Tag: social security
Donald Trump

New Polls Show Voters Rapidly Turning On Trump Over Economy

Less than 100 days into his new term, President Donald Trump and his Republican Party are hemorrhaging public support as his policies thrash the economy, threaten Americans’ Social Security and Medicaid, and blow up the rule of law.

Trump's approval rating is now well underwater, with 54 percent of registered voters disapproving of the job he’s doing as president, compared with just 42 percent approving, according to Civiqs’ tracker. Voters seem to be deeply repelled by his handling of the economy, inflation, and even immigration—an issue he's usually held an advantage on.

This is terrible news for Republicans both for critical upcoming gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in November, and for the rest of the GOP in the 2026 midterms.

For example, a Morning Consult poll released Tuesday morning found that for the first time since 2021, more voters trust Democrats on the economy than they do Republicans, by a 46 to 43 percent margin.

"That three-percentage-point edge for Democrats—their largest since April 2021—underlines a stark unraveling for the GOP, which had come off the 2024 election with a double-digit advantage on the matter," Morning Consult wrote.

The evaporation of Republicans’ edge on economic issues comes as they defend the tariffs Trump has levied on nearly every country in the world. Those tariffs are threatening to explode inflation, sink the country into a recession, and cost thousands of Americans their livelihoods.

Even worse for Republicans is that Morning Consult found congressional Democrats are now viewed more favorably than congressional Republicans.

"For the first time since just before the 2024 election, the average voter is more likely to hold positive than negative views about Democrats in Congress (47 to 46 percent). It leaves them more popular than Republicans in Congress, whose favorability ratings are now 10 points underwater," Morning Consult reported.

A new poll conducted by YouGov for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst also finds similarly poor results for the GOP. In it, voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump's handling of inflation (33 percent approve, 62 percent disapprove), trade (36 percent approve, 58 percent disapprove), jobs (38 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove), and foreign affairs (36 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove). The poll also finds just 50 percent approve of his handling of immigration—often his strongest issue in polling—while 46 percent disapprove.

Meanwhile, a Quinnipiac University poll from last week found Trump underwater on immigration, with 45 percent approving of his handling of it and 50 percent disapproving.

“Despite what you’ve probably heard, Trump’s immigration agenda isn’t actually popular,” G. Elliottt Morris, a reporter who led the now-defunct news outlet 538, wrote in a post on X. “While Americans tend to approve of ‘the way he is handling immigration’ in abstract, they are very negative on the details.”

For example, voters strongly disapprove of Trump’s policy of deporting undocumented immigrants without criminal records, Morris found. They also strongly oppose sending such immigrants to foreign prisons.

Trump is refusing to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant from El Salvador that Trump sent to that prison known as CECOT, despite an order from the Supreme Court to do so.

“The media narrative is that ‘Trump is popular on immigration.’ But as we can see, that is not really true,” Morris wrote in a blog post. “On the specifics of his policy, and especially on the on-the-ground implementation, Americans are mostly opposed to what his administration is doing. (And the data above should probably be considered an overestimate, since the polls I've used are old and conducted before the Abrego Garcia news.)”

Ultimately, Trump is not immune to political gravity. And if voters have already soured on his agenda less than 100 days into his term, things could get even uglier for Trump and his party if he doesn’t reverse course.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Elon Musk

Musk Wins $5.9B Spacex Contract As He Torches Social Security Agency

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s space company was recently handed a $5.9 billion contract subsidized by taxpayers, even as his so-called Department of Government Efficiency continues to take a wrecking ball to key government agencies.

The U.S. Space Force announced on April 4 that Musk’s SpaceX was among three companies awarded government contracts for the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 program. Space X will receive more than $5.9 billion of the $13.7 billion in spending that was announced.

Musk is the CEO of SpaceX and owns approximately 42 percent of the company.

While SpaceX is newly flush with government money, Musk’s DOGE has been laying off critical federal workers at multiple agencies. Federal judges have ruled that some of those firings are illegal.

At the Social Security Administration, DOGE has cut 7,000 jobs even though millions of Americans rely on their Social Security payments for day-to-day living. The Washington Post reports that the agency’s website, which citizens use to access information on their benefits, has had repeated outages in recent weeks.

The Post noted that “many of the network outages appear to be caused by an expanded fraud check system imposed by the DOGE team,” according to current and former officials that they consulted. Those sources told the outlet that Social Security’s tech staff didn’t test new software installed by Musk’s group and the computer servers have been unable to handle the traffic.

The revelations come as DOGE has repeatedly lied to the public about how much the rogue agency’s actions have purportedly saved taxpayers. Musk, who is the richest person in the world, has benefited enormously from public spending while attacking and gutting agencies that provide vital services to middle-class families.

Despite Musk continuing to siphon money from the government while attacking it via DOGE, President Donald Trump has made it clear that his crony and biggest political benefactor will not be subject to any guardrails or oversight for corruption.

The arrangement has led to Musk and Trump becoming a major target of grassroots protests. Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. took part in “Hands Off” demonstrations, pushing for Trump and Musk to stop their harmful actions and encouraging other lawmakers to stop them.

Musk isn’t the only high-profile billionaire in the MAGA movement making money from the Space Force announcement. Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, will receive over $2.3 billion from the arrangement.

Trump recently offered praise for Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, after the paper’s pivot in recent weeks to be more MAGA-friendly.

The stock price and revenue for Musk’s other major company, Tesla, have been sinking as he marched in lockstep with Trump. The public has expressed its revulsion and anger at DOGE’s actions even as Republican leaders continue to back the effort. [Musk has lately expressed alarm over Trump's tariff policies.]

But even while Trump’s closest billionaire allies are losing money due to his chaotic and catastrophic tariff policies, they are raking in billions from the government he now leads.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

MAGA Oligarchs Using 'Friction Theory' To Ruin Social Security

MAGA Oligarchs Using 'Friction Theory' To Ruin Social Security

Thomas Jefferson referred to the U.S. government as a "common house" that provided the people protection and stability. Donald Trump is trying to evict Americans from that comfy home by making it hard to get benefits that should be thought of as a right.

Witness the slashing of basic government services in the name of deficit reduction, or more accurately, paying for tax cuts. Elon Musk's rash firings are about more than saving taxpayers money on salaries and office rent. It's about frustrating Americans trying to obtain benefits to the point that they give up.

In economics, "friction theory" describes how governments (or other institutions) put into place unnecessary complexity, bureaucratic hurdles, or inefficiencies to discourage the public from accessing services. This can take the form of complex paperwork, or limited hours of operation to reduce demand.

It's no accident that Musk is cannibalizing the workforces that administer such benefits as Social Security and Medicaid. These are people we sometimes must talk to.

Trump started applying the friction theory in his first term to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Its purpose was to steer away the younger and healthy beneficiaries needed for a stable insurance pool.

He shortened the annual ACA enrollment period and slashed its advertising budget by 90%. He cut funding for the navigators who helped folks understand the ACA program and how to enroll in it.

He employed other means to dismantle the program. The tax cut legislation effectively repealed the "individual mandate" requiring most Americans to have health coverage or pay a penalty. By removing the penalty, fewer healthy people bought coverage. The result was higher ACA marketplace premiums to cover a riskier pool of beneficiaries.

Trump also expanded access to short-term plans that didn't have to meet basic ACA requirements, such as covering preexisting conditions. Many people opted for these cheaper plans, again leaving the ACA marketplaces burdened with a sicker population.

Unable to bankrupt the ACA, Trump then tried to kill the program outright and almost succeeded. Time to try again.

The ACA expanded access to Medicaid. Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, calls for stricter eligibility standards to decrease enrollment in Medicaid and place limits on lifetime benefits. What Project 2025 wants, Project 2025 seems to be getting.

As for the Social Security Administration, Musk's mass layoffs insert friction into the process of getting information about benefits or fixing problems. That has resulted in limited phone-based services and the shutting of local offices providing in-person assistance. The Social Security website has crashed four times in 10 days this month so far.

The MAGA slumlords now portray Social Security not as the earned benefit it is but as some kind of racket. Consider Musk's fake claims about armies of long-dead Americans still collecting benefits. And he calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."

Social Security faces financing challenges, but the benefits come out of taxes paid by the workers and their employers. What's not distributed to beneficiaries gets invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

Our new commerce secretary broke new ground in portraying those claiming a missed Social Security check or incorrect payment as likely criminals. I quote Howard Lutnick:

"A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining. ... The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing."

Face it. The knives are out to destroy Americans' confidence in the government services that made their national house feel like home. The goal of the MAGA slumlords is to get the public to curse the program and, most importantly, go away. Frustration is their weapon.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

How Trump Is Screwing Rural Seniors Who Elected Him

How Trump Is Screwing Rural Seniors Who Elected Him

Donald Trump’s administration is a disaster that is hurting Americans. While Democrats got punished at the polls for trying to improve people’s lives, victorious Republicans are rewarding voters by actively coming up with new and creative ways to hurt them.

Like, who the hell decided that senior citizens have it too easy?

“In an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity-proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone,” the Associated Press reported. “Beginning March 31st, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the SSA over the phone and those who cannot properly verify their identity over the agency’s ‘my Social Security’ online service, will be required to visit an agency field office in person to complete the verification process, agency leadership told reporters Tuesday.”

To add insult to injury, the Trump administration plans to slash the number of Social Security field offices.

Multibillionaire and Trump co-President Elon Musk, having promised trillions of dollars in government cuts through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has finally realized he can’t get there without gutting enormously popular entitlement programs like Medicaid and Social Security. After calling Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” Musk has claimed the program meant to keep senior citizens out of poverty is beset by fraud.

“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s like the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year,” Musk told Larry Kudlow on Fox Business.

In reality, a 2024 Inspector General report found $72 billion in “improper payments” over eight years (between 2015-2022), or just $9 billion per year. That represents less than one percent of overall payments distributed during that time frame. If Trump really cared about rooting out that abuse, perhaps he shouldn’t have fired all the inspectors general as soon as he took office, as that was literally their job.

While this new in-person requirement will impact all seniors and people with disabilities who receive Social Security payments, it will disproportionately affect those in rural areas. Urban recipients can Uber or take public transportation to their local office. Rural Americans don’t have that convenience.

Take Maine, for instance.

“The Presque Isle field office, the only Social Security office in Aroostook County, is one of the locations that could close, forcing some Mainers to drive hours if they have trouble getting their benefits,” reported local TV station WMTW. “Many offices are already understaffed.”

Aroostook County is at the northernmost tip of Maine and covers 6,800 square miles with just 67,000 residents. It makes sense that the region was covered by an office in Presque Isle, population 8,800, as it is the largest city in the area. Trump won the county with 62 percent of the vote—almost exactly matching Trump’s rural national performance of 64 percent. Unfortunately, we don’t have exit polls combining age and area type, but generally speaking, older rural white people (and this county is 94.5 percent white) are heavily Republican.

Way at the other end of our country from Maine, ginormous Alaska will be relegated to three Social Security field offices. Meanwhile, Musk’s DOGE has already canceled leases on 47 offices—16 of them in red states, just two in blue states, and almost all in rural counties. And that’s likely just the beginning. (For example, the Presque Island office isn’t on that list.)

As with Medicaid, Trump’s latest policies are particularly cruel toward his own supporters. They voted for him to hurt other people, or because of the mistaken belief that Trump could lower grocery prices—and karma is biting them in the ass.

It’s quite remarkable that rural Americans voted for a candidate that promised to slash government waste, given how much they benefit from heavily subsidized rural broadband, nationalized mail service, federally funded health care, and government field offices like these Social Security locations. Now they’re finding out that running the federal government like a business means that they are the “waste” everyone was talking about. It turns out they aren’t as self-sufficient as they thought they were—and that serving these rural denizens is certainly not efficient, as far as Trump and Musk are concerned.

There were 71.6 million Americans on Social Security in 2023, and 5.8 million new additions to its rolls that year. The new edict requires all new beneficiaries, as well as anyone changing their direct deposit information, to visit a field office in person if they cannot verify their identity via an online portal—something that tech-challenged seniors will disproportionately struggle to accomplish. How exactly will the agency, already understaffed before the DOGE massacre, verify all of them in person while simultaneously facing additional staffing cuts of up to 50 percent?

Long wait times, long drives, massive inconveniences … it’s all good, though. They voted to own the libs, and mission accomplished! I’m sure these consequences will be more than worth it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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