Tag: Social Security

Categories
Elon Musk Social Safety Net The Trump Adminstration WTF?!

Former Social Security Commissioner Warns: Musk’s Meddling Likely To Cause ‘Interruption’ Of Benefits

As unelected POTUS Elon Musk and his cadre of young computer hackers continue to muck around in federal government data systems that control payments from various programs, anyone receiving monthly Social Security benefits should start preparing for the worst-case scenario of not receiving their check in the near future.

That’s the warning from former Social Security commissioner Martin O’Malley, who served in that post during the Biden administration.

O’Malley told the Washington Post that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is akin to the proverbial bull in a china shop, and something is bound to get broken.

“At this rate, they will break it. And they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley noted that Sex Offender-in-Chief Donald Trump’s choice of Leland Dudek to be acting commissioner of Social Security doesn’t bode well for what Social Security recipients can expect.

“It’s a shame the chilling effect it has to disregard 120 senior executive service people,” O’Malley added. “To pick an acting commissioner that is not in the senior executive service sends a message that professional people should leave that beleaguered public agency.”

The Trump administration pooh-pooed those warning that Social Security could be facing a crisis that would delay payments, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling Fox News that “fake news reporters” were fearmongering and DOGE was merely trying to find and eliminate fraud in the program.

And Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, had this to say about Musk and his minions’ intentions:  “President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.”

All of that will be cold comfort to millions of senior citizens if and when the funds they earned and depend on to live are suddenly missing from their bank accounts.

Categories
Elon Musk Social Safety Net

Elon Musk Says Social Security Has To Be Cut To Eliminate ‘Fraud’

Unelected POTUS Elon Musk is trying to justify massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by claiming there’s widespread “fraud” in the system which provides retirement income and healthcare for seniors and the neediest Americans.

In a post he made on social media, Musk claimed, “At this point, I am 100% certain that the magnitude of the fraud in federal entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Disability, etc) exceeds the combined sum of every private scam you’ve ever heard by FAR. It’s not even close.”

This isn’t the first time Musk has claimed Social Security is rife with imaginary fraud

He did so on Feb. 8, too.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being dispersed to people without a Social Security card? You don’t even exist in the United States without a Social Security number, so that pretty much eviscerates Musk’s claim.

As for people at the Treasury giving Musk an estimate of the annual fraud in the system, how about he gives us the names of those officials so we can contact them and verify they spoke with him? Otherwise, it’s just a bullshit line that anyone can utter.

Musk’s online rantings drew immediate pushback, Newsweek notes.

Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, remarked. “Social Security beneficiaries and their families have every reason to be alarmed by Elon Musk’s takeover of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s payment system, which is responsible for paying Social Security benefits.

“Seniors, their families, and people with disabilities most certainly cannot trust Trump and Musk with their crucial federal benefits – or their personal data.  We hope that the courts will halt this effort to hijack the Treasury Department’s payment system for blatantly political purposes.”

And Martin O’Malley, former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration warned:

“This is not about efficiency. This is about two things. This is about stealing the personal data of Americans. And it is about taking a lifetime of earned benefits, your Social Security benefits, and turning it into a bitcoin bank!”

Elon Musk has no right to mess with anyone’s benefits. If he does, he should be arrested, put on trial, and placed in prison.

 

Categories
Elon Musk The Trump Adminstration WTF?!

Musk Associate Can Now Deny Tax Refunds And Halt Social Security Payments

Expecting a tax return this year? Or are you a Social Security recipient? If you’re either and expecting federal funds from the Treasury Department, you may soon be disappointed and destitute because a close personal associate of Tesla/Twitter CEO Elon Musk is now deciding who does and doesn’t get paid.

Silicon Valley executive Tom Krause has been named financial assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, according to the Washington Post, replacing David Lebryk, who resigned rather than give a Musk ally so much power.

Krause will have absolute control over what’s known as the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which dispurses some $5 billion annually to programs such as Medicare, Social Security, tax refunds, and thousands of other programs, including some that Musk says should be terminated because he claims they’re illegal.

“The decision puts Musk’s DOGE in a potential position to make sweeping changes to the federal budget, with implications for tens of millions of Americans,” the Post notes. “The payment system, run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, contains sensitive taxpayer information, and some former Treasury officials have expressed concerns about granting access to individuals with private business interests. The move has also touched off broad alarm within the Treasury Department, the people said.”

“This is the bureau designed to be run by a career, nonpolitical person, but being taken over by a member of DOGE,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury Department official now at the Brookings Institution, a D.C. think tank. “It’s pretty scary — the Fiscal Service is the bureau of the people who cut the checks. They don’t determine who gets the checks. And the data that goes through this is of massive national security consequences.”

So an unelected official who has not been approved by Congress can now determine whether or not you get the money you need to pay your bills every month. Did you vote for Kamala Harris or Joe Biden? That might be a disqualifying factor Tom Krause can use to keep you from getting your monthly check even though you worked for decades to earn your retirement income.

Then again, Musk might just decide that he needs your money more than you do and demand that Krause steer billions of taxpayer dollars into his business ventures such as the SpaceX rockets that explode more often than they launch successfully.

Scared yet? If not, you aren’t paying attention.

 

Categories
GOP Social Safety Net WTF?!

GOP Congressman: ‘We Can Move The Retirement Age Back’ To ‘Save’ Social Security

Republican Congressman Mark Alford (MO) said this morning that the way to cut trillions from the federal budget is to “move the retirement age back” and “save” Social Security.

On Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria, Alford said both Social Security and Medicare need to be changed because “people are living longer.”

Referencing a visit to Capitol Hill last week from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been charged by Donald Trump to slash the federal budget, Alford said, “You know they were here the last week speaking to members of Congress and really they weren’t speaking as much that’s were listening, getting some — from all sides of our conference — some ideas to cut our budget.”

The Missouri Republican added:

“We all agree this is an unsustainable area that we’re in right now — almost $36 trillion in debt and we are spending more on the interest on our debt than we are going to spend on the National Defense Authorization Act this year. Over a trillion dollars. And so we’ve got to right the ship and it’s going to mean cuts. It’s going to mean cuts to the 24% of the discretionary spending that we have and it’s also going to mean looking long-term at the front end of some programs like Social Security and Medicare. Not taking anyone off of what they paid into so far. But there is some waste, abuse and fraud in Medicare that we can take those numbers back and add to our general coffers and our treasury. And on the front end on Social Security, I think there’s a way, when people are living longer, they’re retiring later, then on the front end we can move that retirement age back a little bit.”

Move the retirement age back? How far? To the age of 70? To 80? Or would 90 be better for the GOP?

Hey, maybe we should say no one can ever retire and has to work until the day they die. And those who become unable to work can just starve, thereby making them less of a burden on the government. Sound good, Congressman Alford?

Here’s a better plan: Tax the rich at a rate of 50 percent or higher and cut every member of Congress’ salary to $5 a year with no benefits until they solve the problem without screwing over working people.

Categories
Elon Musk GOP Social Safety Net

Spurred By Elon Musk, The GOP Sounds Ready To Slash Social Security

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.