Tag: Social Security

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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.

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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.

 

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Congress GOP Social Safety Net Viral Video

Lauren Boebert Gets Schooled By Social Security Official After Proving Her Ignorance Of Math

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) once again proved her seemingly unlimited ignorance on Wednesday during the questioning of an official from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

According to HuffPost, Boebert chastised the SSA official and suggested that employees for the agency are lazy.

Boebert told Oren “Hank” McKnelly, an executive counselor for the SSA, that the agency was allowing “delinquent employees to sit on their sofas at home” instead of “actually getting to work and doing their jobs” as she took aim at telework policies during a House Oversight Committee hearing.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Boebert, known for her bizarre behavior in and outside Washington, D.C.

McNeely told the congresswoman that all employees who work from home are monitored.

That led Boebert to ask, “Then why is the backlogs for Social Security applicants increased from 41,000 to 107,000?”

McNeely replied, “Because we’ve been historically underfunded for a number of years now.”

The congresswoman tried to be snarky, telling the official:

“I don’t think you’re underfunded. You’re funded at the Nancy Pelosi levels, at the democrat levels. We just continued that same funding.”

McNeely dropped the hammer on Boebert by using simple facts to refute what she’d just said.

“So I’d say we’d have an increase of over 8 million beneficiaries over the last 10 years. At the same time, we experienced our lowest work staffing levels at the end of FY 22. That’s a math problem. I mean, that is a problem. If you have those workloads increasing and you don’t have the staff to take care of those workloads, you’re going to have the backlogs that you’re talking about, representative.”

The video, which has more than 2.4 million views in less than 24 hours, also drew plenty of comments from other social media users.