)

8. Anyone dumb enough to rely on the assumed competence of the Agency deserves to be harmed by the Agency's incompetence.

9. The critic uses strong language; the critic is insensitive to the feelings of Agency employees, especially senior Agency officials and Agency adjudicators.

10. No claimant was ever erroneously denied benefits. Until an award of benefits is made, all prior denials of benefits are correct. (Use this excuse particularly when the earlier denials of benefits were outrageous.)