Summary
Elon Musk suggested cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in a Fox News interview, citing debunked claims about fraud and linking benefits to illegal immigration.
He falsely claimed millions of deceased individuals remain in the Social Security system, a statement previously refuted by officials.
While Trump has promised not to cut entitlement programs, Musk’s remarks indicate they are under threat, potentially impacting millions of Americans.
His rhetoric echoes far-right conspiracy theories, raising concerns about his influence on policy discussions regarding social safety nets.
You know, Elon Musk is a person with a neck.
You, and all your ancestors, offspring, and reincarnations, have just been permabanned from Reddit.
Dubvee.org is going to have a field day of automated ban syncs with this thread.
Touch that shit, I fucken dare you.
If it gets out of hand Elmo will be left holding the bag and likely forced out. The Trump admin will continue on like nothing happened, they won’t lose an ounce of support, and DOGE will just be a short footnote on our decline to fascism.
That’s not optimism, it’s the very real conclusion that Elon is the (miraculously unwitting) fall guy for all the bad shit they need done early on to facilitate everything else. They’ll get to do the whole “we got rid of the bad eggs, we’ve tuned over a new leaf” thing that conservative politicians love to do when they kick out a fall guy.
This time next year he’s going to be shouting on some fuckhead podcast about how he was used. I practically guarantee it.
Well that or Elon successfully manages to do what he thinks will happen and manages to take full control
In the grand scheme of things Leon is just one of many douchebags. One that has been publicly grating to deal with for the rest of the gang. They’ve probably been planning an ouster against him for a minute, it’s just a matter of squeezing what use they can out of him in the meantime.
I 100% expect him to throw Elmo under the bus like he has with every other person that’s been on his side. He won’t really even need to try, his supporters will do it for him because they can’t handle a reality where they were wrong about the Orange One
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Tsar,_bad_Boyars
A process that worked for Russia!
They’ll just cut it for anybody under 60 or whatever, and their base will cheer them on.
They’ll just cut it for anybody under 60 or whatever, and their base will cheer them on.
Not if they have been paying into it. At least not unless they get a refund for what they paid into it.
Screw just being paid back. I want decades of interest on that loan I gave the government. If I don’t get at least 10% on my investment I’ll fucking riot.
Dude, we are talking about 12.4% of folks taxable earnings since the day they all joined the workforce. You think tears are the only things gonna happen if that got stolen?
At the same time we’re also talking about a demographic that’s deeply steeped in fox news disinformation so who the fuck knows what they’d think the cause or actuality of the suspension of benefits would be.
Half of American nonretirees already expect to get nothing from Social Security when they retire.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/546890/americans-upbeat-future-social-security-benefits.aspx
I mean, there’d be a lot of upset people, but…
Yes. What do you think will happen? Do you think there were no dictators or tyrannical regimes before or that they were universally liked? Most of the people that were at the helm end up fine, after decade or more of being in power. Don’t delude yourself that there will be some kind of revolution, people will just take it and move on.
It ain’t what the left is going to do that is reason for concern.
https://www.ssa.gov/deposit/T2StateSum_a.htm
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/right-wing-extremist-terrorism-united-states
Social Security’s “trust fund” is an empty pit of debt obligations. Benefits to current recipients are paid with incoming payroll taxes. Any difference is made up with additional taxes or monetary inflation, by way of Treasury bonds. They “reinvest it in the economy” if there’s ever a surplus, e.g., through military contractors. It finances the national debt.
Putting aside the quirks of that setup, the basic function is that the taxes you pay in now are not an investment in your own future, you’re basically just paying for the retirement of older people now. The expectation is that someone down the road will then pay taxes to finance your retirement. Hence, how SS was able to start paying benefits almost immediately (3 years) after payroll taxes started being collected.
Well, their interpretation is at odds with reality, and they should reconcile that. Regardless of what they told or what they believed, they paid into a system where they were forced to subsidize current recipients, while the system itself could be revoked at any point, leaving them high and dry, and not running into 14th Amendment issues or anything like that. See Flemming v. Nestor, 1960 - quoting Wiki:
Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603 (1960), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of Section 1104 of the 1935 Social Security Act. In this Section, Congress reserved to itself the power to amend and revise the schedule of benefits. The Court rejected that Social Security is a system of ‘accrued property rights’ and held that those who pay into the system have no contractual right to receive what they have paid into it.[1]
Note that I’m not saying anything “should” be one way or another, besides that people should be fully aware how the current system works in law.
We should use the chopping block on him, and repurpose his wealth to fund government programs. Especially for repaying federal employees for this shitshow.
Is there a 6 foot sliding bench attached to it? Because I have to admit, Automatic Guillotine sounds pretty badass.
Where do I get a refund on my social security payments I’ve put in my entire adult life?
I know you’re joking but for those that don’t understand:
When you pay in your Social Security each paycheck. That money is immediately handed out to another person. When you go to collect Social Security in reality, you’re justliving on somebody else’s money. You never see your money again. It really is just social welfare.
(not so) fun fact: The average black male American never sees a penny from social security because the program is biased toward those who live long enough to reap the benefits of the program. So, despite paying in an entire working life, dying too young rewards you with a big fat nothing.