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Trumpian Fake SSA "$7 Billion Savings" [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-08
Smoke and Mirrors — a $7 Billion illusion
Trump’s minions will stop at nothing to “find” money to fund his intended next “tax cut for the rich”.
“Social Security Announces Major Clampdown to Save $7 Billion” is this morning’s headline.
But the details reveal a very different set of facts:
“The SSA announced on Friday that it would begin withholding 100 percent of Social Security benefits from overpaid beneficiaries.
“Under the new policy, beneficiaries who are overpaid after March 27 will have their entire monthly Social Security payment withheld until the debt is repaid.
“Current beneficiaries with overpayments incurred before March 27 will not be affected, [nor will the] withholding rate for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) overpayments [which] remains at 10 percent.”
In other words,
the alleged $7 Billion to be saved is for overpayments that haven’t even happened yet (overpaid after March 27 [2025]); and the “savings” is supposedly an increase wholly from an accelerated rate of recapture compared to the existing amounts already being recaptured.
Clearly they don’t expect to recover all of it. Makes one wonder, what is the total of such overpayments? 15 Billion? Thirty? …
Hmmm ...
Apparently, Trump’s SSA is planning on making retirement overpayments greatly in excess of $7 billion, since they now claim they will improve their overpayment recoveries by an additional $7 billion during the next decade.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to hire adequate staff and not make the overpayments in the first place?
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