Democrats Say DOGE Will Lead To Social Security Benefit Cuts, Privatization

WASHINGTON — A key part of President Donald Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 was his ability to move the Republican Party away from its longstanding belief the United States needs to cut spending on Social Security and Medicare. It was a promise he made again and again in both races.

Democrats have a new goal: To convince voters it was all a lie. The party’s top member on the Senate committee overseeing Social Security warned this week that Trump secretly wants to end Social Security as we know it.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the Wall Street executive Trump tapped to head the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, made a business career out of taking over troubled businesses, firing the workers and selling off what’s left.

“That résumé and approach ought to concern Americans if somebody is thinking about applying that pattern to Social Security,” Wyden said. “As I’ve been saying for weeks now, this approach is a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity.”

Though Trump has insisted he doesn’t want to touch Social Security, this year he and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have falsely claimed millions of dead people receive Social Security benefits while ordering cutbacks at the Social Security Administration, including potentially disruptive phone service changes, in the name of fighting fraud. Their words and actions have prompted Democrats to say the ultimate goal is privatization.

“Why are Donald Trump and Elon Musk doing this? Because the goal of Trump and Musk is to destroy Social Security from within and make it so unworkable, so inefficient, that Donald Trump has a pretext to cut benefits and privatize the program,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

Privatizing Social Security, such as by giving recipients the option to invest their payroll contributions in the stock market, is an unpopular idea last championed by President George W. Bush in 2005, prompting an electoral backlash that led to one of the best midterms in the history of the Democratic Party.

Democrats are clearly fond of the memory.

“We won the House,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) told HuffPost this week.

Asked if he thought it was more important to highlight the remote threat of privatization rather than simply pointing out the Trump administration is laying off frontline staff and disallowing claimants from verifying their identities over the phone, Neal said, “That’s exactly right.”

“I think that what they say with fraud is, ’Well, here’s the plan: If we keep suggesting that there’s a lot of fraud, then, if we cut contact with the Social Security Administration, then we can prove that it doesn’t work,” Neal said.

Democratic polling has found voters are extremely worried about Musk’s involvement with Social Security in particular, as the billionaire has referred to the program as a “Ponzi scheme” ― that is, a full-blown scam ― and suggested cuts are warranted.

When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked Bisignano if he favored privatizing the retirement program, Bisignano said he did not.

“I’ve never thought about privatizing,” Bisignano said. “It’s not a word that anybody’s ever talked to me about. And I don’t see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run for the benefit of the American public.”

Still, the changes already underway at Social Security could have a significant impact on beneficiaries. At the urging of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, the agency has consolidated internal offices, fired staff and announced claimants will no longer be allowed to verify their identities over the phone, potentially requiring millions of additional visits to field offices each year. At the same time, DOGE has targeted field offices for closure.

On top of all that, DOGE affiliates improperly gained access to the agency’s sensitive data, at least until they were told to butt out last week by a federal court.

Even bureaucratic operations have taken on a seemingly political tone. The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, canceled vital records contracts with the state of Maine after the governor feuded with President Trump over allowing transgender athletes in girls’ sports. And Dudek threatened to shut down the agency altogether in response to the court order last week, relenting only when the judge sent a letter telling him not to do it.

Wyden said the administration’s moves are a prelude to privatization, at least for the administration of the program if not for actually diverting payroll taxes into 401(k)-style accounts that invest in the stock market.

“They’re trying to hollow out as much of the structure of Social Security today, the offices, the phones, the personnel, as they possibly can,” Wyden told HuffPost. “Then you see the system trying to cope with it. And people go, ‘Oh my goodness, we have all these problems now. We better get some private contractors in, or we won’t be able to get the checks out.’”

Some Republicans have complained about the attacks on Social Security — especially when it comes to closing field offices in their districts — but most have not. And they all say Trump will keep his word when it comes to not cutting Social Security.

“The attack all day has been on DOGE and undercutting Social Security and shutting it down or privatizing it or whatever it is,” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said at Bisignano’s hearing. “The bottom line is the president of the United States has said very clearly that we are not going to cut Social Security benefits.”