Social Security, the nearly 90-year-old, safety-net program that serves more than 73 million Americans, is under attack. Despite repeated assurances from President Trump that popular Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs would not be touched by his administration, his Department of Government Efficiency led by his special assistant, Elon Musk, has taken swift steps to drastically reduce Social Security’s staffing and customer service capabilities. That alone endangers benefits.
DOGE efforts reflect Musk’s view that the federal government is rife with “fraud, waste and abuse,” that public workers are lazy, faceless bureaucrats, and that there are too many of them. The frenetic pace of DOGE announcements in recent weeks, cutting thousands of federal jobs in multiple agencies and shuttering some entire programs, has shocked many and generated dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of DOGE’s directives.
Musk has softened (sort of) his callous, uncaring rhetoric in recent days in response to growing public outrage at the indiscriminate slashing of federal workers’ jobs, and congressional officeholders of all stripes have been roundly booed by their constituents at public town hall meetings. On Fox News he recently said that he is being “careful and compassionate” in his overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, despite a seemingly gleeful bull-in-a-china-shop approach. In a cabinet meeting last month, Musk admitted that DOGE had accidentally cancelled Ebola prevention funding in Africa before restoring it.
In reality, DOGE’s goal is not to streamline and improve government but to raze it. The label DOGE is a misnomer; Elon Musk and his techie staffers have no experience or knowledge of how government works, and by taking a “chainsaw” to department and agency staffing levels they have proven that they are clueless about efficiency. An efficient approach would be to identify and retain key employees, while carefully considering the loss of other jobs on key government services.
DOGE’s ham-handed approach to dismantling government by slashing the workforce and eliminating budget resources has nothing to do with efficiency. They want to cripple Social Security’s ability to serve its recipients by closing field offices, cutting back phone service so clients must wait hours to get questions answered, and inconveniencing them by requiring in-person visits to verify personal information.
Elon Musk exhibited his lack of truthful information after a brief review of the data by erroneously claiming that millions of dead people were receiving Social Security benefits. He also referred to Social Security in the media as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.” DOGE and Musk want to undermine the public’s trust in the Social Security Administration so they can argue it should be overhauled, and, maybe even privatized.
Social Security benefits have been regularly sent to millions of Americans for decades without any major controversy. Recipients and employers contributed to the Social Security Trust Funds throughout their working careers and earned the benefits they are receiving. For about 40% of retirees, Social Security is their largest source of retirement income. If homelessness concerns you now, imagine if Social Security goes away.
Traditionally senior citizens are one of the most reliable voting blocks in national elections. Elected leaders threaten their benefits or take them for granted at great personal peril.
Chris Heiserman is president of Retired Employees of San Diego County, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
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