Social Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on Social Security, while markets plunge and retirement accounts reel from Donald Trump's tariffs, Elon Musk and DOGE are taking a blowtorch to Social Security.

This morning, the Washington Post reported that the Social Security website is facing widespread and repeated outages. People can't log on and see their benefits. Millions of low-income Americans even received messages saying they are ``not receiving payments'' at all, causing widespread panic.

First, DOGE shut down local Social Security offices. Then it shut down phone services. Now seniors can't even go online. What the hell are they supposed to do?

Anyone who thinks Elon Musk isn't trying to destroy Social Security should look at how they are crashing the website, how they are shutting down offices, how they are closing phone lines. Now they are even proposing another round of massive layoffs.

Make no mistake--no mistake; it is clear as a bell--Elon Musk is cutting Social Security benefits. When he said that it was a Ponzi scheme--so ridiculous, so false, and so mean--he really meant it. He believes it. When offices close down, when websites crash, when phone lines shut off, that is no different than cutting benefits. So when Elon Musk says that Social Security should be eliminated, he is finding ways to make that happen. It is horrible, horrible for our seniors and for all Americans, including the millions who have been putting money in week after week, month after month so they might have a decent retirement.

Last week, Senate Republicans voted against three amendments by Democrats to protect Social Security from DOGE, including an amendment by Senator Ossoff reversing the mass layoffs and office closures. What did Republicans do? They said no. Shameful.

Social Security is the greatest crisis ever. Senate Republicans are now complicit. The longer Republicans allow Elon Musk to threaten people's benefits, the greater the political blowback is going to be.

And with these issues--the tariffs, the Trump tariff tax--destroying so much of Social Security, the American people are learning that Donald Trump is betraying them. Everything he said in the campaign--so much he said in the campaign, he is just doing the opposite. It helps the billionaires and hurts the American people.

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