By FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
and Companies
newshub@eyewitness.africa
Elon Musk and the Trump administration are pitching cuts in probably the most politically harmful arenas in America — the Social Safety Administration.
In line with NBCnews Musk has forged the concept as one which’s primarily about immigration, falsely claiming that undocumented immigrants are fraudulently accessing a whole lot of billions of {dollars}’ value of entitlements, together with Social Safety, Medicaid and incapacity packages, as a part of a Democratic scheme for votes.
“By utilizing entitlements fraud, the Democrats have been in a position to appeal to and retain huge numbers of unlawful immigrants,” Musk, the billionaire tech CEO behind the Division of Authorities Effectivity, mentioned Monday on Sen. Ted Cruz’s podcast, with out proof. “And purchase voters. Principally herald 10, 20 million people who find themselves beholden to the Democrats for presidency handouts and can vote overwhelmingly Democrat, as has been demonstrated in California.”
Musk informed Cruz, R-Texas, that his efforts to finish the alleged fraud are why individuals on the left “hate my guts and wish me to die.” He mentioned the fraud has value the federal government $100 billion to $200 billion.
It’s an argument Musk has been making repeatedly in current weeks, as DOGE and the Trump administration announce and push for extra cuts to the SSA, together with eliminating hundreds of workers from the already lean company, ending the power to make claims by cellphone and shuttering dozens of subject places of work that assist seniors entry their advantages.
The Trump administration has mentioned repeatedly it isn’t reducing advantages — simply fraud. And whereas it’s well-known that fraud exists in packages similar to Social Safety and incapacity packages, consultants say Individuals and abroad crime rings are usually perpetrating fraud on entitlements.
Requested for touch upon Musk’s remarks and proof that immigrants residing in the USA with out authorized standing have been in charge for the fraud, the White Home didn’t provide any.
“If NBC needs to die on the hill of objecting to credible claims of fraud in our entitlements, particularly by the tens of millions of illegals Joe Biden let into this nation, have at it,” White Home deputy press secretary Harrison Fields mentioned in an announcement. “Our federal authorities is riddled with fraud, and President Trump is placing an finish to that regardless of opposition from complacent Democrats and the mainstream media.”
President Donald Trump has voiced assist for privatizing Social Safety. IMAGE/UGC.
Social Safety sends retired individuals checks each month based mostly on their incomes as working individuals, and it additionally sends checks to disabled individuals. Medicaid insures low-income individuals, whereas Medicare supplies medical health insurance for individuals older than 65. Broadly, immigrants with out authorized standing don’t qualify for federal {dollars} by means of the packages.
Some states do fund well being take care of undocumented immigrants like pregnant girls, and Medicaid will reimburse hospitals for emergency well being care offered to low-income, undocumented immigrants, as hospitals aren’t allowed to show away individuals searching for emergency care. That quantities to lower than 1% of Medicaid’s annual spending.
Social Safety cuts have been a significant focus of tense city halls for Republican lawmakers, with constituents expressing concern that cuts on the SSA may make it more durable for them to entry their advantages. In line with a Could report from the Workplace of the Inspector Normal, individuals have been already experiencing extended wait instances working with the SSA.
The report famous that in-office appointments may very well be fully booked up for greater than 40 days sooner or later and that it may take months for promised companies to be delivered. The report mentioned 65% of Social Safety beneficiaries have been unaware that there have been on-line companies for the company.
However even with constituents struggling to interface with the SSA, Musk has portrayed pushback to his adjustments as politically motivated.
“For this reason the Democrats are so upset in regards to the scenario,” Musk mentioned on Fox Enterprise final week. “If we flip off this gigantic cash magnet for unlawful immigrants, then they are going to depart and they’re going to lose voters.”
“Entitlements fraud for unlawful aliens is what’s serving as a huge magnetic pressure to tug individuals in from all all over the world and maintain them right here,” he informed Joe Rogan final month, with out offering proof. Musk has repeatedly posted a clip of that a part of his interview, too.
Musk’s argument crucially forged vital cuts to Social Safety as a important a part of Trump’s agenda cracking down on unlawful immigration, his hottest main concern, in accordance with current polling by NBC Information. It’s additionally basically inaccurate, consultants and former executives informed NBC Information, warning that cuts made within the title of fraud will harm eligible recipients of presidency advantages.
Twitter proprietor Elon Musk. PHOTO/Wikimedia Commons.
“Whenever you have a look at the numbers, it’s truly the alternative: Undocumented immigrants can’t get SSI or Social Safety advantages, however the truth is, the undocumented immigrants contribute rather a lot to the Social Safety system,” mentioned Kathleen Romig, director of Social Safety and incapacity coverage on the Heart on Price range and Coverage Priorities, a left-leaning suppose tank that research authorities spending.
In 2022, immigrants working in the USA with out authorized authorization paid $25.7 billion in Social Safety taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, in accordance with a current evaluation from the Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage.
It’s one of many issues bolstering this system regardless of difficult demographics because the child boomers retire with fewer youthful, working individuals paying into this system on the similar time.
It’s not clear how far Musk, who didn’t reply to requests for remark, would possibly need to go in altering Social Safety, a program that dates to an act President Franklin Roosevelt signed in 1935 and presently supplies advantages to greater than 73 million retired and disabled individuals. As Musk has immersed himself in politics over the previous yr, he has posted about this system solely sometimes.
However Musk, who has known as it “the largest Ponzi scheme of all time,” has expressed curiosity at the least as soon as within the concept of privatizing Social Safety. In December, he shared a social media thread in regards to the subject by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Lee had known as Social Safety a “nightmare” and wrote that individuals can be higher off managing retirement financial savings at the least partly on their very own. Musk known as Lee’s views “fascinating.”
Trump voiced assist for privatizing Social Safety again in 2004, however as a candidate and as president, he has vowed to guard entitlements.
Musk’s newest statements haven’t included a point out of privatization, focusing as an alternative on the concept that there’s widespread fraud or abuse by undocumented immigrants within the system — an allegation for which he hasn’t provided proof and that consultants say is inaccurate.
Fraud exists inside each authorities program, however a former government on the SSA with information of the company’s anti-fraud program mentioned abroad prison rings’ stealing eligible individuals’s advantages and other people’s faking incapacity or not reporting kin’ deaths are the most typical sorts of Social Safety fraud, not fraud involving undocumented immigrants.
Social Safety sends retired individuals checks each month based mostly on their incomes. IMAGE/UGC.
Drawing on Social Safety requires individuals to confirm their eligibility and work histories, successfully stopping immigrants with out authorized standing from drawing advantages.
The previous government, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, mentioned that undocumented immigrants who pay into this system through the use of different individuals’s Social Safety numbers pose bureaucratic challenges when the precise house owners of the Social Safety numbers apply for advantages however that immigrants aren’t receiving any advantages.
Musk’s declare of a pipeline of undocumented immigrants to Democratic voters can be inaccurate. He’s mistaken to say undocumented immigrants are voting in statewide elections.
Washington, D.C., and a few municipalities in three states permit immigrants with authorized standing to vote in native elections, but it surely’s unlawful for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and no state permits noncitizens to vote in its elections, both.
Some undocumented immigrants do ultimately get hold of citizenship — similar to by means of marriage — that might permit them to vote. That course of takes a minimal of three to 5 years.
