The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security; The New York Times, June 16, 2025

Alexandra Berzon, Nicholas Nehamas and Tara Siegel Bernard , The New York Times; The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security

"Throughout the early months of this Trump presidency, Mr. Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans, a New York Times investigation has found.

Their work has led to the departures of thousands of employees, thinning an already overstretched work force and setting off a wave of public anxiety over the state of an agency administering politically sacrosanct retirement benefits that Mr. Trump has vowed to protect.

Mr. Musk has left Washington amid a blowup with Mr. Trump, and some of his top aides at DOGE have also departed, leaving federal workers and the public to assess what Mr. Musk’s tornadolike path through Washington yielded. At Social Security, Mr. Musk’s efforts amount to a case study in what happened when his team of government novices ran a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts."

Former US social security head predicts ‘interruption of benefits’ amid Doge cuts; The Guardian, April 25, 2025

Robert Tait  , The Guardian; Former US social security head predicts ‘interruption of benefits’ amid Doge cuts

[Kip Currier: The excerpted statements (see below) by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are moronic and deceitful. American workers have paid into Social Security and they reasonably expect and have earned the right to receive their fair share of the contributions they've made, when they decide to do so. 

Billionaires like Lutnick and Elon Musk think nothing of using every tax loophole or corporate write-off they can to make more money for themselves. Yet, these same billionaires want to deny American workers from accessing benefits from the system that they've faithfully paid into and rightfully earned.

We've all seen this "bad movie plot" before, right?

We see through the hypocrisy, sophomoric tricks, and bad faith efforts to rip off -- and take for themselves through billionaire tax cuts -- what U.S. workers have lawfully earned, don't we?

Yeah, we do! We see through your disinformation and deceptive antics, Lutnick and Musk et al. 

Call your state and federal representatives and tell them you want billionaires like Lutnick and Musk to keep their hands off the Social Security you've earned:

Directory of U.S. House Representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives

Directory of U.S. Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm ]

[Excerpt]

"Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and also a billionaire, added further fuel by suggesting only fraudsters would complain if there was an interruption to social security payments – the very scenario O’Malley has warned of.

“Let’s say social security didn’t send out their checks this month, my mother-in-law – who’s 94 – she wouldn’t call and complain,” Lutnick told a business podcast last month. “She’d just think something messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.”"