From the Washington Post:
... In a meeting Tuesday with his senior staff and about 50 legal-aid attorneys and other advocates for the disabled and elderly, acting SSA commissioner Leland Dudek referred to [Elon Musk's] cost-cutting team as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs,” according to a meeting participant’s detailed notes that were obtained by The Washington Post.
“DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA,” Dudek told the group, according to the notes. “I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions.” ...
On Thursday morning — three hours after the publication of this story — an all-staff email went out to SSA employees informing them they would be prevented “effective today” from accessing certain websites on their government devices, including “online shopping,” “general news” and “sports.” ...
Even some Republicans privately acknowledge discomfort with Dudek, who was appointed as acting commissioner when the career senior executive in the role abruptly retired after refusing his push to give DOGE employees unauthorized access to private data. ...
Meeting with advocates on Tuesday, Dudek sought to cast himself as someone on their side. He described his parents as blue-collar workers with little formal education who divorced when he was young, according to the notes obtained by The Post. His mother was injured and went on disability benefits, he explained. In high school, he would eat leftovers from the school cafeteria trash, he said.
Dudek said the old ways of “setting goals, doing studies, discussion, getting information and data before making decisions” are gone. Those in charge now “will make mistakes, but I need to move them in a direction that is best for SSA,” he said, and asked the advocates for their support. ...
Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, said shrinking Social Security’s roughly $15 billion operating budget would represent just a small fraction of the program’s $1.5 trillion in annual costs.
“If you’re talking about Social Security solvency, this stuff is a drop in the bucket,” Biggs said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” ...
Andrew Saul, who served as SSA commissioner in Trump’s first term, said he welcomed the cuts — but he was adamant that without corresponding modernization of the agency’s many aging technology systems, service will suffer.
“You can’t replace all of these people without the proper systems,” Saul said. “And it takes time to develop them.” ...
In interviews, eight employees described chaos and the dissolution of a system they have been proud to serve, fueled by DOGE-led cuts to staff, spending and operating systems.
Wait times for basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours, according to some employees, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal details. Delays in reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative law judges are already starting. ...
Meanwhile, supervisors have little time to give guidance or advice, the employee said, because they are constantly pulled into lengthy meetings to dissect the latest guidance from the Trump administration on return-to-office orders, firing of probationary employees and a Musk-led campaign requiring federal workers to send weekly bullet points laying out their accomplishments.
“Morale is in the toilet,” the employee said. “We all know what DOGE wants to do, which is just break us, so they can privatize us.”
Due to a DOGE-driven spending freeze on federal credit cards, some offices can’t pay phone bills, the employee said, while one office was forced last week to cancel three disability hearings because the staff could not use charge cards to pay for interpreters who speak foreign languages or American Sign Language. One claimant has a terminal illness, and another is in danger of losing their house, the employee said. No new hearings have been scheduled.
Meanwhile, a DOGE-led campaign to cancel contracts deemed “wasteful” across the government is also hurting Social Security. The agency lost a contract that paid for medical experts to testify at disability hearings, the employee said, along with another contract for mold removal from offices. ...
As the agency prepares for a mandated return to in-office work, space constraints in some offices have left supervisors to consider assigning employees to work at desks in supply closets, the worker said.
“It’s just chaos, people are terrified, and no one knows anything, including our supervisors,” the employee said. ...
Apparently, access to this blog is being banned through Social Security's web access. Remember, you have cell phones and home computers!
