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Trunp Promised to Protect Social Security. Musck Didn't.
Hired hatchet man, keeps Caligula isolated from his own policies and wet dreams?
THIS THUG HAS TO GO. (by peaceful means ... )
The Atlantic, archived
https://archive.ph/LwsRm#selection-737.0-737.55
DOGE comes for the “third rail of American politics.”
By Russell Berman
Musk recently called the program “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” and claimed that it’s rife with waste and fraud. DOGE staffers have gained entry to the Social Security Administration and obtained sensitive taxpayer data, and the Trump administration has cut the agency’s workforce by thousands. Earlier this week, Social Security officials announced changes that could make it harder for retirees to access their benefits. These moves—and Musk’s rhetoric—have frightened voters, who have jammed congressional phone lines and town-hall meetings to register their concerns. And they’ve alarmed GOP lawmakers, who could pay for Musk’s decisions in next year’s midterms.
If Musk wants to meet his goal of cutting $1 trillion in federal spending, he’ll have to do a lot more than eliminate USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and even the Department of Education. He knows the real money is in the three pillars of America’s social safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” he said earlier this month. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
Republicans have learned that going after these programs carries a huge electoral risk. Musk, apparently, has not. “He doesn’t think politically,” Tom Davis, a former House Republican from Virginia who ran the party’s campaign committee in the early 2000s, told me. His approach, Davis said, is “ready, fire, aim.”
Musk has “been quite successful in business, but he is clearly not very popular, and his DOGE actions are making him less popular,” a senior GOP strategist told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid provoking a fight with the president or his wealthy lieutenant. “He will end up being a heavy weight around the neck of not only President Trump but Republicans generally.”
If Musk wants to meet his goal of cutting $1 trillion in federal spending, he’ll have to do a lot more than eliminate USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and even the Department of Education. He knows the real money is in the three pillars of America’s social safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. “Most of the federal spending is entitlements,” he said earlier this month. “That’s the big one to eliminate.”
Republicans have learned that going after these programs carries a huge electoral risk. Musk, apparently, has not. “He doesn’t think politically,” Tom Davis, a former House Republican from Virginia who ran the party’s campaign committee in the early 2000s, told me. His approach, Davis said, is “ready, fire, aim.”
Musk has “been quite successful in business, but he is clearly not very popular, and his DOGE actions are making him less popular,” a senior GOP strategist told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid provoking a fight with the president or his wealthy lieutenant. “He will end up being a heavy weight around the neck of not only President Trump but Republicans generally.”
more at the link.
"Private Citizen" my ass. He's the hatchet man.
Take him down and the entire republican zombie party that won't disavow the traitor-in-chief, nor his hobby horse.
See also:
The GOP’s Fears About Musk Are Growing
https://archive.ph/bAihh#selection-737.0-737.38
3 replies
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