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social security
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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Musk Admission Exposes 'DOGE's Deeply Unpopular and Unrealistic Agenda'
"Americans see right through Musk's scheme to pay for his own tax breaks by defunding Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare," said one critic.
Jan 09, 2025
Mega-billionaire Elon Musk conceded Wednesday that he's not likely to achieve his fantastical goal of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget, an admission that one critic said underscores the folly of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
"President-elect [Donald] Trump hasn't even taken office and Elon Musk is already admitting failure on DOGE's deeply unpopular and unrealistic agenda," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "Americans see right through Musk's scheme to pay for his own tax breaks by defunding Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare."
Musk, the world's richest man and a close ally of Trump, said in an interview Wednesday that cutting $2 trillion in federal spending would be an "epic outcome" but described it as a "best-case" scenario. Economists have dismissed Musk's $2 trillion target as absurd, given that the entire annual discretionary budget was $1.6 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024.
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, said Thursday that Musk's lower target of $1 trillion in cuts is also "too large," noting that "if you protect Social Security, Medicare, vets, and defense, it would mean cutting every other program by 45% on average." Republican lawmakers have floated similarly outlandish cuts.
Opponents of the Department of Government Efficiency—an advisory commission set to be led by Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy—have warned it is a thinly veiled effort to target Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other nondiscretionary programs, a concern amplified by recent comments from GOP supporters of the panel.
"I am a strong advocate of discussing this and reevaluating them, and I do believe, at the end of the day, there will be some cut," Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.) said of Medicare and Social Security outside of the first meeting of the House DOGE Caucus.
Musk said ahead of the 2024 elections—on which he spent heavily to influence—that spending cuts he envisions would "necessarily" bring "some temporary hardship," but he hasn't specifically detailed which programs he would target.
"If the incoming president follows through on even a fraction of the $2 trillion in cuts that Musk and his allies have promised, the pain will be felt well beyond struggling small-town America," journalist Conor Lynch wrote for Truthdig earlier this week. "Veterans, especially, who voted overwhelmingly for the president-elect, could be in for a rude awakening."
"Shortly after being tapped to be Musk's co-chair at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X that the first order of business should be to eliminate all spending on programs with expired authorizations from Congress, which amounts to over half a trillion dollars," Lynch noted. "Users were quick to point out that if Trump followed Ramaswamy's advice, he would instantly defund healthcare for veterans, which is by far the largest spending program on that list."
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Biden Signs 'First Social Security Expansion in Decades' as GOP Eyes Cuts
Social Security expansion is the "bipartisan solution that most Americans want," said one group, "even though some on Capitol Hill have proposed to slash benefits."
Jan 06, 2025
Joe Biden on Sunday became the first president in more than two decades to sign a measure that expands Social Security benefits, a move that came as congressional Republicans and an Elon Musk-led advisory commission weigh possible cuts to the nation's most effective antipoverty program.
The Social Security Fairness Act rolls back the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), provisions that curbed Social Security benefits for those receiving retirement benefits from public service jobs.
The repeal of the two provisions means roughly 3 million teachers, firefighters, and other public-sector workers will see increases to their Social Security benefits. While the Social Security Fairness Act received significant bipartisan support, 71 Republicans in the House and 20 in the Senate voted against it, including new Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a statement Sunday that "repeal of the WEP-GPO is long overdue and would not have happened without the tenacity of Alliance members across the country who built a grassroots coalition and passed this law with strong bipartisan support."
"For years the government has taken away Social Security benefits from millions of retired federal, state, and local government employees who worked as teachers, police, firefighters, postal workers, and general employees," said Fiesta.
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, wrote on social media that the new law "fixes two iniquitous policies that reduce the Social Security benefits of teachers, police officers, and firefighters."
"First Social Security expansion in decades," Lawson added. "Thanks President Biden."
"Public opinion polling indicates that majorities of Americans across party lines want to see benefits boosted, not cut."
Biden signed the measure just two weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to establish a commission aimed at slashing government programs and regulations. Critics of the new panel, which is led by Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, see it as a thinly veiled push to cut Social Security and other vital programs—a fear bolstered by recent comments from Republican lawmakers.
"Nothing is sacrosanct," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters after meeting with the two billionaires last month. "They're going to put everything on the table."
Ahead of a recent meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.) predicted that "at the end of the day, there will be some cuts" to Social Security.
Musk himself has also taken aim at the New Deal program, using his massive platform on X—the social media site he owns—to boost a Republican senator's thread attacking 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), said in a statement Sunday that "President Biden's signing of the Social Security Fairness Act today truly is historic."
"We encourage the new 119th Congress to keep listening to the American people—and to take action on a bipartisan basis to strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits," said Richtman. "Public opinion polling indicates that majorities of Americans across party lines want to see benefits boosted, not cut. They favor bringing more revenue into the program by demanding the wealthy contribute their fair share in payroll taxes."
"This is the bipartisan solution that most Americans want," he continued, "even though some on Capitol Hill have proposed to slash benefits by raising the retirement age, means testing, cutting COLAs, or privatizing Social Security."
Applauding Biden for signing the measure and "for consistently fulfilling his promise to protect Americans' earned benefits all the way through the end of his presidency," Richtman added, "We can only hope that President-elect Trump will keep his promises to do the same."
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