Donald Trump’s administration is a catastrophe that’s hurting Individuals. Whereas Democrats acquired punished on the polls for attempting to enhance individuals’s lives, victorious Republicans are rewarding voters by actively arising with new and inventive methods to damage them.
Like, who the hell determined that senior residents have it too straightforward?
“In an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity-proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone,” the Related Press reported. “Beginning March 31st, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the SSA over the phone and those who cannot properly verify their identity over the agency’s ‘my Social Security’ online service, will be required to visit an agency field office in person to complete the verification process, agency leadership told reporters Tuesday.”
So as to add insult to damage, the Trump administration plans to slash the variety of Social Safety discipline places of work.
Multibillionaire and Trump co-President Elon Musk, having promised trillions of {dollars} in authorities cuts via his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, has lastly realized he can’t get there with out gutting enormously common entitlement applications like Medicaid and Social Safety. After calling Social Safety “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk has claimed this system meant to maintain senior residents out of poverty is beset by fraud.
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s like the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year,” Musk advised Larry Kudlow on Fox Enterprise.
In actuality, a 2024 Inspector Common report discovered $72 billion in “improper payments” over eight years (between 2015-2022), or simply $9 billion per 12 months. That represents lower than 1% of general funds distributed throughout that timeframe. If Trump actually cared about rooting out that abuse, maybe he shouldn’t have fired all of the inspectors normal as quickly as he took workplace, as that was actually their job.
Whereas this new in-person requirement will influence all seniors and folks with disabilities who obtain Social Safety funds, it can disproportionately have an effect on these in rural areas. City recipients can Uber or take public transportation to their native workplace. Rural Individuals don’t have that comfort.
Take Maine, for example.
“The Presque Isle field office, the only Social Security office in Aroostook County, is one of the locations that could close, forcing some Mainers to drive hours if they have trouble getting their benefits,” reported native TV station WMTW. “Many offices are already understaffed.”
Aroostook County is on the northernmost tip of Maine and covers 6,800 sq. miles with simply 67,000 residents. It is sensible that the area was coated by an workplace in Presque Isle, inhabitants 8,800, as it’s the largest metropolis within the space. Trump received the county with 62% of the vote—virtually precisely matching Trump’s rural nationwide efficiency of 64%. Sadly, we don’t have exit polls combining age and space kind, however usually talking, older rural white individuals (and this county is 94.5% white) are closely Republican.
Method on the different finish of our nation from Maine, ginormous Alaska can be relegated to three Social Safety discipline places of work. In the meantime, Musk’s DOGE has already canceled leases on 47 places of work—16 of them in purple states, simply two in blue states, and virtually all in rural counties. And that’s seemingly only the start. (For instance, the Presque Island workplace isn’t on that checklist.)
As with Medicaid, Trump’s newest insurance policies are notably merciless towards his personal supporters. They voted for him to harm different individuals, or due to the mistaken perception that Trump may decrease grocery costs—and karma is biting them within the ass.
It’s fairly exceptional that rural Individuals voted for a candidate that promised to slash authorities waste, given how a lot they profit from closely sponsored rural broadband, nationalized mail service, federally funded well being care, and authorities discipline places of work like these Social Safety places. Now they’re discovering out that operating the federal authorities like a enterprise signifies that they are the “waste” everybody was speaking about. It seems they aren’t as self-sufficient as they thought they have been—and that serving these rural denizens is definitely not environment friendly, so far as Trump and Musk are involved.
There have been 71.6 million Individuals on Social Safety in 2023, and 5.8 million new additions to its rolls that 12 months. The brand new edict requires all new beneficiaries, in addition to anybody altering their direct deposit info, to go to a discipline workplace in individual if they can’t confirm their identification by way of an internet portal—one thing that tech-challenged seniors will disproportionately wrestle to perform. How precisely will the company, already understaffed earlier than the DOGE bloodbath, confirm all of them in individual whereas concurrently going through further staffing cuts of as much as 50%?
Lengthy wait instances, lengthy drives, huge inconveniences … it’s all good, although. They voted to personal the libs, and mission completed! I’m certain these penalties can be greater than price it.
