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mike lee
The GOP Is Trying to Undermine Social Security With Zombie Lies—Don’t Be Fooled.
Throughout history, Americans have recognized when Republican opponents of Social Security were lying. With Trump returning to power and Congress under right-wing control, we must be vigilant once again.
Jan 10, 2025
In addition to seeking to expand Social Security, those fighting for greater economic security must always continue to play defense. There have always been those who want to end Social Security. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower once described them as “a tiny splinter group” that seeks “to abolish Social Security.” He explained, “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” Unfortunately, that tiny group now controls the Republican party.
Most of the time, they hide their true feelings, knowing how popular and important Social Security is, even with the Republican base. Sometimes, though, the veil drops and their true feelings are revealed. That happened most recently last month when Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) decided to share his true feelings about Social Security in a lengthy Twitter thread. Elon Musk, the soon-to-be shadow President of the United States, amplified the thread, calling it “interesting.”
That “interesting” thread was simply a rehash of lies first uttered by Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican nominee for President, who lost in a landslide. These lies are not just falsehoods but zombie lies, which are used to try to undermine support for Social Security, over and over again.
Every time, Americans have recognized that they were being told lies, and the opponents of Social Security failed. We must be vigilant and make sure that these current efforts fail, too.
Enemies of Social Security willfully refuse to see it as what it actually is: insurance against the loss of wages due to retirement, disability, or death of a family breadwinner.
Let’s review just a few of those zombie lies told by Alf Landon in 1936, Senator Lee last month, and numerous other opponents in the decades in between. They mischaracterize Social Security as individual savings and then claim people would be better off saving on their own. Indeed, they claim, in the words of Lee, that “the government routinely raids” our money. Some even slander our Social Security system by calling it a criminal Ponzi scheme.
These enemies of Social Security willfully refuse to see it as what it actually is: insurance against the loss of wages due to retirement, disability, or death of a family breadwinner. They ignore that Social Security is most working families’ only disability insurance, largest life insurance policy, and most secure, effective and efficient retirement income.
While you can outlive savings, you can never outlive Social Security. The liars refuse to acknowledge that Social Security is strikingly superior to its private sector counterparts—more efficient, secure, universal, and fair. Its one shortcoming is that benefits are too low.
President Franklin Roosevelt responded to Alf Landon’s lies eloquently, in words that are as true today as when he spoke them:
Never before in all our history have [the wealthy] been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred…[They] are not happy. Some of them are desperate. […]
They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit…
They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit…
But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy.
Everyone should save, if they possibly can. Everyone should also have adequate insurance. Savings are necessary for short-term emergencies and expenses; insurance, for large losses that are predictable for groups, but not individuals.
The liars refuse to acknowledge that Social Security is strikingly superior to its private sector counterparts—more efficient, secure, universal, and fair. Its one shortcoming is that benefits are too low.
To manage the risk of the financial loss associated with the loss of a home as the result of fire, homeowners purchase fire insurance; they do not simply save for the contingency. Similarly, car owners have car insurance, not car-accident savings accounts. And to manage the risk of lost income as the result of disability, death, old age, or unemployment, everyone who works for wages needs wage insurance in the form of Social Security and unemployment insurance.
In addition to the disinformation and the lies, Alf Landon, Mike Lee, and many other Social Security opponents claim that Social Security, in the words of Mike Lee, “is government dependency at its worst.” In truth, rather than undermining freedom, Social Security unlocks the freedom to change jobs, change careers, and change life circumstances while providing some measure of peace of mind that your earned Social Security benefits are there if misfortune strikes in the form of disability or death leaving dependents. They are also there if you have good fortune in the form of a very long life.
Perhaps Republican President Eisenhower said it best:
Retirement systems, by which individuals contribute to their own security…have become an essential part of our economic and social life. These systems are but a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free; the self-reliance without which we would have had no Pilgrim Fathers, no hardship-defying pioneers, and no eagerness today to push to ever widening horizons in every aspect of our national life. The Social Security program furnishes, on a national scale, the opportunity for our citizens, through that same self-reliance, to build the foundation for their security.
Senator Lee’s zombie lies about Social Security may be appealing to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who will do whatever he can to avoid paying his fair share. But these lies will never convince the American people to abandon their overwhelming support for our Social Security system.
Lies about Social Security may be appealing to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who will do whatever he can to avoid paying his fair share. But these lies will never convince the American people to abandon their overwhelming support for our Social Security system.
Those lies have failed to change the narrative for 90 years, and they’re not going to work now.
It’s no surprise that Musk wants to undermine support for Social Security and is eager to amplify Mike Lee’s lies to do so. Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” is designed to target our earned benefits, with Republicans already admitting that “there will be some cuts” to Social Security and Medicare.
We must not let that happen.
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Watchdogs Say World's Richest Man Elon Musk Has 'Declared War on Social Security'
"Elon Musk's commission is a plot to destroy our Social Security by giving it to Wall Street executives—so that you get nothing and they get everything," warned one advocate.
Dec 03, 2024
A lengthy series of X posts attacking Social Security as a "nightmare" caught the attention of the platform's mega-billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who could soon take aim at the beloved New Deal program as co-chair of an advisory commission tasked with identifying federal spending to slash.
"Interesting thread," Musk, the world's richest man, wrote late Monday in response to the posts by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who once said he hopes to pull Social Security "up by the roots and get rid of it," along with Medicare and Medicaid.
In his new thread, Lee characterized Social Security—which lifts more Americans above the poverty line than any other federal program—as a "tax plan" insidiously disguised as a retirement plan and condemned the Social Security Act of 1935 as one of many "deceptive sales techniques the U.S. government has used on the American people."
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), replied Tuesday that Lee's posts amount to "a misrepresentation of Social Security's history and how the program works."
"There is nothing deceptive about Social Security. The social insurance program has been working just fine for nearly 90 years and has never missed a payment," said Richtman. "The kind of propaganda Sen. Lee posted undermines public support for Social Security, making it easier to cut or privatize the program. It is perhaps no coincidence that Sen. Lee's second-biggest campaign contributor by industry is the securities and investment sector."
"The money is ours, Mike Lee, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. You're not going to get a penny of it."
Lee also claimed the federal government "routinely raids" the Social Security Trust Fund—a longstanding and misleading right-wing talking point.
Social Security Works (SSW), a progressive advocacy group, said Tuesday that by amplifying Lee's thread to his hundreds of millions of followers, Musk "just declared war on Social Security."
"For 89 years, through war and peace, boom time and bust, health and pandemics, Social Security has never missed a single payment," said Alex Lawson, SSW's executive director. "Compared to the risky alternatives on Wall Street, Social Security is a rock of retirement security. If billionaires like Elon Musk paid into Social Security at the same rate as the rest of us on all of their income, we could expand benefits for everyone and pay them in full forever."
"This is a declaration of war against seniors, people with disabilities, and the American public," Lawson said. "The Republicans are coming for your Social Security, which they call a 'nightmare.' Elon Musk's commission is a plot to destroy our Social Security by giving it to Wall Street executives—so that you get nothing and they get everything."
"We've seen this play again and again," he added. "When Republicans destroyed defined-benefit pension plans, they claimed that the market would be able to create amazing returns for everybody. Instead, workers got pennies, while Wall Street managers got billions. That is always the plan. We will defeat this Republican effort to steal our earned benefits. The money is ours, Mike Lee, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump. You're not going to get a penny of it."
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, similarly denounced Lee's thread and Musk's promotion of it, saying both "should enrage and concern every single American who has contributed to Social Security."
"Sen. Mike Lee has dreamed about 'phasing out Social Security' and the benefits generations of Americans have earned for more than a decade. His bad ideas have been rightfully ignored but last night he got a big assist from Elon Musk, who amplified Lee's wrongheaded views about Social Security on X."
"Social Security is a solemn promise between the American people and the government," Fiesta continued. "We pay for Social Security's guaranteed benefits with every paycheck and expect them to be there when we retire, lose a spouse or parent, or become disabled. No one voted to phase out Social Security or let Wall Street gamble with their earned benefits. Older Americans will rightly punish any politician who tries to cut their benefits or gut the system that has worked for generations."
On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to defend Social Security while simultaneously pushing proposals that would wreck the program's finances.
Many Republican lawmakers, who are soon to be in the majority in both chambers of Congress, have called for raising the Social Security retirement age—a change that would cut benefits across the board. On Tuesday, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) toldFox Business Network that "we're going to have to have some hard decisions" on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare—a euphemism for benefit cuts.
Richtman of NCPSSM said that the kind of attack advanced by Lee and other Republicans "conflicts with President Trump's promise not to tamper with Americans' earned benefits."
"It signals where Trump's MAGA allies in Congress are heading—toward privatization and benefit cuts, something the majority of Americans across party lines say they do not want," Richtman added.
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Coalition Urges Senators to Stop 'Illegal, Ineffective' US Airstrikes in Yemen
"Instead of bombing Yemen," one group said, "the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."
Jul 11, 2024
An anti-war coalition of over 50 groups this week wrote to four U.S. senators who have raised alarm about American airstrikes in Yemen and the Red Sea to call for legislation that would stop "illegal, ineffective, and deadly unauthorized" bombings.
The coalition on Wednesday wrote to Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Todd Young, (R-Ind.), who in January sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden stressing that "there is no current congressional authorization for offensive U.S. military action against the Houthis" and demanding answers about recent strikes against the group.
"We are grateful for your long-standing efforts in support of both ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen, as well as your defense of Congress' war powers, including your joint letter," the coalition wrote to the senators. "We write today to urge you to take necessary actions to defend the role of Congress in authorizing war and military action, as the framers of our Constitution intended, and to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution to this end."
The coalition includes Action Corps, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Just Foreign Policy, National Iranian American Council, Peace Action, RootsAction.org, Veterans for Peace, and dozens of other groups across the ideological spectrum.
"Unfortunately, about six months after the strikes began, there is scant evidence that the strikes have been either strategically smart or successful, as you correctly predicted when you wrote that the unauthorized strikes 'will not deter the Houthi attacks,'" the coalition continued, citing the January letter.
As the groups detailed:
Far from being deterred, the Houthis have actually expanded the range of their attacks, with an attack in late April targeting an Israeli-linked ship sailing 375 miles off the coast of Yemen. More recently, Houthi attacks have shown a 'significant increase in effectiveness,' according to security firm Ambrey, including through the use of drone boats and double-tap strikes. Houthi military officials have announced plans for further escalation of their attacks if no cease-fire is reached in Gaza. All of this was foreseen by experts, who widely predicted that the U.S. strikes would only strengthen the Houthis' narrative, contributing to greater popularity both at home and across the Muslim world, and helping them enlist tens of thousands of new fighters.
"To our knowledge, the administration has not even made a good-faith attempt to engage with the valid constitutional concerns and substantive policy critiques you have raised alongside dozens of House members, experts, and advocates," the coalition noted. "This leads us to believe that the administration has effectively conceded that it does not have valid legal and constitutional authority to engage in these strikes."
"The strikes have nonetheless continued unabated for months, with hundreds of missiles launched in Yemen, including an attack on May 30th that killed at least 16 people and injured about 42 people," the groups added. "This threatens to deny the American people critical congressional debate and oversight regarding this dangerous and strategically dubious military action, and could be cited by the executive branch to attempt to justify similar or even more expansive unauthorized military actions in other contexts in the future."
The coalition is calling on the bipartisan group of senators to "to move swiftly to rein in these unauthorized and unconstitutional strikes by introducing a War Powers Resolution to remove U.S. participation from hostilities in Yemen, until or unless Congress authorizes such action."
Multiple coalition members echoed the letter's demands on social media Thursday. Peace Action declared that "Congress needs to flex its constitutional duty to rein in unauthorized U.S. missile strikes."
Action Corps emphasized that Biden—who is seeking reelection in November against former Republican President Donald Trump—"has no authority to continue dropping bombs on Yemen."
"With each illegal bombing, peace is delayed, and more children are starved to death. It's time for bipartisan action to ensure only Congress can declare war, regardless of which party is in office," the group added. "Instead of bombing Yemen, the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."
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