The Republican claim that their bill’s Medicaid cuts won’t take away people’s health insurance because people will get employer health insurance is either spoken out of dishonesty or ignorance. Many people on Medicaid will not be able to get a full time job that supplies benefits like health insurance. They will be paid little and not receive health insurance. Medicaid expansion has not shown to increase unemployment.
“Basically, the feds impose damaging new taxes and trade restrictions on farmers for reasons mostly related to ideology and rent-seeking, then undo their effects by making farmers more dependent on government largesse. Often lost in the discussion, but one reason that U.S. farmers are so dependent on selling commodity crops to China and elsewhere is that past policies essentially subsidized them to do so.
Like with all things political, various federal farm policies have created a series of odd bedfellows. Many environmental groups have lauded past farm bills because they provide incentives for farmers to set aside land as open space, but overall the federal meddling has harmed the environment. For instance, federal sugar subsidies have greatly diminished the Florida Everglades by encouraging the conversion of wetlands into sugar fields.”
…
“All these policies drive up food prices for non-farmers and reduce our choices in meats and produce.”
…
“Instead of creating this convoluted, counterproductive policy that mimics a Rube Goldberg farce, the government should do the basics to help farmers. It should scuttle tariffs, halt subsidies, eliminate costly shipping levies, create a guest-worker program so farmers can have a consistent labor source, lower taxes, bolster water infrastructure and let markets do the rest.”
“Several former Republican governors in the Senate have sounded alarms over a controversial House GOP plan to help pay for the Trump megabill by pushing billions in federal food aid costs to states.
Now there’s a would-be governor raising similar concerns. Behind the scenes in recent days, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama raised issues over the provision with GOP leaders and pushed for the plan to be scaled back, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to describe the conversations.”
To take advantage of the exponential investment curve, people need to start investing as early as possible! If you wait too late, it will be much more difficult to retire comfortably, if not impossible. Because lots of people will fail to invest early, this makes Social Security incredibly important.
More than half of all retired Americans rely on Social Security for over half of their revenue. Social Security is very important to helping people retire.
Elon Musk makes basic attacks against Social Security that Republicans have been making for many decades, and Joe Rogan is impressed like these are new ideas. Elon’s attacks are wrong or misleading in multiple ways.
“Social Security is the biggest federal expense. The next priciest items are other entitlements including Medicare and Medicaid, and Americans want to spend more on them, too. Defense is next, and while there’s room for cutting there, it’s nowhere near enough to close the deficit and save Social Security.
Some politicians claim that we can grow our economy enough to make up for Social Security’s shortfalls. But that won’t work. “Because Social Security benefits are indexed to wage growth, as wages increase, so do benefits,” explains the Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett. “Therefore, while higher wage growth boosts revenues, it simultaneously raises the future benefits owed to retirees.”
Complicating the issue, add Boccia and Lett, is that “improvements in life expectancy and a declining birth rate mean that a shrinking group of workers is supporting an increasing number of retirees even if macroeconomic conditions are sound.”
…
Boccia also points out that retirees over the age of 65 have on average triple the net worth of workers between the ages of 35–44. It’s perverse to tax hard-working younger Americans for the benefit of wealthier older ones. She suggests that “Congress should means-test Social Security, returning to the program’s stated purpose of antipoverty protection in old age.”
Some more savings could be found by linking cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security benefits to the chained CPI, which is more accurate than other measures in reflecting how consumers respond to changing prices.”
“When Veronica Sanchez called a Social Security hotline Thursday, she waited two hours before her call was abruptly disconnected.
On Friday, she was on hold for six hours and still did not get through to anyone.
“I’m gonna have to take time out of my work to stand in line and hopefully get this resolved,” the 52-year-old medical practice manager in Canoga Park said Monday before calling one more time.
For Sanchez, the stakes are high: If she does not obtain a medical letter from the agency by April 15, her parents, who are on a fixed income, risk losing about $2,500 a month in medical care. They would no longer receive insulin medication for their diabetes, she said, and could lose their daily visit from a nurse.
But even if Sanchez shows up in person, she is not likely to speak to an agent. Field offices are no longer accepting walk-in appointments.
“The system, it’s broken down,” Sanchez said.
Elderly and disabled people — and those who care for them — are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions after the Trump administration imposed a sweeping overhaul of the Social Security Administration system.”
…
“In February, the agency that sends monthly checks to nearly 73 million Americans announced plans to slash 7,000 jobs and consolidate its regional offices from 10 to four as part of an effort to “reduce the size of its bloated workforce and organizational structure.” The cutbacks, enforced by Musk’s advisory team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, represent a 12% reduction of the agency’s workforce.
Sanchez does not believe she is reaping the benefits of government efficiency.
“It’s frustrating,” she said, noting that a call that would once take 15 minutes now involves much more work.”
…
“Maria Town, president and chief executive of the American Assn. of People with Disabilities, told The Times that the system changes were not only hurting people’s ability to sign up and enroll for benefits. People already connected to the system who needed support were also having trouble appealing benefits decisions or accessing medical services.
“You can’t get anyone on the phone,” she said.
Even before Trump took office, Town said, the system had challenges: About 30,000 disabled people died in 2023 waiting for their SSDI application to be approved.”
…
“About five months ago, Taylor said, he asked for the same letter at the same office and did not run into any issues. He didn’t know what to make of the difference and had not followed the changes in the White House.
“If this is what they’re doing in Washington, it isn’t fair to everyone else,” he said. “Poor people always seem to get the worst of it.””
“Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.
The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.”