While Trump pretends he wants to save Social Security, Elon Musk is strangling the program with bureaucratic red tape.
( Otherwords ) – How ironic: The most inefficient bureaucracy in government turns out to be Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”
That could be humorous, except that DOGE — a creature of the right-wing Project 2025 — has been devastating to millions of people. And it’s about to get worse. Elon Musk — the flighty überrich autocrat put in charge of “efficiency” by his buddy Trump — is now going after the Social Security deposits of 73 million senior citizens.
But wait, hasn’t Trump himself promised (loudly and often) that he would not ax this essential retirement program? Yes… but Elon is his “gotcha.”
Rather than an honest kill, Musk is strangling the program with bureaucratic red tape. Claiming to be cutting waste, he’s eliminating 7,000 people who administer the program, shouting, “Bureaucratic excess!”
Except, Social Security is actually a renowned model of government efficiency, spending less than 1 percent of its revenue on administration. So by whacking the people who do the work, Musk is actually whacking the people who are due to receive their earned benefits.
Image by from Pixabay
For example, he’s decreed that the public can no longer apply for benefits or resolve questions by phone. Instead, they must now travel in person to some distant Social Security office. But the staff there has also been decimated, so people who’ve come from afar are told to go back home and call for an appointment — a call that will often not be answered.
What’s at work here is a Musk-Trump ploy to wreck Social Security’s remarkable record of efficiency. Their intent is to make the service so bad that they can then let profiteering corporations privatize your retirement. Don’t let them.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker.
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