Megan Lebowitz at NBC:
Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that politicians are “not being honest” when they say they won’t touch Social Security.
His comments come as President Donald Trump has said his administration was “not touching” Social Security and town hall attendees have expressed concerns about potential Social Security cuts. Elon Musk, who has spearheaded Department of Government Efficiency efforts to cut spending, has vocally criticized Social Security, prompting concerns from some Trump allies.
“We’re not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we’re not going to touch it. If we don’t touch it, it touches itself,” Curtis told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “You know that, right? That’s not being honest with the American people, and I think that’s one of the things that makes them not trust us, when we say something that they just know is not true.”
Todd C. Frankel and Hannah Natanson at WP:
Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration, claiming it is plagued by “immense waste” and promising audits to root out “the extreme levels of fraud.” President Donald Trump said during his joint address to Congress earlier this month that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service was already “identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” at the agency.
...
But less than 1 percent of Social Security’s payments in recent years were determined to be improper — often the result of an accidental oversight or change in benefit status, according to a report last year by the agency’s inspector general. That works out to about $9 billion a year, and more than two-thirds of the mistaken payments were eventually clawed back. Another agency audit, which looked only at payments to retired workers, survivors and people with disabilities, found fraud was listed as the cause behind just 3 percent of improper benefit payments.
Despite the flood of money flowing through it, Social Security didn’t make a 2024 list by the General Accounting Office, the legislative branch’s nonpartisan watchdog, detailing the 16 agencies with improper payment rates of at least 10 percent. That report further found that 80 percent of all improper payments were due to just five government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid — but not Social Security.
Trump has been making the same claims about Social Security for nine years.
South Carolina GOP Debate, 2/13/2016TRUMP: I’m the only one who is going to save Social Security, believe me.
STRASSEL: OK. But how would you actually do that? Can I ask you? because right now, Social Security and Medicare…
TRUMP: Because you have tremendous waste. I’ll tell you…
STRASSEL: They take up two-thirds of the federal budget and they’re growing.
TRUMP: You have tremendous waste, fraud and abuse. That we’re taking care of. That we’re taking care of. It’s tremendous. We have in Social Security right now thousand and thousands of people that are over 106 years old. Now, you know they don’t exist. They don’t exist. There’s tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, and we’re going to get it. But we’re not going to hurt the people who have been paying into Social Security their whole life and then all of a sudden they’re supposed to get less. We’re bringing our jobs back. We’re going to make our economy great again.
If such claims were true, why didn't he do anything about it when he was president the first time?
