Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 30
by John Hale and Terri Hale
The Social Security program is 90 years old come August. About 70 million Americans currently receive a monthly benefit. An estimated 185 million Americans pay into the system and plan to receive benefits someday.
They depend on it to be there for them. Recent events raise serious questions whether it will be.
HERE’S A RECAP:
Elon Musk’s efforts to discredit Social Security
Elon Musk claimed that millions of Americans over the age of 100, 200 or even 300 are getting monthly Social Security benefits. Those claims have been debunked by the news media and by the Social Security Administration.
The president amplified those false claims in a speech to a joint session of Congress, saying they indicated “incompetence” in the Social Security program.
Musk called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
LEADERSHIP OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION IN TURMOIL
The Social Security Administration is on its third acting commissioner since November. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday to consider Frank Bisignano to lead the SSA.
The acting commissioner who left in November is raising alarms about a potential “systems collapse” and “eventual interruption of benefits.”
Another commissioner, who left in February, did so because she refused to allow Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) team to access top-security data bases that contain personal information on almost every American.
⬤ The current acting commissioner, a mid-level Social Security employee elevated by the president, had been placed on administrative leave by prior agency leaders due to allegations of “multiple inappropriate actions” dealing with the Musk team.
THE GOAL? PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY.
The Social Security Administration is in a death spiral. Its workforce has dwindled from a high of 80,000 in the 1980s to a projected 50,000 this year. While resources have shrunk dramatically, workloads have ballooned largely due to the retirement of baby boomers and increasing life spans.
The result is poorer service to the public: less access to humans for personal assistance, longer telephone wait times, delays getting appointments at local offices, more difficulty in getting clear answers to non-routine questions, unacceptable holdups in getting decisions on applications for disability benefits, etc.
WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING HERE?
We believe there’s a plan at work: All the disruption at Social Security is designed to cause the program to eventually collapse.
Here’s the scenario: Continued declines in service lead to public frustration and anger. Citizens come to believe what they’re being told: The government can’t do anything well. People lose faith in the system and become ready to accept radical change.
In other words, break it to fix it.
And the fix? Privatize the system. Let banks and financial firms run it. Turn Social Security contributions into investments in stocks, bonds, crypto or whatever. End guaranteed benefits and instead have every American responsible for their investment return, with some people succeeding and some failing.
President George W. Bush wanted to do this back in 2005. His plan failed because Americans liked Social Security and they had confidence in it. It also failed because enough members of Congress were independent-minded and wouldn’t go along.
Times are certainly different now. But this train can and should be stopped.
Iowa’s members of Congress must stand up and speak out.
They should call for hearings, get answers and insist on greater transparency and accountability from DOGE and leaders of the Social Security Administration.
Our elected representatives will only take those actions if constituents tell them to.
Advocacy organizations for workers, older Iowans and people with disabilities should raise their voices. Iowans of all ages should call, email and visit their representative’s offices. Express concerns. Ask if they support the existing Social Security system and what they will do to improve it. Insist on clear answers.
Remind them while millionaires and billionaires may not depend on Social Security, ordinary people leading real lives do.
Frustrated? Scared? Then make some noise. It’s time to end the chaos and make Social Security secure again.
Authots John and Terri Hale own The Hale Group, advocating for older Iowans and people with disabilities. John worked for the Social Security Administration for 25 years in its Baltimore headquarters, Kansas City regional office, and in multiple Iowa field offices.
