Democrats seize on Social Security to use against Republicans

Democrats, after weeks of struggling to find a message that resonates with ordinary Americans while President Donald Trump dominates the news, are beginning to settle on one: the allegation that Trump and his allies are crippling Social Security.

Former President Joe Biden used his first public comments since leaving office to criticize Trump’s handling of the popular program. Early Democratic ads are targeting Republican senators on Social Security. Democrats have visited Social Security offices around the country, sometimes getting turned away and going public. Senate Democrats have set up a “war room” to deliver the message.

Democrats say there is evidence that the push is working. Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., reported having more than 22,000 constituents on a recent tele-town hall on Social Security. Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor who served as Social Security commissioner toward the end of Biden’s term, has drawn crowds to town halls in Florida and elsewhere.

“For much of the country, Washington might as well be Mars for all the connection it has to them,” Sen. Ron Wyden (Oregon), the top Democrat on the committee that oversees Social Security, said in an interview. “But Social Security is something where there is connective tissue between the government and the people.”

The elimination of 7,000 Social Security jobs - more than 12% of the workforce - and other cuts have led to long waits, dropped calls and other widespread service issues. Democrats say the worsening problems create a clear link between Trump’s chaotic style and Americans’ day-to-day well-being.

Michael Astrue, who led the Social Security Administration under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama - and says he voted for Trump - sharply criticized cuts to the agency by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

“I think you have a group of very immature people coming out of Silicon Valley bro culture, and they have decided federal agencies are filled with bad people doing bad things, and if you go in and hack away, and you don’t have to know what you are doing, you can improve it because less is more,” Astrue said.

More than 73 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, spanning all states and districts. It is the government’s marquee program for elderly and disabled people, so beneficiaries are concentrated among older Americans, who vote in high proportions. Voters 65 and up narrowly backed Trump 50% to 49% in November.

That sets it apart from other vulnerable programs, O’Malley said. “Unlike some other things that our federal government does, however important, whether Medicare or Medicaid or USAID or Department of Education, each of those requires a lot more explanation for people than Social Security,” he said. “If you get Social Security, then you ‘get’ Social Security. Nobody has to explain to you that you have earned the benefit.”

Trump officials have a very different view, saying the cuts of thousands of staffers amount to a long-overdue attack on waste and fraud.

Musk has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” saying the money coming in is not enough to meet its future obligations. Both Musk and Trump have suggested that millions of Social Security checks are fraudulently going to people listed as 100 or older, although that claim has been widely debunked.

The White House says Trump is improving the program by modernizing technology and requiring employees to be in the office five days a week. Any eligible American will continue to receive their benefits, officials said.

“Democrats care more about illegal immigrants than their own constituents, especially seniors, and their fake concern deceives no one,” said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston. “President Trump will fiercely protect Social Security, eliminate unfair benefit taxes to boost seniors’ take-home pay, and drive the Social Security Administration to modernize systems, enhance customer service, and combat fraud.”

Audits have found minimal fraud in Social Security, generally concluding that less than 1% of its payments are improper and many of those are easily fixed.

Since Musk and DOGE began cutting Social Security staff earlier this year, the Washington Post has documented website crashes, lengthy wait times and improper handling of sensitive data. Trump officials have classified live immigrants as dead people and developed plans to force millions of customers to file in person rather than over the phone. Some of these moves have been reversed after a backlash.

Few would dispute that Social Security faces financial challenges, as Americans live longer and the birth rate falls to historic lows. A recent report from the program’s trustees concluded that by 2033, Social Security’s old-age fund will be able to pay only 79% of benefits.

The proposed fixes, however, vary widely. Democrats want to lift the cap on Social Security taxes, noting that Americans now pay them only on the first $176,100 of their earnings. Conservatives, in contrast, favor funneling those taxes into private investment accounts, saying that would yield far more money for beneficiaries.

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Musk is not entirely wrong to compare Social Security to a Ponzi scheme. The main difference, Boccia said, is that payroll taxes guarantee an inflow of money, unlike in a traditional Ponzi scheme where the cash can simply dry up.

Democrats are fearmongering, she said - but Republicans are trumpeting a nonexistent fraud problem. “The Democrats are basically scaring seniors while Republicans are shouting about fraud,” Boccia said. “But neither party is willing to tell the truth about Social Security’s math.”

The White House has shown uncharacteristic concern that the Democratic message on Social Security could resonate. The president has made clear to top aides that he does not like seeing the agency in the news so often and so negatively, one senior Social Security official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk about a sensitive issue.

On Tuesday, the administration said it is reinstating an annual “National Social Security Month” in April to promote awareness. On April 15 - the day Biden gave a speech accusing Trump of threatening the program - the White House released a prebuttal reiterating Trump’s support for it.

But Democrats are continuing to press what they see as an advantage.

Earlier this month, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., stopped by the Social Security office in Albuquerque, where she said she had an appointment with the regional manager. As she waited, she said, she heard an instruction on a security radio not to let in the “unauthorized persons.”

After a 40-minute wait, an officer emerged and handed her a small slip of paper with the number for the Dallas regional office. “The whole thing was so bizarre,” said Stansbury, who posted a video of herself outside the Albuquerque office.

The problems are widespread, she added. “People are calling the Social Security office, getting hold wait times of four, six hours, and when they finally get through they are told they have to go to an office they can’t get to,” Stansbury said. “People on Social Security are elderly. They may not be able to drive. They may have health conditions.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has released digital ads targeting Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. They feature the sound of a phone ringing repeatedly and a message that on Social Security, Republicans “don’t care if you get left hanging.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) and other Democrats launched a Social Security “war room” several weeks ago. “Elon Musk makes $8 million a day from the federal government, and he wants to take away the $65 a day that the average Social Security recipient gets,” Warren said at the launch. “This is really ugly.”

In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has also made the issue a priority, speaking about it on Fox News and staging a “day of action” for Democrats across the country.

Some Republicans are signaling that they are sensitive to the issue. At a March 25 confirmation hearing on Trump’s pick for Social Security chief, Frank Bisignano, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said he had dispatched one of his staffers to call the agency’s help line to see how it was working.

The staffer was disconnected three times, he said. Daines even played the hold music for his colleagues, joking, “They should have at least had Olivia Newton-John or some mediocre ’70s music.” He added, “We’ve got a lot of work to do to serve the taxpayers in this country and improve their customer experience.”

The administration stresses that it has not permanently closed any Social Security field offices. Democrats have criticized DOGE for listing numerous planned field office closures on its website, only to quietly remove them as criticism mounted.

Trump made clear early in his political career that he recognized the perils of criticizing Social Security. After Republicans spent decades floating various plans to overhaul or privatize it, Trump in contrast promised to protect the program, saying at a rally in July: “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare.” But Trump and administration officials have repeatedly characterized that promise as applying only to benefits, not to cutting staff or customer service spending.

Other GOP candidates have followed Trump’s lead. “That was a shift for Republicans,” said Kathleen Romig, a Social Security official under George W. Bush, Obama and Biden. “For 10 years he seemed to understand the political folly of messing with Social Security. And here they are touching the stove.”

Many Republicans have painful memories of Bush’s campaign to revamp the program in 2005, which backfired badly. Fresh from a decisive reelection victory, Bush embraced a plan to let younger workers invest part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts, touting the idea in his State of the Union address and barnstorming the country.

But the idea proved deeply unpopular with voters, and even Republican lawmakers began distancing themselves from it. The following year, the GOP lost the House and Senate in a historic rout, and many analysts say the Social Security fight at least played a role.

Trump and other Republicans now say they simply want to improve efficiency at Social Security and have no plan for far-reaching changes. But Musk’s disparagement of the program and the GOP’s history of embracing proposals to retool it has made that message more challenging, and some Democrats say the unsupported fraud claims are a prelude to dismantling it.

“Because the public program is so broadly supported by Americans across the political system, they can’t really rob it until they wreck it,” O’Malley said. “So all those patently false allegations about the agency being rife with fraud, about the agency itself being a fraud, about illegal immigrants milking it dry - they need to wreck its reputation.”