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LetMyPeopleVote

(160,016 posts)
Thu Mar 13, 2025, 03:06 PM Thursday

White House's Elon Musk suggests Social Security could face cuts [View all]

After labeling Social Security “a Ponzi scheme,” Elon Musk’s offensive against the social-insurance program took another aggressive turn.
https://bsky.app/profile/liberallady.bsky.social/post/3lk7ch6quxk2y



https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-houses-elon-musk-suggests-social-security-face-cuts-rcna196033

In an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow, he kept going. The New York Times reported:

Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual, suggested on Monday that his government cost-cutting team would scrutinize Social Security and other entitlement spending, describing the expenditures as rife with fraudulent transactions and repeating a conspiracy theory that Democrats were using the programs as a “gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country.”


The two men — a former member of Trump’s White House team interviewing a current member of Trump’s White House team — covered a fair amount of ground, but there was one line from Musk that stood out as especially notable.

“You’ve got to actually take action,” the billionaire said. “So, I mean, the waste report 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 $600, $700 billion a year.”.....

But as important as these details are, let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Musk’s falsehoods matter, but the fact that one of the most powerful figures in the White House — if not the most powerful figure — is increasingly overt in his condemnations of Social Security matters just as much.

The more Trump’s most generous contributor talks about the program, the more obvious it becomes that Musk sees Social Security spending as very much on the table.

“You don’t need to scratch your head and wonder what’s going on when you see that the Trump administration is decimating Social Security offices and staff,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week, before Musk’s on-air comments to Kudlow. “And you don’t need to ponder what might happen next when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, says that the tens-of-millions of seniors, families, and children who depend on these earned benefits are part of some scam — because that’s a real threat and a real promise: They are coming for your Social Security.”

The New York Democrat added, “The richest man in the world and his sidekick, the President of the United States, have decided to attack the bedrock of America’s social safety net, and now your pocket is in the way.”
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