Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are starting to talk about how there are hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Social Security system. This is a total lie, but it could well be a precursor of massive cuts down the road. Musk has previously said that there are 20 million people over 100 who are receiving benefits. This is just made-up garbage. But the pace seems to be picking up now.
Musk is now also talking about fake and stolen Social Security numbers. Fake numbers are impossible, as the Social Security Administration knows what numbers it has issued. Chuck Schumer said: "The richest man on Earth repeated again a bevy of lies that entitlement programs tens of millions of people rely on are riddled with fraud and abuse. That's a pretext to slashing them, but it's false." The SSA's inspector general made a study last year and concluded that while there is some fraud, it is less than 1% of all payments. The agency has complete data on payroll taxes paid and calculates benefits based on that data. It is very hard to game the system.
How could Musk cut the SSA budget? One way would be to use AI to evaluate all claims. It could be tuned to reject any claim that wasn't 100% documented or where the documentation did not exactly follow a complex set of rules. Your application form was not filled in using the Calibri 10-point font? We can't read it, so it is hereby rejected. (V)