Carrying his two-year-old son on his shoulders as he walked through the halls of Congress on Thursday, Twitter/X CEO Elon Musk made it clear that he’s ready to slash just about every government program to the bone.
Even Social Security? Yep. Even Social Security.
According to Jake Johnson of Common Dreams, Republicans who met with Musk seem willing to help dismantle the social safety net that has existed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.
On Thursday, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) emerged from a meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy with the message that “nothing is sacrosanct.”
“They’re going to put everything on the table,” said Norman, one of the wealthiest members of Congress.
After airing Norman’s remarks, Fox Business reported that Musk and Ramaswamy told lawmakers that no federal program is safe from cuts, “and that includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) even suggested that he was open to touching the “third rail” of American politics and cutting the social safety net, telling NBC’s Julie Tsirkin “perhaps mandatory programs are areas that they’re looking to make cuts in, like Social Security, for example.”
Musk has also been making his plans clear on his social media platform, amplifying posts from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who has previously said he wants to “get rid of” Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Ramaswamy is also opposed to Social Security. During an interview on CNBC, he said that there are “hundreds of billions of dollars of savings to extract” from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He alleges that all three suffer from massive waste, fraud, and abuse but refuses to provide details to support his accusations.
“People love to have lazy armchair discussions about, oh, are you going to make cuts to entitlements or not, when, in fact, the dirty little secret is that many of those entitlement dollars aren’t even going to people who they were supposed to be going to in the first place,” said Ramaswamy.
For his part, Donald Trump has repeatedly said he will not allow anyone to touch Social Security, but as Ryan Teague Beckwith of MSNBC wrote recently, Trump is known as a liar who cannot be trusted.
“Would Trump try to cut Social Security? It’s hard to say. Over the years, he has staked out every possible position on Social Security—sometimes within hours of each other.”
“So if Republicans—or Musk—decide to propose changes to Social Security benefits,” Beckwith adds, “it’s possible that he might go along with it.”
Possible? It’s almost guaranteed, because that way he and the Republicans can give more tax cuts to rich assholes like Musk and Ramaswamy, who appear to be controlling Trump whether he realizes it or not.
