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Oct 12, 2024

The Social Security Administration When Trump Was President

     From the Revolving Door Project:

... Former President Trump filled top roles at the SSA with people actively hostile to Social Security beneficiaries, as well as campaign donors with no real experience relevant to the agency.

 For the role of SSA commissioner, Trump nominated Andrew Saul, a GOP mega donor and “one-time handbag king” with tens of millions in assets. Saul was not entirely lacking in public service experience, however. While serving as the vice chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), he ran a short-lived congressional campaign in the run-up to the 2008 presidential cycle, but he dropped out of the race four days after the New York Times revealed he had accepted donations from companies bidding on MTA contracts—potentially a violation of state ethics rules.

Saul’s most relevant experience was as George W. Bush’s Chair of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which manages the retirement savings plan for federal workers, the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). But the TSP is much more similar to a private 401(k) plan than publicly-funded Social Security benefits, which led advocates like Nancy Altman of Social Security Works to point out at the time of his nomination that while Saul’s experience with the TSP “was undoubtedly valuable, it has little value to helping him run the Social Security system, unless he seeks to privatize the program.”

When President Biden fired Saul, an action he should have taken on day one but instead held off for months, Saul embarrassed himself by calling his firing a “palace coup.” He argued that his termination was illegal—despite the Supreme Court clearly ruling that the President has the authority to fire the Commissioner.

Trump appointed Mark Warshawsky to be Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy, despite his record of hostility to Social Security. At the Department of the Treasury, Warshawsky worked on President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security, which later earned him a nomination to the Social Security Advisory Board. In 2016, in the midst of stints at various private companies specializing in retirement income, Warshawsky published an article peddling the lie that SSDI is rife with “waste and fraud,” and bloated by people who could be working. (In reality, even the austerity-minded Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget acknowledges that fraud is “less common in the SSDI program than many believe” and “not a major cost driver for the program.”)

Several other papers Warshawsky wrote while at the Koch-funded Mercatus Center expressed skepticism about whether or not the SSA’s extremely stringent standards for assessing disability were in fact too lenient. After his SSA role, Warshawsky joined the American Enterprise Institute, a longtime proponent of cuts to Social Security and privatization.

When SSA’s Inspector General position opened up, Trump nominated Gail Ennis to the role. Inspectors General are supposed to function as independent watchdogs, but seemingly her only qualification was being a campaign donor (including up through August 2017). In her first financial disclosure, she disclosed receiving a salary of over $2 million working for WilmerHale, representing three massive banks and one hedge fund—Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel. ...

26 comments:

  1. All the best people. Lol. And he’s got as good a chance as his unquestionably far more intelligent and competent opponent of being president all over again. Good job, America. This is exactly why the rest of the world‘s people (including even the inbred blue-bloods in England) views you as savage hillbillies.

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  2. Social Security will be privatized and benefits will be cut under a Trump administration. Individuals who vote for him will only have themselves to blame after they see a smaller SSA check.

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    1. ....or none at all. Fingers crossed. 🤞

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    2. Social Security privatized? Just like he did when he was president before. Oh yeah, that NEVER HAPPENED.

      How bout we focus on funding SSA, rather than making stuff up that won't ever come to pass?

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    3. The guard rails will be off on a second Trump administration.

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    4. @5:23. So, you want to see the agency unstaffed because you to see yourself and your family stop receiving any of the benefits you and your family have already paid for? Is that really what you Trump supporters are hoping for?

      That’s frightening folks. Keep it in mind when you consider sitting this election out or throwing your vote away on a third party candidate.

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    5. @7:50, that's not even close to what I meant. Fingers crossed there is not a reduction in benefits, or worse, no SSA at all.

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    6. Oh, also 7:50, 5:23 here again.... I am NOT nor will EVER support a felon for president. Don't assume.

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    7. The "..." is generally used to continue the previous sentence @7:50. If you read it in that manner, their sentence makes a lot more sense. I doubt anyone would come on here and advocate ZERO social security benefits. Re-read their sentence as a continuation of the last sentence of the original post. I do agree with you that a third party candidate is usually a wasted vote with rare exceptions in local politics.

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  3. Saul is 77 years old now so he'd have been in his early 70's when he took over as SSA Commissioner. Really too old to take over such a position for which he had little transferable skills or experience.

    It didn't help that he immediately antagonized SSA employees with his union bashing, and then he suddenly and completely terminated telework for Operations employees.

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  4. Saul was a terrible commissioner

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  5. SSA was terrible under Trump. COLAs were only 2.0, 2.8, 1.6 and 1.3. How is a senior to live? I'll give him credit Medicare part B only went up $14 in his 4 years.

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    1. This is because of lower inflation under Trump. Part of the economic success of his administration.

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    2. You don't call a relief pitcher successful when he inherits a 3-0 lead and loses the game 10-3. That was Trump turning the President Obama economic recovery into a five alarm dumpster fire.

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    3. Revisionist history..,,

      There were three big reasons why inflation was low during Trump’s presidency: the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, Federal Reserve actions and the coronavirus pandemic.

      Trump entered the White House with inflation already low, largely because of the slow recovery from the Great Recession, when financial markets collapsed and millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure.

      The inflation rate barely averaged more than 1% during Obama’s second term as the Fed struggled to push up growth. Still, the economy was expanding without overheating.

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    4. Lol. Inflation went through the stratosphere* during his third term.

      *Look it up.

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    5. I think you mean economic stagnation under Trump.

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  6. Inflation was a global problem post-pandemic and the United States faired better than many other countries.
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034154/monthly-inflation-rates-developed-emerging-countries/

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  7. SO many ignorant commenters. Trump was elected and Social Security...didn't change much. Saul had no relevant Social Security experience just like...Martin O'Malley! Oh how things never change. Except O'Malley via Biden forced a lot of employees to return to the office, which we were told would only happen under Trump.

    The economy roared for the wealthiest 1% under Obama, and under Trump, and under Biden. And again, Social Security was not privatized, weakened or changed.

    In other words, whether you get Kamala or the Donald, don't expect many changes to Social Security. Both have bigger fish to fry.

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    1. You obviously didn’t read the article.

      When SSA’s Inspector General position opened up, Trump nominated Gail Ennis to the role. Inspectors General are supposed to function as independent watchdogs, but seemingly her only qualification was being a campaign donor (including up through August 2017). In her first financial disclosure, she disclosed receiving a salary of over $2 million working for WilmerHale, representing three massive banks and one hedge fund—Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel. ...

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  8. Yes @1004 and the Biden folks are all conflict-free. No one is buying Hunter's priceless art and then getting a cabinet appointment, or anything like that. Gail Ennis is a nothing-burger. As was Saul. And after January, as was O'Malley despite all the articles talking about how he is the man who will "save Social Security" despite being in the job for one year. Those videos are just oh-so powerful.

    If you get Trump or Harris, don't expect much to change day-to-day. Thankfully, both realize SSA is infertile ground for wooing the electorate. Look for major changes at Secret Service, CBP, DOJ, FBI and other spots where it is far more relevant and warranted.

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    1. Wait, profound corruption, destructive ineptitude and abdication if her office’s responsibilities was a “nothing-burger?” I guess Trump did even more damage to our democracy than I thought.

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    2. @11:53: Enjoy watching SSA get exponentially if you vote for the orange television clown. You’ll certainly be getting what you deserve.

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    3. @709 Trump was President for 4 years. What did he do regarding SSA (I mean that affects the public) that was so bad? I don't recall anything substantial by either party in many years.

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    4. @9:36: My sense is that you’re going to ignore any examples and/or distort them beyond recognition to cast them as favorable to your dear orange leader. But is you’re sincere, google Gail Ennis and Commissioner Saul, and read a few of the articles that come up. Trust me, you don’t need to dig far to find their dirt. And to refresh your memory, both were hand picked by the orange one.

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  9. If you worked at SSA, you would know exactly what it was like under whichever administration. The last admin was the worst for employees and customers alike.

    The prior admin was the most callous, generally, in years, and that’s huge when the org is already so internally dysfunctional that the suicide rate for work stress is high. They proceeded to harass, menace, and push out the most skilled employees, pushed regs that make the job harder under the premise of fraud protection when the fraud was perpetrated by the employees not the public, and went after the poorest customers with bogus astronomical fines for overpayments SSA made to THEM because there isn’t enough money or staff to process any RZ work in less than a decade (you cannot conceal income if you pay FICA because wages are reported quarterly and benefits are then adjusted based on that new income). Oh and that staff totally lolled at drowning employees.

    The new guy has made the first customer-focused changes in decades and took a hammer to abusive work culture. He physically met employees. That’s already the most net positive any commissioner since the 70s has done for anyone.

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