Posted on 02/17/2025 2:32:43 PM PST by John Semmens
Last week Democrats rallied outside the Baltimore office of the Social Security Administration demanding "Musk, keep your hands off of our Social Security." Those in attendance at the demonstration included Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, Maryland Representatives Kweisi Mfume, Johnny Olszewski and Sarah Elfreth.
Musk replied "my hands aren't the ones stealing a large portion of the annual 'entitlement' payments being made. We have discovered that more than $100 billion worth of entitlements every year are going to individuals with no Social Security Number or even a temporary ID number. This is extremely suspicious. Officers of the agency estimate that at least half of these payments are fraudulent. I would think that elected Democrats would want to know who is stealing benefits meant for their constituents."
Sen. Van Hollen insisted "I'd trust the vastly more experienced federal workers managing the payment system than a novice outsider like Musk and his teenage geniuses. Finances are different for profit-making businesses like Tesla or Space X than they are for non-profit government social services. If Musk really cared about folks living off their meager Social Security checks he'd be calling for higher taxes on billionaires to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund instead of wasting his time snooping around where he shouldn't be."
"Well," Musk replied, "the vastly more experienced workers at the Social Security Administration agree with me that the following safeguards will be implemented: (1) All outgoing payments must have a categorization code in order to be paid. That's supposed to already happen, we have found the code is often left blank, making audits nearly impossible. (2) All payments must have an explanation attached — another procedure that has been routinely ignored, making it hard to determine what or who federal payments are actually for. (3) Every payment must be checked against an up-to-date 'Do Not Pay' list of known frauds, terrorist groups, deceased people and expenditures that do not match congressional appropriations."
The Senator questioned "how adding more red tape can be called an 'efficiency improvement?' I haven't received one complaint from a constituent about fraud, but I've had plenty of complaints about how small the checks are and why the rich aren't paying their fair share. It was the Democratic Party that advocated this position. It was Musk who campaigned and voted against this position. He's the one who should be fired."
In related news, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has assembled a "Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group to protect and defend everyday Americans from the harm being inflicted by this administration. There are far too many people in this country struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. The obvious solution for this problem is for the government to starting sending paychecks to more people. Trump's determination to cut government spending and lay-off employees is opposite of what we need right now."
Musk: "We discovered that more than $100 billion of entitlements annually go to individuals with no Social Security Number or even a temporary ID number. ...... at least half of these payments are fraudulent."
"You'd think that elected Democrats would want to know
who is stealing benefits meant for their constituents."
algore posted: I heard Asians counting down the months
<><>until they could retire with full SS benefits and the countries they could move to.
<><>H1b workers here can work for 10 years and then w/ pay levels in the $140s
<><>they can retire with maximum SS benefits to another country
<><>(collecting double the SS benefits of the average US citizen who has worked 35 years)
“Sen. Van Hollen insisted “I’d trust the vastly more experienced federal workers managing the payment system than a novice outsider like Musk and his teenage geniuses”
And in one sentence he described the problem right there AND exposed his stupidity.
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