The Greatest Grift Yet

This Administration may have finally figured out how to accomplish something that generations of their Republican brethren have been trying to do: get rid of Social Security as we know it.

Two weeks ago, an internal memo proposed changes to the claims process that would “debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.”

The plan is to kill the use of the phone to handle claims and direct everything to the internet. The only alternative for millions of seniors who are not internet savvy will be to make their claims in person at Social Security offices. They estimate this would create 75,000 to 85,000 more visits per week, which would represent a 14% increase over what they have now.

To drop the other shoe, they also plan on terminating 7000 workers and closing dozens of offices, thus creating a demand that will vastly overpower the apparatus available to handle it, sending the whole process into chaos.

They know all this right now and are still moving forward with the plan. Ostensibly, they say they’re trying to reduce fraudulent claims. But it’s a solution in search of a problem. The amount of Social Security fraud is less than 1% of total expenditures, with numerous processes in place that verify identities and claims. The goal here is not fraud prevention but to sabotage the Social Security system, effectively denying Americans their well-earned benefits.

Then what?

Once the system is in complete shambles, Republicans will emerge with a new plan to replace the mess they created, one which relieves the government of responsibility and privatizes the whole operation. That way, Wall Street bankers, traders, and hedge fund bros can sit on the money, invest it in any shady operation they can dream up, like the ones that tanked the economy in 2008, and then charge us fees to receive the payments of our own money. That’s the whole reason Republicans don’t like Social Security as it is… they can’t skim the take. They can’t stomach that there’s a huge pile of money of which they receive no part.

And once it’s privatized, you watch how the amount that employers contribute falls off the table or disappears completely. That’s the other fat cat dream… stop diluting profits by paying into Social Security. It’ll end up like so many pensions in the early 2000s… converted into 401ks where the business doesn’t contribute nearly what they did to the pension funds.

The haste Republicans are making to break the government structure shows that they’re looking to cause chaos sooner rather than later, which will be all the better to declare martial law or some other ruse to use to postpone or eliminate the midterm elections. If they thought they were going to face an enraged electorate in 2026 and risk losing the House, they wouldn’t be acting so recklessly right now.

They’ve even got the military under their thumb, with Trumpie toadies taking over the high command, who will be loyal to him rather than the Constitution. That means they’ll have no qualms about turning military weapons on protesting American citizens. It’s all set up for them now, thanks to the 2025 Project.

They’re packing the lifeboats and jumping in, leaving the rest of us to go down with the ship.

I used to think that this whole notion I’m touting was far-fetched. I never thought it would get this bad. But everything I see going on leads to this conclusion. The Republicans and 1%ers are setting themselves up to rule indefinitely and leaving us to forage about for ourselves. We’re not their concern, we’re just an asset to manage.

We need to make our assets heard, pronto, or American life as we know it is over.

Update: TFG wants Social Security cuts expedited. (Thanks for the link, C&L.)