Elon Musk’s hatchet kids have been at work at the Social Security Administration, firing people, terminating leases. Democrats are worried that service will deteriorate, which will encourage Republicans to call for privatization. As we well know, privatization means some huge corporation must make a profit, so workers will be paid less and services will deteriorate.
The Social Security Administration in recent days has initiated a flurry of actions aimed at decimating its workforce and that Democrats warn are an effort to sabotage the agency and prepare to privatize its functions.
After a rash of abrupt retirements of senior leadersacross the agency last week, the agency on Friday confirmed that it is seeking to shed 7,000 employees, which would bring its workforce down to 50,000 people. Last fall, the agency hit a 50-year staffing low after congressional Republicans refused to agree to append the agency’s funding to account for fixed cost increases as part of a continuing resolution to keep agencies open.
With that came an announcement that the agency will consolidate its current 10 regional offices down to four, as well as reorganize headquarters. And Elon Musk’s DOGE operatives have cancelled the leases for 45 field offices across the country, as well as the Office of Hearings Operations in White Plains, N.Y.
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And though the agency’s frontline workforce had previously been spared from most of the Trump administration’s early workforce initiatives, including the deferred resignation program, early retirement offers and the purge of recently hired, promoted or transferred federal workers, on Friday leadership said all agency employees are eligible for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority or Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments, provided they have served long enough to qualify.
Further adding to the confusion was an agency-wide announcement Monday that all non-bargaining unit employees must cease teleworking and commute five days per week beginning Wednesday.
“We understand that this transition will require an adjustment to employee work/life arrangements,” the agency wrote. “Supervisors should be liberal with the approval of leave over the next four weeks to accommodate the changes.”
In a rambling message to employees obtained by Government Executive, Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek suggested the rapid changes were actually the fault of the previous administration….
At a press conference Monday, Senate Democrats accused the administration and Musk of sabotaging the agency as the first step in an effort to strip Americans of their earned benefits and sell off the agency’s functions to private industry.
“If you take the system today, with these superb statistics that 99.7% of retirement benefits are paid accurately and on-time, and you start hollowing it out, which is essentially what they’re doing, and then they’ll say, ‘Oh my goodness, we need the private sector here, or we won’t have a program,’” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “This is kind of the history of these kinds of efforts. It’s a prelude to privatization.”
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called Trump and Musk’s actions at SSA as akin to “taking a wrecking ball” to the agency and its services.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Arsonists.
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Civil War. Molotov cocktails.
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The point of the so-called DOGE efficiency team is not to save money, IMO the main objective is to handicap the functioning of the federal government which certainly does not benefit US citizens. It directly benefits our enemies. Likewise, our shift in foreign policy which alienates our allies does not benefit our country. It directly benefits our enemies. The tariffs will cause a terrible blow to the US economy, but maybe that’s the whole point. When is the public going to understand that Trump is not working for us?
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When is the public going to understand?
Why would they understand. Even today, the NYT is still characterizing what Doge is doing as “an assault on BUREAUCRACY”. Trump’s tariffs are Trump pursuing his “America First” policy.
The so-called liberal media has embraced the underlying lies of Trump and uses misleading euphemisms (getting rid of the wasteful “bureaucracy”, the “America First” approach) to turn what is really happening into something that is acceptable to most people.
It doesn’t matter what Trump does, how outrageous it is, it is ALWAYS presented as an action that is in service to very good motives that the public wants — making government more efficient so it isn’t wasting money and putting America First.
The NYT believes that they are very anti-Trump because they “bravely” write a few stories asking “Is what Trump is doing to pursue his agenda of making the government more efficient and putting America First working?”
It simply is verboten to write an article that does not embrace as an underlying truth (and mention multiple times) that Doge’s actions – whether you like them or not – are in service to Trump keeping his promise to make government more efficient.
NYT reporters will say “we don’t know his motives” so it isn’t allowable to question that everything that Trump does is in service to Trump’s positive goal, even if some people (usually described as “Trump-haters”) don’t like it.
It’s honestly so Orwellian. “Doge staffers, in pursuit of their goal of fighting the wasteful bureaucracy, lined up and shot the staff of the NIH on Fifth Avenue. Democrats, objected, and even some Republican voters said there are better ways for Trump to pursue his goal of ridding the government of wasteful fraud and waste.”
The liberal media has an implicit bias where they always questions the motives of any Democrat – there is always an underlying innuendo that their motives may or may not be what they are saying.
But with Trump, the liberal media believes their job is to frame in the most horrible actions as Trump being motivated exclusively by trying to pursue his goal of “efficiency” or “America First”.
The liberal media is complicit in amplifying and legitimizing the view that Trump’s actions are always because he is keeping his promise to Americans to root out waste and fraud, or put America First.
It’s absurd that the media isn’t reporting that Trump is destroying the country FOR HIS OWN GOALS. It is absurd that Trump’s absolutely self-serving, pro-Putin, bad for the people of the US but very good for Trump and his billionaire supporters are always framed as being motivated by “Trump’s America First goal” or “Trump’s search for efficiency”
That’s a non-debatable “truth”. But the liberal media “bravely” stands up to Trump by reporting whether what Trump does in his search for efficiency and putting America First is working or popular. Even though that media still believes in their heart of hearts that it is “biased” and “anti-Trump” to write too many stories about how doge’s attempt to make government more efficient as Trump promised is working.
But it’s verboten to actually point out that Trump’s motives are not what he says they are! Because they might be! Because shooting your enemies and destroying government and making Trump an authoritarian dictator might very well be because Trump wants to put America first and make government more efficient LIKE TRUMP PROMISED VOTERS HE WOULD DO. (notice that this implies that Trump has the consent of voters to do this).
This could be changed as fast as the NYT changed the narrative about Biden in a couple weeks from “Biden is old and slowing down” (which everyone already knew) to “Biden is too old and his cognitive failings are a huge danger for this country.” All that needs to be done is to reframe every story as Trump blowing off his promises to America and using his power to destroy the institutions that he promised voters he would make work better, and Trump’s motives are to please Putin and to service the very rich.
But the media is far too cowed and complicit and thus this country’s democracy is very likely done.
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I nominate you to be editor-in-chief of the NYT.
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ha ha! I read this as I am in the middle of writing a comment in response to your latest post, my gadfly critique of the NYT’s article about Zelensky’s peace offering!
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“It’s a prelude to privatization.” Boy, do we in education know about that.
I also like the nuances that NYCpublicschoolparent brings to reading the New York Times. They and the whole movement have made it possible to keep Orwell’s name up front and to make “Orwellian” into a working cliche.
But I keep wondering if anyone at all is doing anything about the death threats, and threats to Congresspeople’s families (and others)–that’s illegal, and needs to be brought to the public’s attention. How many have been threatened in this way, and how much of our country is sinking because of it?
Also, I posted the below link on another note here, but am posting it again here. It’s about how Trump is going after Jack Smith’s law firm, but how this movement is putting a chokehold on the rule of law. CBK
(100) Why President Trump Targeting a Major Law Firm Matters for All Americans
Why President Trump Targeting a Major Law Firm Matters for All Americans
On February 25, President Trump used his executive power to target a major American law firm, Covington & Burling. He signed an executive order directing “the Attorney General and heads of agencies to take such actions as are necessary to terminate any engagement of Covington & Burling LLP by any agency…” of the federal government.
contrarian.substack.com
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DID YOU LISTEN CAREFULLY to what Trump said about your Social Security during his speech to Congress?
HE SAID ONLY that Social Security has “lists” of people who are well over 100 years old.
HE DIDN’T SAY that these people are actually getting Social Security benefits.
IF HE HAD SAID THAT, the Democrats could have said: “PROVE IT!”
AND HE CAN’T because those lists are for legal purposes only — just the way that banks keep records of everyone who had ever had a mortgage with them because those records have legal importance for decades after the mortgage is paid off, so too does Social Security keep lists of people who have ever received Social Security, even long after they have died.
WHAT’S GOING ON is that — as they have ever since Social Security began — Republican politicians have been trying to turn Social Security over to Wall Street banks, and in order to do that (they call it “privatizing”) they need to convince ordinary Americans that the Social Security Administration is incompetent and wasteful.
PART OF THEIR PLAN is also to convince you that Social Security is “going broke”, but in fact Social Security’s latest audit shows that it has $3 TRILLION — that’s THREE THOUSAND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS — in surplus money that’s safely invested in United States Treasury Bonds.
AND THAT’S WHAT the Wall Street banks want to get their grubby hands on. They are drooling over getting control of that $3,000,000,000,000 in Social Security surplus!!!
THEY DREAM of putting that money into Wall Street stocks so that they can collect millions of dollars in annual commissions!
YOU WILL HEAR Republican politicians tell you that Social Security’s surplus money is gone and that all that’s left are “IOUs” — but what the Republicans call “IOUs” are actually United States Treasury Bonds that are such a safe investment that even China and every other nation in the world puts their surplus money into U.S. Treasury Bonds.
SO — listen very carefully from now on so that you don’t get cheated out of the retirement security that Social Security provides for ordinary Americans like us.
AND LISTEN TOO to what Trump’s billionaires are saying: MEGABILLIONAIRE ELON MUSK is claiming that “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme” that must be “privatized” by handing it over to Wall Street.
AND Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (another of the many billionaires in Trump’s cabinet) declared on the Fox News Jesse Watters Primetime show that “You know that Social Security is wrong! You know that Medicare and Medicaid are wrong!!! GET RID OF ALL THESE TAX SCAMS that hammer Americans!!!”
IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBT WHAT’S COMING for your Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the statements by billionaires Musk and Lutnick LEAVE NO ROOM FOR DOUBT.
Why are billionaires being allowed to destroy programs that we ordinary Americans depend on? Why?
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