In a scathing response to President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) sharply criticized the president for repeating a widely debunked claim that Social Security checks are going toward deceased people, calling it an “outrageous lie.”
During his address, Trump said that there are “shocking levels” of “fraud” within Social Security, claiming that there are millions of Social Security recipients aged between 100 and 360 years old — a completely false assertion circulated by Trump and Elon Musk in recent weeks.
“By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families,” Trump said, ignoring the fact that his administration has rapidly ushered in warnings of a “Trumpcession” just a few weeks into his second term.
Sanders called out Trump’s lie in a speech delivered after Trump’s address, saying that it’s meant to pave the way for cuts to Social Security — which is the most effective anti-poverty program in the U.S., lifting tens of millions of people above the poverty line each year.
“Tonight, Trump claimed that millions of dead people between the ages of 100 and 360 were collecting Social Security checks,” the senator said. “That is an outrageous lie intended to lay the groundwork for cuts to Social Security and dismantling the most successful and popular government program in history.”
“Let’s be clear: Well over 99 percent of Social Security checks are going out to people who earned those checks — 70 million people. Nobody who is 150 years old or 200 years old or 300 years old is receiving Social Security checks,” Sanders went on. “And on and on the lies go.”
Indeed, only 0.3 percent of Social Security payments are improper, and usually represent miscalculations or errors regarding beneficiaries’ family members. And yet, Trump and Republicans are in the process of enacting sweeping cuts to the program that will affect millions of beneficiaries.
The Social Security Administration is eliminating thousands of jobs to align with the Trump administration’s and Elon Musk’s demands to slash federal agencies. A former head of the agency, Martin O’Malley, has said that the cuts, as well as Musk’s interruptions to critical administrative services, mean that the system will “collapse” and that checks could stop going out to recipients within the next one to three months.
Meanwhile, the Republican Study Committee — which represents the vast majority of congressional Republicans — has called for massive cuts to the program, which would gut benefits for hundreds of millions of people across the country. Republicans have also proposed cuts to Medicaid and other crucial social programs in their latest budget proposal.
Sanders, instead, has proposed expanding Social Security. The senator introduced a bill last week that would increase Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year and fully fund the program for the next 75 years. It would achieve this by “scrapping the cap” on the Social Security payroll tax, which currently does not apply to income earned above $168,000 — meaning that those with higher incomes do not pay into Social Security in every paycheck. People with incomes of $1 million, for instance, stopped paying into Social Security by March 2 this year.
“No, we’re not going to cut Social Security,” he said. “Quite the contrary. We must expand Social Security benefits and extend its solvency for the next 75 years by scrapping the cap that allows a billionaire to pay the same amount into Social Security as a truck driver. Too many — too many of our seniors are hurting today to be cutting Social Security. Over 20 percent of seniors in this country living on $15,000 a year or less.”
Sanders also called out Trump for rapidly plunging the country into oligarchy, standing in lockstep with Musk and other tech billionaires who contributed tens of millions to get Trump elected to gut the government. He ended his speech with a call for the American people to rise up and oppose Trump’s rule.
“Let us never forget. Real change only occurs when ordinary people stand up against oppression and injustice — and fight back,” he said. “Yes, the oligarchs are enormously powerful. They have endless amounts of money. They control our economy. They own much of the media. They have enormous influence over our political system. But, from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be beaten.”
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