Democracy is an illusion! It’s become a political system fostered by the élite, for the élite, in order to fool the people that they have a stake in the system. In actual fact, they have virtually none. The whole political system in the modern era, despite having noble beginnings, is now used to benefit the few at the expense of the many. – Mark Alexander, June 29, 2018
Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts
Aug 14, 2025 | Ninety years ago this week, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating the most popular government program in our nation’s history.
For nearly nine decades, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay.
Before Social Security was signed into law, half of seniors in America lived in poverty. Today, although still way too high, that figure is 10%. Social Security is not, as Elon Musk has suggested, “the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Quite the opposite. It is the most successful government program in American history. A program that over 160,000 older and disabled Vermonters benefit from each year.
And yet despite its success, President Trump and others have been working overtime to dismantle Social Security and undermine the confidence that the American people have in it. Since he took office, the Trump administration has fired at least 7,000 workers at the Social Security Administration, shut down Social Security field offices and made it more difficult for seniors and the disabled to receive the benefits they have earned over the phone.
Mar 22, 2025 | Rachel Maddow shares video of Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, opining that missing a Social Security check for a month is no big deal and only someone committing fraud would complain about that. The remarks are only the latest in a series of dramatic moves by the Trump administration that show a lack of awareness or concern about the importance of regular Social Security checks to many Americans' survival.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump made a promise to the American people: There would be no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Well, the promise has not been kept. Under his new budget, President Trump proposes a massive increase in Pentagon spending while cutting funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Trump’s budget would also slash or completely eliminate core anti-poverty programs that form the heart of the U.S. social safety net, from childhood nutrition to care for the elderly and job training. This comes after President Trump and Republican lawmakers pushed through a $1.5 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly favors the richest Americans, including President Trump and his own family. We speak to Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. He is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book, out today, is titled “The Common Good.”