… 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. …
32 comments:
The damage they are doing to SSA is tremendous and unprecedented.
Why were essential front line SSA employees made eligible for the latest buyout? Several of best employees in my area accepted the offer and are all leaving at once. Disastrous for the agency and people who depend on SSA.
Government isn't a business. Unfortunately the billionaires think it is. Ongoing tariffs will destroy the nation and world economy. Trump will make biden seem like a great president.
What makes them think that privatizing retirement/disability will be better? Money. Wall Street and Big Banks want to get a hold of your money. Hmm. There is no waste, fraud, abuse or loss of your funds in the financial institutions. This puts all of America at risk.
The same rehash of the same "the sky is falling" chorus repeated once again for the last 25+ years. All sung by the same geriatric legislators who have spent the vast majority of their adult life in Congress making less than $200k per year. However, these same people are multi millionaires... These people are not credible.
Duh
The wolfs on wall street are salivating. . .
Is it just my computer, or does the Spanish language option on the Social Security web site no longer work?
Trump pushed the birther-lie, bragged of sexual assaulted, found to have committed rape, his "charity" was shut down because of his fraud, trump university closed down because of fraud, convicted of various felonies, weaseled out of numerous more on a technicality, and lied, cheated, and stole - more than he will ever find in "waste, fraud, and abuse".
With what he did, starting from the Covid wreckage left to him, he was a great president.
Just you, I guess. The Spanish language option is coming up for me.
A word from our fearless leader…
Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek said Monday evening the agency has “operated on autopilot” for far too long.
“We have spent billions annually doing the same things the same way, leading to bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements,” Dudek said in a statement. “It is time to change just that.”
The Social Security Administration (SSA) said in a release that it has identified more than $800 million in savings or “cost avoidance” for fiscal 2025 among information technology, grants, property and payroll.
The SSA stated that it froze hiring and “drastically” cut back on overtime, saving about $550 million.
We had 4 years of relative calm and now it's back to Trump chaos.
Essentially he just dealt the final death blow to DDS and called it savings. Good luck to all you Trump voters who have pending claims or become unable to work in the future. I hope blowing off your own foot and condemning yourself and family to poverty was worth getting to own the libs one more time.
They basically want change the Social Security retirement trust and Title II disability trust into a 401k, and ditch SSI altogether.
What a travesty. No rhyme or reason to the drastic changes. If it does go private, imagine the fees the billionaires will charge for "managing" the Social Security funds. And they'll make sure the fiduciary rule is gone too (not that they would have followed it). Total corruption.
The blind leading the blind.
The Trump administration has retroactively edited its guidance that required agencies to gather lists of their recently hired employees to reflect that it is not mandating any specific firing actions.
The revision follows a court ruling that found the Office of Personnel Management illegally ordered agencies to terminate large swaths of employees in their probationary periods, most frequently those hired in the last one or two years. Agencies across government have fired more than 25,000 employees and the update to the memorandum does not call on federal offices to re-hire them.
Anyone need more proof that privatization is coming? https://www.wbaltv.com/article/federally-owned-properties-for-sale-83-in-maryland/64040170
It appears from the specific buildings named on this list that the entire SSA & CMS headquarters campuses in Woodlawn are being put up for sale. https://www.wbaltv.com/article/federally-owned-properties-for-sale-83-in-maryland/64040170?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot
Social Security headed for 'collapse' as Trump admin 'hell-bent on breaking it'
https://www.rawstory.com/social-security-2671265910/?utm_source=push_notifications
Looks like almost all of HQ is now getting sold out from under the workers -- Lovely, just in time for RTO.
Here is the full list: https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/real-estate-services/real-property-disposition/noncore-property-list
Elon Musk Is Officially $116 Billion Poorer Than His Peak—As Tesla Stock Pulls Back More Than 40%
Robert M Ball building (where Systems and some other centers) is not listed, but literally everything else seems to be... and RMB is connected to Annex and Altmeyer and others sometimes tightly. What is their plan, have someone buy it all out, then lease it back for profit?
The Social Security Administration (SSA) today shared its significant progress to quickly implement the Social Security Fairness Act. Through March 4, 2025, SSA has already paid 1,127,723 people more than $7.5 billion in retroactive payments. The retroactive payments are the result of the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). The average retroactive payment so far is $6,710.
“President Trump made it very clear he wanted the Social Security Fairness Act to be implemented as quickly as possible,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “We met that challenge head on and are proudly delivering for the American people.”
small correction: "...are proudly taking credit for work neither of us had anything to do with, that was already being done at breakneck speed by the same people we're doing our best to fire." These guys are shameless.
Does anyone know what's going on in the conference rooms on the 1st floor of the Altmeyer building? Why do they have security guards stationed on the east side of the building? Maybe the DOGE DOUCHEBAGS are there?
5:53. A classified facility in housed in the RMB. Could explain why it's not on the list.
How's privatization going to work? SSA is one of the most popular programs in America. You think congress has the courage to go against 70% their voters -- and, I do mean voters, since the angriest will be older and likely to vote -- just because a South African and his pet president want them to? I mean, maybe. But I keep seeing this thrown out there, as if SSA can go private based on an Executive Order. It can't. He may try, but it won't fly (well, assuming the courts do their jobs...an iffy proposition). Then again, maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better since I'd have to go work for some financial or insurance institution if it did....
President Musk said the DOGE compensation would be ZERO.
Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned.
Jeremy Lewin, one of the DOGE employees tasked with dismantling USAID, who has also played a role in DOGE’s incursions into the National Institutes of Health and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is listed as making just over $167,000 annually, WIRED has confirmed. Lewin is assigned to the Office of the Administrator within the General Services Administration.
Kyle Schutt, a software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is listed as drawing a salary of $195,200 through GSA, where he is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Administrator. That is the maximum amount that any “General Schedule” federal employee can make annually, including bonuses. “You cannot be offered more under any circumstances,” the GSA compensation and benefits website reads.
Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur who has taken a visible internal role interviewing GSA employees as part of DOGE’s work at the agency, is listed as being paid just over $120,500 per year. According to DOGE’s official website, the average GSA employee makes $128,565 and has worked at the agency for 13 years.
When Elon Musk started recruiting for DOGE in November, he described the work as “tedious” and noted that “compensation is zero.” WIRED previously reported that the DOGE recruitment effort relied in part on a team of engineers associated with Peter Thiel and was carried out on platforms like Discord.
8:14 the one from Live Free or Die Hard?
Martin O’Malley, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), said Monday the recent cuts made by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the agency could result in the “collapse” of the Social Security system “within the next 30 to 90 days.”
O’Malley, a Democrat who also served as Maryland governor from 2007-15, told CNBC the recent DOGE initiatives may jeopardize monthly benefit payments for over 72.5 million Americans.
He warned the current administration’s attempts to reduce the workforce will lead to the departure of vital staff and threaten the agency’s fundamental operations.
How can SSA declare their PSCs as not core buildings? Take Mid-Atlantic Service Center in Philadelphia. That building is occupied by the processing center, a teleservice center, the nation's only remittance processing, hearing offices and vital field office support groups. How can that not be a vital building?
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