Twenty years ago, the honeymoon of President George W. Bush in the second term was over, and social security was to blame. Voters rebelled against his plan to partially privatize the popular retirement program and the following year stripped the GOP of his majority in the congress. The 2005 events cemented the reputation of Social Security as “Third rail of American policy. “During the following two decades, the Republicans did not affect it.
Maybe Elon Musk was not careful. At the time, he had not voted yet in an American election (or launch a rocket). Now, as a Dogee leader, he has opened an unexpected crusade against Social Security.
Musk recently called the “The biggest program of Ponzi of all time” and said he was in the grip of waste and fraud. DOGE employees have has acquired an entry To the social security administration and obtained sensitive data from taxpayers, and the Trump administration has reduced the agency’s workforce by the thousands. Earlier this week, social security officials announcement Changes that could make it more difficult for retirees to access their advantages. These movements – and the rhetoric of Musk – frightened the voters, who blocked the telephone lines of the Congress and the meetings of the city of the city to record their concerns. And they have alarmed the GOP legislators, which could pay the Musk decisions halfway up next year.
If Musk wants to achieve his goal of cutting 1 dollars billion In federal spending, he will have to do much more than eliminate USAID, the financial protection office for consumers and even the Ministry of Education. He knows that real money is in the three pillars of the American social security net: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. “Most federal expenses are rights”, it said Earlier this month. “He is the big one to eliminate.”
Republicans have learned that monitoring these programs has a huge electoral risk. Musk, apparently, did not do it. “He does not think politically,” said Tom Davis, a former Republican of the Chamber who led the party’s campaign committee in the early 2000s. His approach, said Davis, is “ready, fire, goal”.
Musk “managed to do business, but he is clearly not very popular, and his Doge actions make him less popular,” said a senior strategist of the GOP, speaking under the guise of anonymity to avoid provoking a fight with the president or his rich lieutenant. “He will eventually be a heavyweight around his neck not only by President Trump but Republicans in general.”
Most elected Republicans have taken care to avoid criticizing Trump or musk. But as Doge continued to assault social security, some have started to feel the pressure of their voters. Calling flooded Michigan Bill Huizega representative with concerns about social security cuts during a telephone town hall that the Republican held earlier this month. He assured them that the program would not be affected. “I must admit that there were times when Elon Musk tweeted first and thought second,” said Huizenga, summarizing his message to voters.
Trump could be able to claim a mandate from the voters to justify part of his reduction in early costs; He is Long -criticized foreign aidFor example. But during the 2024 presidential campaign, he repeatedly promised to preserve the rights, even when some in his party wanted to cut them. Republicans relied on these promises to try to reassure the voters that their advantages are safe. “I think President Trump clearly said that he did not want to touch social security,” the journalists from the Wisconsin Glenn Glenn Glenn Grothman, an ally of Trump, journalists from the Capitol. “We do not reduce social security.”
Musk’s offensive against social security, however, made these claims more difficult to maintain. And Trump himself amplified some of Musk’s most specious accusations on the program. During the president’s speech at the Congress earlier this month, he said that his administration had identified “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” in Social Security. But the examples he cited – people born in the 19th century are supposed to still checks – were almost certainly data processing errors that reflected Offdete IT systems of the programNo fraud.
Administration attempts to reduce fraud could compromise legitimate beneficiaries. From next month, people will no longer be able to call the Social Security Administration to file benefits or update their banking information. Instead, they will have to do so on the agency’s website or – if they cannot check their online identity – consult an SSa office in person. The new requirements could be a particular difficulty for older beneficiaries who live in rural areas – a constituency that is very republican.
“If they kill the possibility of calling social security with questions, this will cause real problems with the elderly,” warned the GOP strategist. “It would give Democrats an opening.”
The survey supports the statements of the strategist. In a survey published yesterday, the democratic firm BluePrint read the respondents a list of 20 different facts on Musk and what he did with Doge, then asked what they found concerning. The four examples that respondents are concerned about most of the possible cuts involved social security. “This is what Democrats need to make their heads: it’s all social security at the moment,” said Evan Roth Smith, the Blueprint survey, to journalists during a briefing.
What Trump and Musk do now is very different from what Bush offered two decades ago. Its plan provided for structural changes in social security which would allow beneficiaries to put their advantages in private investment accounts, which, according to Bus, could generate more profits for beneficiaries while extending the budget solvency of the program. Davis served in the house when the public rejected Bush’s idea. He recalled that Trump and Musk might want to consider: “When you move too far, too quickly in politics,” said Davis, “the voters remove you back.”