Sen. Bernie Sanders set fireplace to a falsehood the Trump administration has repeatedly pushed about Social Safety throughout a CNN city corridor Wednesday evening, when the unbiased Vermont senator referred to as President Donald Trump’s declare that funds are being made to hundreds of thousands of lifeless folks “just another lie.”
“Trump gets up in his State of the Union, and all of you, many of you have heard it, and he says, oh, my goodness, millions and millions of senior citizens, 150 years age, 200 years of age. Remember that? Oh, they’re all getting Social Security benefits,” Sanders stated of Trump’s speech earlier than Congress final month.
“It’s a lie, a total, absolute lie,” he went on. “I mean, according to the new guy who is going to become the Social Security administrator, Trump’s own appointee, well over 99% of the benefits owed to people on Social Security were earned by the people on Social Security. It’s just another lie.”
Trump has repeatedly pushed this false declare, even turning it right into a laughing spectacle throughout his March tackle to Congress.
“Over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are aged over 160 years old,” he stated. “And money is being paid to many of them and we’re searching for many of them right now.”
After Trump spoke in regards to the funds in February, his personal appearing Social Safety commissioner issued an announcement that debunked the declare, saying the company has information of individuals with no date of loss of life related to them, however that doesn’t imply they’re persevering with to obtain funds.
“These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” appearing Commissioner Leland Dudek stated.
The Social Safety Administration moreover has an automatic course of that terminates advantages for these age 115 or older.
Vice President JD Vance has additionally spouted this declare in regards to the deceased receiving checks, saying in an interview with Fox Information earlier this month that just about half of all calls it receives are fraudulent.
“You look at people who are 150 years old who are fraudulently collecting Social Security payments. You see our Social Security system, 40% of the people who are calling in are actually committing fraud. That means the 60% who need their Social Security checks are waiting in line,” he stated.
Vance didn’t again up this declare with any proof, although it could be associated to the SSA reporting in March that “approximately 40 percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is associated with someone calling SSA to change direct deposit bank information.”
Billionaire Elon Musk, who’s at present serving as a Trump senior adviser, has additionally claimed with out proof that 40% of all calls to Social Safety are fraudulent.
Sanders and different politicians have accused Trump of purposely spreading false fraud allegations in regards to the Social Safety system as a way to dismantle it.
“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,” Sanders stated in a response to Trump’s congressional speech in March.
“So let’s be clear about that. Well over 99% of Social Security checks are going out to people who earned those checks. 70 million Americans,” he stated.
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The Trump administration has claimed it “will always protect” Social Safety, Medicaid and Medicaid advantages and that it’s only attempting to scale back the quantity of fraudulent spending within the applications.
Final month it pointed to the SSA reporting that it made practically $72 billion in improper funds from about 2015 to 2022, which the SSA stated had been largely overpayments.
“While this is less than 1 percent of the total benefits paid during that period, at the end of FY 2023, SSA had an uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion,” the Workplace of the Inspector Normal stated.
