Entitlements: DOGE goes after Social Security

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Elon Musk is “trying to convince Americans that our Social Security system is overrun by massive fraud,” said Nancy Altman in The Hill. He’s sent his DOGE minions in and come out with a claim that Social Security is paying out funds to millions of beneficiaries over 100 years old. That’s completely false, and in reality “the hardworking civil servants at the Social Security Administration are extremely diligent in tracking the deaths of beneficiaries.” But finding fraud isn’t DOGE’s real aim here. “Musk has made no secret of his disdain for our Social Security system.” It’s the same disdain that a few ultra-wealthy conservatives have expressed for decades. The difference is that now President Trump “is giving Musk the power to steal our earned benefits.”

Musk’s assertions about outrageous Social Security fraud have been almost instantly debunked, said Philip Bump in The Washington Post. Last week, Musk tweeted that DOGE had found records of Social Security recipients who claimed to be as old as 150. “It didn’t take long for other tech guys to point out” that this was obviously “a data error in an old system.” In 2023, the department’s inspector general released a report on the same thing: “There are millions of probably-dead people in the SSA system.” However, only 13 beneficiaries aged 112 or older were being sent checks. “But Musk isn’t very interested in the truth.” He wants to create enough skepticism about Social Security that “all government funding will be rejected as dubious.”

Fraud or not, Social Security is like the Titanic heading toward an iceberg, said Star Parker in RealClearPolitics, and we’ve set it “on automatic pilot.” Our Founding Fathers “would be aghast that today practically every young American is forced to pay into a Social Security that cannot fiscally honor its promised benefits” by the time they retire. “We must free young Americans” from this tragic course. A year ago, 178 House Republicans proposed “modest adjustments to the retirement age” for future Social Security recipients, said Paul Brandus in MarketWatch. “The vast majority of those Republicans were re-elected in November.” Voters no longer see Social Security as untouchable, and “entitlements are on the table.”

Musk’s bluster “would be less scary if not for other missteps,” said Gabriel Rubin in Reuters. DOGE has already made the government stumble into blunders like mistakenly firing critical nuclear safety workers, who then had to be urgently rehired. Giving Musk the power to “meddle” with Social Security risks similar mistakes that could cut off payments to the program’s 69 million recipients—many of whom rely on the benefit. Even if you want changes to Social Security, brazenly sowing doubt about the program with baseless claims of fraud “is playing with fire.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/entitlements-doge-goes-social-security-192602925.html

Keep your hands of our money you drugged out South African loser.

[Skittles]

1. and before anyone says SS is "not an entitlement"

it IS an entitlement: we paid into SS, we are ENTITLED to receive benefits

[spanone]

2. E X A C T L Y

👍🏼

[CountAllVotes]

20. If you don't pay into it

You don't get it.

You might get SSI which is a sheer hell to live by.

[Luz]

30. I have a friend, never worked a single day. She

filed for her ex-husbands. They were married 20 years. Shes been re-married for another 20 years, but gets it from 1st hubby. He's been dead 10-15 years.

[Martin Eden]

24. True; we are entitled to benefits for which we have already paid

But Republicans and their media propagandists for decades have turned "entitlements" into a pejorative they put in the same bucket with their "welfare queen" slur.

I'm not suggesting we abandon the term, letting them win a battle in their war on the meaning of words.

On the contrary, Democrats need to FIGHT BACK and cede no ground to the corrupt servants of the oligarchy who want to steal what we have earned through a lifetime of hard work without which they never could have become obscenely wealthy in the first place.

[Skittles]

25. thank you

FIGHT BACK indeed :thumbs up:

[Clouds Passing]

3. Not Entitlements! Insurance that the majority of us paid into!

That’s another term Orwell would be disgusted with.

[Skittles]

5. please stop

these are benefits we paid into so WE ARE ENTITLED TO THEM

STOP LETTING REPUKES SET THE NARRATIVE

[Clouds Passing]

7. The Republicans did set the narrative by calling them Entitlements!

Social Security Insurance

https://www.salon.com/2018/12/11/how-social-insurance-became-welfare-and-entitlements-and-what-we-lost-in-that-process/

“Then there is the term “entitlement,” which was meant to refer to the non-discretionary nature of the spending, but now connotes an adolescent sense of entitlement among the beneficiaries.“

“ Using the entitlement category in two senses is confusing and in that respect harmful. What citizens believe about the appropriateness of a program is a distinct concept from the budgetary rules about changing its provisions. Both are important, but when was the last time you, the reader, saw this distinction explained when the entitlement term was used? Instead, “entitlement” is used like a four-letter word in diatribes about the supposedly troubled future of social insurance programs.”

https://www.npr.org/2012/08/14/158756957/with-ryans-ascent-a-few-thoughts-on-entitlement

“ Rep. Paul Ryan has made changes to social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security — often called "entitlements" — a key part of his political agenda.”

[yellow dahlia]

8. Thanks for the Salon article from 2018. n/t

[Clouds Passing]

9. It's an excellent article about how the terms themselves changed the way people view Social Programs.

How the word entitlements was basically coined as a derogatory term to describe programs Rs hated and wanted to eliminate. The npr article also describes this phenomenon.

[yellow dahlia]

11. They are SO good at creating and owning a narrative. n/t

[Skittles]

12. yes but HELPING them do it kind of SUCKS

yes INDEED

[Avalon Sparks]

14. Maybe

But what they really succeed at is a monopoly of all mainstream media that’s owned by a few billionaires and that media repeats the same BS over and over and over again.

[yellow dahlia]

16. True n/t

[Skittles]

13. so DON'T FALL FOR IT

seriously

[Skittles]

10. WE ARE ENTITLED TO THESE BENEFITS

the fact that repukes DISTORT a word doesn't change its MEANING

[Clouds Passing]

18. Thats why I refuse to use the word Entitlements when referring to Social Programs.

Entitlements does have more than one meaning, but the Rs who coined the term meant it as a spoiled child felt entitled to that 5th cookie, that those receiving the benefits are lazy ne’er do wells who expect a handout.

It doesn’t help our cause to adopt the Rs derogatory Luntzian-like terminolgy.

[elocs]

29. Entitlements only in the sense that if you qualify to collect it then you are entitled to collect it.

But it's just word games.

[Clouds Passing]

31. Always word games and alternative meanings with the gqp. The problem is the

media picks it up and exalts the twisted meanings to sway peples opinions and IT WORKS!

[spooky3]

4. Every other developed country has some type of retirement system.

I wonder why they do

[Cha]

6. Fuck Mump... Keep your Greedy GD hands OFF OUR

Social Security that We Paid Into For Our Retirement.. You MF Nazi Leeches

[hamsterjill]

15. Musk keeps insisting that there is this massive fraud...

Yet he's provided no proof of any fraud whatsoever. Let's see the names of the people who are fraudulently getting payments. Let him file claims against those people and win in court. His word is about as good as his space rockets.

I agree with the OP that he is a drugged out South African loser. I'd just add that he's a maniacal, crazy drugged out South African loser.

[dalton99a]

17. The Nazi parasite is a grave and imminent danger

[TNNurse]

19. Entitlement.

"the fact of having a right to something". How did this word get twisted into something else?

I am damn well entitled to the money I paid into Social Security. It is mine, I have a right to it.

Thieves are trying to take it away. Common thieves.

[BidenRocks]

21. Massive Fraud

Thy name is Musk!

[moniss]

22. They don't need to do anything more than

raise the cap on income that is subject to FICA. All of the media and politician blather and nobody ever says "How about if we got more money?" It's always falsely presented as the money being finite. Also once the baby boomer demographic is less of a percentage in beneficiaries the problems are fewer also.

[Be Leave On]

23. eliminate the cap

Don't raise the cap -- eliminate it, and require SS contributions at that same rate on all income from any source, not just payroll.

[dweller]

26. skepticism about Social Security that "all government funding ...

See what they did there ?

Social Security is not government funded .
😐




✌🏻

[LetMyPeopleVote]

27. Musk and Doge will cut your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Link to tweet

[elocs]

28. Our Founding Fathers would be astonished to learn that hard working Americans

are being robbed of money they paid into Social Security for 40 years from each of their paychecks. Go after legitimate fraud but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.