The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement and disability payments to 73 million people every month, is facing federal employee cuts of up to 12 percent of its workforce — reductions led by Elon Musk and his DOGE team.
During a Fox News interview with President Donald Trump‘s former Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow (below), Musk said: “The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — which is most of the federal spending is entitlements — so, that’s, like, the big one to eliminate. That’s the, sort of half-trillion, maybe $6-700 billion a year.”
The world’s richest man has also called Social Security “a Ponzi scheme.”
Stop lying, Fake Sherman. He was clearly talking about the WASTE in the programs. Here’s the indisputable video. https://t.co/agjCk9eOaE pic.twitter.com/NSwVwGLXJQ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 11, 2025
President Biden’s Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley told the New York Times of DOGE: “Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public.”
Acknowledging fragility in the system due in part to legacy software and the instructional knowledge needed to operate it, O’Malley — as the Times describes — fears that DOGE has “taken most of the actions necessary to create a total system collapse, whether in skyrocketing wait times for customer service, system interruptions or a timely payment of benefits.”
As seen below on MSNBC, O’Malley (former Maryland Governor and Mayor of Baltimore) said of Trump and Musk: “They’re trying to break [Social Security] so they can loot it.”
“They’re trying to break [Social Security] so they can loot it.”
Former Social Security Administration Commissioner @martinomalley.bsky.social breaks down Musk’s efforts to destroy Social Security to raid its trust fund.
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@insidewithpsaki.msnbc.com) March 9, 2025 at 2:23 PM
At an event on Thursday hosted by the National Academy of Social Insurance — a nonprofit organization dedicated to “increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security” — President George W. Bush’s former SSA commissioner, Republican Michael Astrue, said of DOGE and Social Security that “there are a lot of opportunities for efficiency…but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.”
Astrue called Musk’s chainsaw tactics to the SSA “extremely destructive.”
Jason Fichtner, former SSA Deputy Commissioner under Astrue, added of Musk’s approach: “It’s more like a drunk operating a wrecking ball.”
Below is the entire National Academy of Social Insurance bipartisan briefing on the consequences of DOGE’s recent SSA Cuts.
🚨Here’s the must-watch panel on DOGE attacks on Social Security I posted about earlier (before the recording was available). Note that even sane Republicans like Michael Astrue and Jason Fichtner are extremely alarmed.🚨
youtu.be/7HlBgv38vNs?…— Monique Morrissey (@moniquemorrissey.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 10:24 AM