3d ago

Seniors won't complain if they miss a Social Security check, Lutnick says

www.axios.com

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Summary

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed that most seniors would not complain if Social Security checks were missed, suggesting that only "fraudsters" would object.

His remarks sparked backlash as Social Security is a critical income source for millions, including 15% of women and 12% of men over 65 who rely on it for 90% of their income.

Amid rising concerns, Maryland Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander criticized acting SSA head Lee Dudek for threatening to cut IT access, escalating fears of disruptions.

United States | News & Politics @midwest.social

cm0002 @lemmy.world

2d ago

Seniors won't complain if they miss a Social Security check, Lutnick says

www.axios.com /2025/03/21/social-security-lutnick-doge-checks

72 comments

This is how you know they have reached escape velocity and know they will never face another election.
- But they might face people's justice instead.

I really want to see how that would play out in rural America so desperately.
- Seriously, this is the find out stage that rural America has been asking for for years, and surprisingly avoided so far.

It's obvious from this if it weren't already that Lutnick has never worked in a customer-facing position.

If they were to stop SS checks, they would lose so many voters that no Republican would ever be elected to any office anywhere.
Which is why we know that since they are actually talking about this, they dont need those votes, because they dont intend to ever have a fair election again, or maybe no elections at all.
- I’m not sure anything would pry them away from the GOP.
  
  Seriously, just seeing all the rural Town halls that overwhelmingly voted against their own interests, chanting things that run directly counter to their own votes.

"Let them eat cat-food sandwiches!"
- That’s a good one: a reference back to a famous quote to please the educated, crude humor to please the less civilized, memorable for all

CORRECTION: You won't HEAR them complain.

Old people don't fuck around when it comes to their money.
Source: cashier at grocery store in highschool

Congressional and cabinet members wont complain if they miss out on breathing for a few minutes, according to me >:3

These fuckers are psychopaths!

When he gets taxed 99.99% to cover the new social security he better not cry or complain because I know my grandmother wouldn't.

Seems pretty unusual for politicians to be openly fucking seniors.
- Yeah, usually they're openly fucking children.
  
  Well maybe trump can make america great again and we can all go back to just bravely letting the awful people molest and mass-shoot the children, and leave the elderly boomers alone.
  /s

They won't be able to complain because you've turned off all the phones and shut down most of the SSA branches.

They won't complain, cause they may very literally die.
- This is not hyperbole. There are many elderly living alone, SScheck to SScheck with no one to lean on.
  They’re a common admission when neighbors call in wellness checks and they’re found down or confused.
  The other piece is the people who supply medical care and social services still get paid, one way or another and that payment comes from SS and Medicare. Every time someone doesn’t pay their bill, costs increase. That said, the purpose of a hospital care management team is to transition these elderly cases to a safe living situation. If that is now assisted living or a nursing home it happens by the grace of those institutions now essentially taking the monthly SS check to pay for the new room and board situation with caregivers on site.
  These institutions would certainly miss the SS check. In fact, there’s a hard cap on the level of profit these institutions can make because they rely on the monthly senior benefits to pay their staff, supplies, and electricity. Those monthly benefits don’t really increase. And before you scream that there should be no profit, without profit, these institutions would not exist. People get paid, or doors close. We see this a lot on well meaning but short sighted (regarding money) mental health care institutions. But for elderly care, up until now, SS and Medicare paying costs has been reliable.
  Which raises the question. If the nursing home doesn’t get paid and the dependent old person gets evicted? Where do they get evicted to? Bedbound, confused, where do they go?
  I have an answer for that one. A medical reason will be found to drop them at a local ER, with no return (the needs of a patient can exceed the capability of an institution so this is legal and happens often enough). This makes the displaced SS recipient and senior citizen a not paying hospital customer. Moreover, they are a non-acute person taking up an acute care bed, leaving the ER even more clogged with even longer wait times as the flow out (in the form of discharges, freeing beds for ER admissions, which frees space in the ER for people in the waiting room) slows down even more.
  I give the long explanation so you can follow yet another crack as it forms, leading to the eventual collapse of the already tenuous and strained healthcare system.
  Your statement that they may just die is apt. Strangely, Heritage is serious about banning assisted suicide because it “lacks dignity”.
  
  I refute your statement that "without profit these institutions would not exist".
  Profit is what you get after every expense is paid. Caretakers, building maintenance, etc. Are expenses. People would still get paid.
  Leeches on the other hand.... those "investors" who buy up assisted living places and force them to be "profitable".... they should not be allowed to gain off the increased suffering of people.
  
  The AARP has already started publicly lobbying against this move, and the for-profit institutions and their investors are probably doing so as well, but more privately because they don't want to rub their leechiness in everyone's face. So there is some small hope.
- "You're not understanding me bro. We've solved all of societies problems already. The only way we can trim the fat, is by seeing if all the elderly people with dementia and alzheimers can survive in abject poverty."
  All we have to do to achieve this empathetic utopia, is give the Bourgeoisie a few trillion in tax cuts! Welcome to thunder-dome, BITCH!

Yeah people love it when you fuck with their money

'Where did you get all the money?” “The Government. I didn’t earn it, I don’t need it. But if they miss one payment, I’ll raise hell!”
Grampa Simpson
- Well Grampa Simpson more then likely didn’t need social security because of the pension he received after working 30yrs as a night watchmen at the cranberry silo.
  according to this survey: in 2023 only 64% of retired people age 65+ received any income from pensions. I can’t he but think that number is probably inflated as they note “Sources of income include the income of a spouse or partner.”
- But he DID earn social security

Oh, he's STUPID stupid, got it.
- No, he's malicious.
  
  never attribute to stupidity, that which can be attributed to malice.
  
  Not saying he isn't that too, just that his take is bafflingly stupid.

So he hopes they just starve and die quietly?
- That's what they want for all of us who aren't "productive".

Seniors could be dying of hunger on state capitol steps and they would be saying "it's just a few bodies, they were old anyway"
- indeed. republicans do not care.
  Texas' lieutenant governor suggests grandparents are willing to die for US economy
- See also: COVID-19 response under Trump
- I wish we could say that about Donald and the rest of the old fucks in Congress

"Only fraudsters will complain"
I smell a "no true Scotsman" fallacy here.
- It’s laying the groundwork for “if you complain we’ll take your benefits away completely, because you’re a fraudster” instead.

Yes because that's what boomers are known for. Not complaining.
- Man, they even complain about it when it isn't even relevant.
  The number of times I've heard "blah blah blah, my social security is my investment, blah blah blah, take it over our dead bodies, and we'll leave no inheritance behind" is too damn high

Donald: some of you may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

I found this out when researching care for my grandparent. You have to spend all of the money before they can be eligible for certain types of care. They make you get rid of it all or forfeit it.
https://www.ncoa.org/article/what-is-medicaid-spend-down/

I have a relative that lives off social security. They have no other income will literally die quickly without social security. So yeah I guess they can't complain if they are dead can they.

So, who's gonna tell Lutnick that voter turnout for those age 65 and above is 75%+?
And it's not like old folks like to complain about things just for the fuck of it, right?
Lutnick and Trump are going to discover why they call Social Security the third rail of American politics.
- I think they are counting on 2024 being our last elections.
  
  They haven't hid that giving Trump a third term is their intent.
- No theyre not, these people will probably still vote for them
  
  You massively underestimate the old people in this country.

There are a lot of armed seniors out there. Give them nothing to lose. Go on.
- Reminds me somewhat of when Paul Bremer, Bush Jr's "vice-roy" in Iraq, decided to disband the Iraqi Army overnight, leaving tens of thousands of heavily armed Iraqis stranded without a job or source of income. IIRC, that's how the Iraqi insurgency started.
  
  IIRC, that’s how the Iraqi insurgency started.
  Yep.
  CPA orders didn’t just disband the Iraqi army but also fired everyone in the top three management layers of hospitals, state-owned industries, universities, and government ministries.
  It also didn’t help that it was standard procedure for US forces to conduct door-to-door raids and throw so-called “military-aged males” (which often included young teens and children) without any due process into military prisons including a torture camp with a US official admitting that 99% of them were guilty of nothing. This understandably, got the population of Iraq pissed.
- Who are you suggesting that they shoot? The mailman or bank clerk that has nothing to do with it? Who do you imagine these people have access to?
  
  You would be amazed where a senior citizen can get. Old people can be invisible.

Maybe his rich cushy mom won’t, but once all those poor, fat, fraudulent whale welfare queens in the South don’t see their monthly “disability” check, it’ll be a different story.
- I'm not sure I understand which argument you're supporting here.
  
  He's saying Trumpistan is the biggest welfare recipient. They are also armed, angry, and uneducated. At some point they will discover its not Brandon taking the social security checks. If they are hungry enough it won't matter. The trumpers across the street form me had 3 generations of adult men living with their 95 year old grandmother. Who's income do you think that was?

Even if you only care about the economy, it's so stupid. All that money won't circulate because people can't spend what they don't have. so businesses get less, they have to let people go, and now they can't spend. giving money to poor people is great for the economy, because it instantly recirculates and doesn't sit in an account. it's not even 'giving,' in this case, either. people pay into it for a purpose.
But they don't care about the economy, and of course they don't care about the human cost. They care about 'fraud,' as in, how to commit it and enrich themselves through theft of the money people pay for services.
- Conservatives aren't generally considered smart, kind, people.

Hahahahahaha that is probably the Number One Thing they would complain about you dummy

And rich people won't complain either if they are taxed accordingly.

not a far-off comment
most people from the United States think it is all gravy and that something will always act as a stopgap because Murica' By GOD!
how we got here and any dissenters of opinion here are down talked in the same manner as Zelenskyy was by Trump
and how we were able to get here was more jackboots, less attention paid to funding education, shitting on the enviroment, not paying living wages or offering healthcare, etcetera

Yeah right.

These squatters have got to go.

72 comments