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Donald Trump and Elon Musk are ramping up baseless claims that tens of thousands and thousands of lifeless persons are gathering Social Security funds, laying the groundwork to chop out “waste” and “fraud” as they give the impression of being to make dramatic cuts for among the most costly packages within the federal price range 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 try to justify cuts to Social Safety and federal well being packages Medicare and Medicaid to give you Musk’s goal determine of greater than $1 trillion in financial savings.
On Fox Information on Wednesday, 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 mentioned.
“Give it some thought. We’ve nearly $4 trillion of entitlements and nobody has checked out it earlier than,” he mentioned.
“You realize Social Safety is improper, you recognize Medicare and Medicaid is improper, so he’ll lower one trillion,” Lutnick added. “Eliminate all these tax scams that hammer in opposition to Individuals and we’re gonna increase a trillion {dollars} in income, and our goal, underneath Donald Trump, is to steadiness this price range.”
Lutnick additionally steered 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.
In an interview with Fox Information host Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday, Trump promised that “Social Safety gained’t be touched, aside from if there’s fraud or one thing.”
“It’s going to be strengthened,” he mentioned. “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at Mar-a-Lago Wednesday, Trump returned to Musk’s bogus claims that people who find themselves lots of of years outdated are gathering Social Safety.
“We’ve 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, in the event you take all of these numbers off, as a result of they’re clearly fraudulent, or, incompetent, however in the event you take all of these thousands and thousands of individuals off Social Safety, rapidly we now have a really highly effective Social Safety, with individuals which might be 80, and 70, and 90, however not 200 years outdated,” in line with Trump. “So it’s a really optimistic factor.”
On Monday, Musk wrote on X that “having tens of thousands and thousands of individuals marked in Social Safety as ‘ALIVE’ when they’re positively lifeless is a HUGE drawback.”
“Clearly. A few of these individuals would have been alive earlier than America existed as a rustic. Take into consideration that for a second,” he mentioned.
Musk’s bogus statements largely stem from Social Safety operating on a software program that makes use of the COBOL programming language, which doesn’t embrace a date sort, WIRED reported.
Social Safety directors have acknowledged, nonetheless, that lower than 1 % of its advantages are paid out improperly, in line 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 line 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 lifeless individuals. The Treasury Division estimated {that a} restoration course of would gather $215 million inside a three-year interval as much as 2026 — far under Musk’s $1 trillion purpose.
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 crucial authorities packages — in addition to the Division of Protection — and tax will increase.
The nationwide debt is anticipated to extend by roughly $20 trillion inside the subsequent decade, in line with the nonpartisan Congressional Price range Workplace.
Trump, in the meantime, is commanding lawmakers to make huge tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest households. Home Republicans are proposing a price range blueprint that will add $4.5 trillion in new deficits by tax cuts, with a further $2 trillion in cuts to “necessary” spending that covers packages like Medicare, Medicaid and meals help.
A price range plan negotiated by Home Speaker Mike Johnson, and authorized by Trump, would lower $880 billion from Medicaid over the subsequent decade to pay for a portion of the president’s proposed tax cuts.
Trump has individually promised to exempt Social Safety advantages from revenue taxes, which might price this system greater than $2 trillion over the subsequent decade, with none plan to get better these prices elsewhere.
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