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What a weird story this is. A few years ago, someone tacked an amendment onto a farm bill that lifted the 10-year statute of limitations on collection of old debts to the government. So now the Social Security Administration is intercepting tax refunds in order to collect on ancient overpayments.

But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that in some cases, they’re seizing money from the children of dead beneficiaries who were overpaid as long ago as the 60s and 70s. According to the Washington Post, “Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent, the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred.”

But wait. Even that’s not the weirdest part of the story. This is:

A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice’s tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government — a very old debt. When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them. ….Social Security officials told Grice that six people — Grice, her four siblings and her father’s first wife, whom she never knew — had received benefits under her father’s account. The government doesn’t look into exactly who got the overpayment; the policy is to seek compensation from the oldest sibling and work down through the family until the debt is paid.

WTF? They just go after the eldest child first and work their way down? All because their mother was (allegedly) overpaid, which means a bunch of teenage kids benefited three decades ago? That’s got to be the most cockamamie thing I’ve ever heard of.