Donald Trump and Elon Musk are ramping up baseless claims that tens of hundreds of thousands of useless persons are accumulating Social Security funds, laying the groundwork to chop out “waste” and “fraud” as they give the impression of being to make dramatic cuts for a few of the most costly packages within the federal funds to pay for astronomical tax cuts for America’s wealthiest households.
Regardless of guarantees on the marketing campaign path that his administration wouldn’t contact Social Security, and claiming that his Democratic rivals are those making an attempt to finish it, Trump and the world’s wealthiest man and his allies are attempting to justify cuts to Social Safety and federal well being packages Medicare and Medicaid to provide you with Musk’s goal determine of greater than $1 trillion in financial savings.
On Fox Information on Wednesday, just lately confirmed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hailed the work of Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, which is “gonna lower a trillion {dollars} of waste fraud and abuse,” Lutnick stated.
“Give it some thought. We now have virtually $4 trillion of entitlements and nobody has checked out it earlier than,” he stated.
“You realize Social Safety is flawed, you understand Medicare and Medicaid is flawed, so he will lower one trillion,” Lutnick added. “Eliminate all these tax scams that hammer towards Individuals and we’re gonna increase a trillion {dollars} in income, and our goal, underneath Donald Trump, is to stability this funds.”
Lutnick additionally recommended Trump will create an “Exterior Income Service” and abolish the IRS to let “all of the outsiders pay” federal taxes for which Individuals are accountable.
Howard Lutnick has stated Social Safety and federal medical insurance packages are ‘flawed’ because the Trump administration appears to costly entitlements to pay for tax cuts to rich households (AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
In an interview with Fox Information host Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday, Trump promised that “Social Safety gained’t be touched, apart from if there’s fraud or one thing.”
“It’s going to be strengthened,” he stated. “Medicare, Medicaid — none of that stuff goes to be touched.”
In remarks to supporters at Mar-a-Lago Wednesday, Trump returned to Musk’s bogus claims that people who find themselves tons of of years outdated are accumulating Social Safety.
“We now have a really corrupt nation. Very corrupt nation. And it’s a tragic factor to say, however, uh, we’re figuring it out. However the benefit of Social Safety, and what I learn, is, if you happen to take all of these numbers off, as a result of they’re clearly fraudulent, or, incompetent, however if you happen to take all of these hundreds of thousands of individuals off Social Safety, rapidly we’ve got a really highly effective Social Safety, with folks which are 80, and 70, and 90, however not 200 years outdated,” in accordance with Trump. “So it’s a really optimistic factor.”
On Monday, Musk wrote on X that “having tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals marked in Social Safety as ‘ALIVE’ when they’re undoubtedly useless is a HUGE drawback.”
“Clearly. A few of these folks would have been alive earlier than America existed as a rustic. Take into consideration that for a second,” he stated.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump have baselessly asserted ‘hundreds of thousands’ of useless Individuals are accumulating Social Safety funds (AP)
Musk’s bogus statements largely stem from Social Safety working on a software program that makes use of the COBOL programming language, which doesn’t embrace a date kind, WIRED reported.
Social Safety directors have acknowledged, nonetheless, that lower than 1 p.c of its advantages are paid out improperly, in accordance with a 2024 inspector general report. The variety of beneficiaries 99 or older is lower than 90,000, in a rustic of greater than 330 million, in accordance with figures from the administration.
Earlier this 12 months, the federal government started to claw again greater than $31 million federal funds — not simply Social Safety — that gave the impression to be improperly distributed to useless folks. The Treasury Division estimated {that a} restoration course of would accumulate $215 million inside a three-year interval as much as 2026 — far beneath Musk’s $1 trillion objective.
Any significant discount of presidency spending to get to Musk’s $1 trillion or $2 trillion determine would require some mixture of extreme cuts to costly however vital authorities packages — in addition to the Division of Protection — and tax will increase.
The nationwide debt is predicted to extend by roughly $20 trillion throughout the subsequent decade, in accordance with the nonpartisan Congressional Funds Workplace.
Trump, in the meantime, is commanding lawmakers to make large tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households. Home Republicans are proposing a funds blueprint that may add $4.5 trillion in new deficits via tax cuts, with a further $2 trillion in cuts to “necessary” spending that covers packages like Medicare, Medicaid and meals help.
A funds plan negotiated by Home Speaker Mike Johnson, and accredited by Trump, would lower $880 billion from Medicaid over the following decade to pay for a portion of the president’s proposed tax cuts.
Trump has individually promised to exempt Social Safety advantages from earnings taxes, which might value this system greater than $2 trillion over the following decade, with none plan to get better these prices elsewhere.
Source link