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“They’re taking my Social Security away,” she said, standing next to me in the grocery store aisle.
“Who’s taking your Social Security away??” I asked with genuine concern (and a little bit of shock) in my voice and face.
“The government,” she scowled. “Pretty soon, I won’t be able to afford anything.”
This exchange happened at our local Whole Foods store, where my wife and I were shopping for some rarer staples she needed for a new dietary regimen her doctor had prescribed for a besetting illness, things we couldn’t get at our usual Kroger.
A fellow shopper, a petite, elderly, smartly dressed and coiffed lady, had been next to me, reaching up to the top shelves for a product clearly at the limit of her fingertips. Noticing her stretch, I kindly offered to grab it for her, but she quickly rebuffed me.
“I can get it for myself,” she said.
“OK,” I replied as pleasantly as I could, turning my head more out of courtesy than necessity to the products on the lower shelves. I didn’t want to embarrass her awkward body language.
On her toes, she snagged the box she wanted with her fingertips, brought it down, and scrutinized the price tag. “These prices are going up every day! I don’t know how they think we can afford it.”
Drawn back into the conversation, I agreed, “I hear ya. Prices are bouncing around a lot lately.”
“Not just that,” she added, “between this and losing my Social Security, it scares the heck out of me.”
I raised my eyebrows. She was entering my domain. Retired now, in a matter of months I’m due to begin collecting my own benefit. “What??” I asked, “What’s happening with your Social Security?”
“They’re taking my Social Security away,” she said.
“Who’s taking your Social Security away?”
“The government. Pretty soon I won’t be able to afford anything.”
“The government?!” I asked. “Who?”
“You know,” she said scornfully.
“I don’t,” I replied, “I’m supposed to start my own Social Security pretty soon.”
“Well, good luck with that,” she said, tossing her box into her cart, turning, and walking away.
Now I don’t want to sound like I’m stereotyping, but this lady didn’t strike me as one of the targeted populations under the eye of DOGE who might be illegally receiving Social Security benefits. What she seemed like was someone who is clearly independent, maybe a little jaded, but genuinely in fear of losing a core benefit to which she is probably completely entitled. I felt sorry for her fearfulness. Not that I’m entirely convinced that the Social Security infrastructure can support current-level benefits for a limitless future. That’s another thing altogether. But that her fear was undoubtedly kindled and is being stoked daily by political rhetoric that, as best as I can tell, is unjustified by the actions of “the government”.
Given many public statements by Democrat lawmakers (which are painfully amplified by the mainstream media) and Joe Biden’s very recent speech in Chicago, containing unfounded language seeking to strike a measure of abject fear in the hearts of those concerned with our retired population, I am ready to call this what it is.
Unless I have misinterpreted plain speech, Elon Musk and DOGE have publicly stated that their objective is to do what they can to preserve Social Security benefits for bona fide recipients by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the system. To take that message, and the actual work being done to that end, and falsely accuse “the government” of trying to take citizens’ legitimate Social Security benefits away is a lie with only one objective: Striking terror in the hearts of a massive segment of our population.
So, is that it? Is this an actual form of “terrorism”? For my money, I don’t know what word describes it better. Feel free to comment and enlighten me. It is certainly not right. It is not true. It is unjustified and shameful. But, maybe that’s the degenerated state of our politics today. As a retirement-aged guy who, believe me, has seen plenty of nefarious political tactics over the decades, this is one of the most victimizing. And I think that’s terrorable.
Published in General
The Democrat messaging, that includes much of the mainstream print and tele-media and even publicly funded media along with almost all of academia are your sources, and those sources propagate ideas unsupported by factual information. This is why the work of Elon Musk in providing a social media platform supporting free speech is so vital and that is illustrated by the immediate effects it had in the 2024 elections. Free speech, the concept, is distorted by Democrats, media, and academia.
I, and my wife, are long time beneficiaries of SS benefits and the only thing I worry about is the point I extracted for this comment and I think that is the main point of the DOGE effort. The Democrats are doing their usual and trying to make any effort of political opposition look detrimental to the public by lying about it in public pronouncements. I find nothing to praise in those Democrat Party positions.
The Democrats have been claiming that the Republicans have been wanting to end Social Security for as long as I have been alive. Whether or not the claim is true, it has always been effective in scaring old people. Social Security has always been set up as a Ponzi scam. The demographics of SS are getting more and more adverse.
I forgot which specific campaign year it was, but the Demo-rats are the ones who came up with the image of the VP candidate pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff. Nothing new here.
When I was under 40, the Democrats screaming that Republicans were going to end social security really, really got my hopes up. I kept dreaming of keeping my FICA tax money, investing it in the market , and getting really really good returns on my money. Now I have paid FICA for 40 years, and my money is gone.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389283/Grandma-thrown-cliff-Paul-Ryan-lookalike-anti-GOP-Medicare-advert-The-Agenda-Project.html
That’s the same Paul Ryan who has been renounced as a RINO squish by some.
Where did it go? Who took it? Are you retired yet?
Fear is used by politicians, because it keeps working.
What a piece of work that woman was! I always accept the help of long-armed people since I am vertically challenged; it also gives us a chance to appreciate each other–one needing help, the other helping. It’s a lovely exchange. And the social security stuff–she just wants another reason to hate Trump. Sad.
I retired ten years ago. My wife lobbed onto the final year of a special deal from SSA whereby she could claim to be my dependent and receive 50% of the value of my SSA payment after she qualified and delayed taking her own until age 70. By doing so, she was able to increase her premium received by 8% per year from the time she applied at age 67 to age 70, which effectually meant a 32% approx increase in her monthly payment once she began collecting her own funds. Neither of us has ever missed receiving a direct deposit into our bank accounts every month since we registered and qualified for our money. Between the two of us, we have been told at least a half dozen times by acquaintances that they were no longer going to receive SSA funds. Every one of them was known to us as a Democrat. Most of the time, I simply answer that it is not true. Other times, I just walk away, and on rare occasions, I ask how they expect to keep receiving increasing amounts of money from the government without bankrupting our country. They never worried about this while Biden was President. I wonder why.
They probably believed that Biden was happy to keep the Infinite Money Machine operating while Trump wants to shut it off just to be mean.
All the money paid in goes to current beneficiaries . It is not like it is an account where your money is saved for you. The money you pay in is spent.
I am not collecting social security yet. Perhaps when I sign up to collect, there still will be suckers to pay my benefit.
My goofy neighbor said the same “taking away our social security” just yesterday.
This is the Talking Points Mechanism in action. The party management comes up with a specific point, like “taking our social security away”, and they distribute it to all their politicians, media people, and news organizations, who repeat it verbatim. And simultaneously.
This method of propagation is very effective because people are hit by a deluge from all directions at the same time.
Rush Limbaugh’s crew used to compile entertaining supercuts of these back in the day, with newspeople all using the exact same adjectives and all.
The talking point itself doesn’t have to be accurate, it doesn’t have to be true, it doesn’t even have to make sense.
The politicians/media/news people are happy to assist because, with a copypaste, it gives them material to use, and they know that their words will be strengthened.
If you know what to look for, you’ll see this happen regularly, about once a week.
It is unjustified and shameful, but it is expressly not terrorism. It ought to be unacceptable to the voters, but people love politicians who lie. Even the word “lie” is subjective. When it’s someone in our party who does it, it’s just a charming exaggeration. It’s only a filthy lie when it comes from someone from the other party.
If terrorism is telling people that the opposition party will bring about death, destruction, oppression, and misery, we are a
nationplanet bursting with terrorists. And have been since people were given a vote in their leadership.Stoopid! I am on Social Security, have been for 13 years (wife for 16 years). Without looking at my checking account, eliminating SS would mean a 45% reduction in our monthly income.
Yet I support such a change. So a rhetorical question: Does that make any sense? (I know of two Ricochetti who would endorse that support.)
If one is concerned about finances, my recommendation is to cease shopping at Whole Foods.
Corporate media loves panic porn – see Covid Coverage
Haven’t you heard? Trump has warehouses full of wheelchairs ready for the day when he issues an Executive Order for Federal government to push grannies over the nearest cliff.
And they are the best wheelchairs you’ve ever seen. Almost too nice to roll off of cliffs.
The Trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund recently recalculated the date at which – if nothing changes – the Trust Fund will be depleted and Social Security will be – by definition – bankrupt.
(Yes … bankrupt. Bankrupt does not mean that one has no money at all. By definition bankruptcy occurs when one does not have enough money to meet all of their obligations.)
That date now falls in 2033. At that point Social Security will be unable to meet all its scheduled obligations. It is projected that FICA tax revenues will only be able to cover approximately 75% of scheduled benefits. I don’t want to get sidetracked by whether or not Social Security is a Ponzi scheme or if the Trust Fund is “filled with worthless IOUs” or how it should have been privatized as Bush wanted. Those are fun discussions for another time. The question is …What to do? Here and now.
No Republican that I can think of has proposed ANY solution. Deciding not to decide means you get #4 above by default – allowing scheduled benefits to be cut to about 75%. If that is where we are going to end up, it seems that we should at least be honest with the American people and tell them the truth. Or are we afraid to do that? Certainly Lefties feel free to portray Republican’s positions on Social Security in the worst possible light. But by taking no concrete position we have ceded that ground to them
But we have the best cliffs, and don’t our cliffs deserve the best wheelchairs?
Huh? Reducing benefits TO 75% is not at all the same as reducing benefits BY 75%.
When she was running for the Republican nomination for president, Nikki Haley advocated raising the retirement age for younger people. That alone wouldn’t be enough because we have waited so long, but it would be a good start. Donald Trump roundly denounced her for this, saying she wants to take away Social Security from people. Ron DeSantis also denounced Nikki Haley for this, then later admitted that it would probably have to be done. Mike Pence said something’s got to be done, but didn’t seem to have any proposals.
There may be some prominent Republicans in Congress who have put forth plans in the last few years, but I don’t know who they would be. Donald Trump’s viewpoint seems to be that we aren’t going to change one thing in the formula, but it’s all going to work out just fine, as long as he is president.
Mrs. Tim and I are the exact opposite of this woman. For one thing, we are probably taller. Also, we saved aggressively under the assumption that we would never receive our SS benefits. We figured that SS would either go bankrupt or some government apparatchik would cut our benefits as a cost saving measure. Lo and behold, I received my first SS payment today, and Mrs. Tim gets her first payment next month. It’s all gravy now.
A friend a couple weeks ago repeated the allegation that if the federal Department of Education were eliminated education, especially for poor and disabled students would cease.
The common media push these false points, and their viewers and readers uncritically believe them.
Which is it, coverage of 75% or a reduction of 75%? @ekosj
They are comfortable with #3. And guess what? That’s the world in which we live.
But….are they the best grannies?
My bad. Should read “… to 75%”
My bad. Should read “… to 75%” Edited