After all, Musk has carried out extraordinarily dangerous issues since he bankrolled President Donald Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign and wormed his manner right into a nebulous and highly effective function inside the federal authorities.
By means of his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, Musk has satisfied Trump to disregard the legislation and reduce congressionally permitted funding, shutter authorities businesses, and make it more durable for Individuals to acquire their Social Safety advantages.
The strikes have already had tangibly dangerous results.
For instance, his function in just about shuttering the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth—which a federal decide dominated on Tuesday violated the legislation—has led folks in impoverished nations to die, together with an 10-year-old boy and an 8-year-old lady who have been receiving HIV therapy by means of a USAID program, The New York Instances reported. Shuttering USAID and the packages it ran to feed the ravenous and deal with the sick might trigger a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals to die from starvation or ailments. And people ailments might unfold to the USA if they don’t seem to be saved beneath management.
An aged couple walks down a corridor on Nov. 6, 2015, in Easton, Pennsylvania.
As a part of DOGE’s push, the Social Safety Administration introduced new adjustments on Tuesday that may power aged and disabled folks to confirm their identities on-line relatively than over the cellphone. If aged persons are unable to make use of the web system, they’re going to be pressured to go to a Social Safety workplace in-person—which Social Safety officers say is a significant hardship for older Individuals who is likely to be too frail to journey or can not drive.
Even worse is that DOGE is reducing 7,000 jobs and shuttering dozens of Social Safety workplaces, which is able to make recipients who have to confirm their identities must journey additional or face lengthy wait instances resulting from staffing shortages.
“DOGE is closing nearly 50 Social Security offices across the country—including in White Plains—and now they’re limiting phone support,” Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York mentioned in a publish on X. “Make no mistake, this is a full-blown attack on Social Security. Elon Musk is trying to take away benefits you earned.”
Musk has additionally falsely claimed a number of instances that lifeless persons are receiving Social Safety advantages. And that lie has led DOGE to accuse dwelling folks of being lifeless and cancel their Social Safety and Medicare advantages.
One such individual—82-year-old Ned Johnson—spoke to The Seattle Instances concerning the hell being accused of being lifeless has prompted him. Johnson’s incorrect demise accusation led the federal government to take again $5,201 from his checking account, and canceled his Medicare advantages.
From The Seattle Instances’ report:
What adopted was a virtually three-week battle to resurrect himself. He known as Social Safety two or 3 times a day for 2 weeks, with every name placed on maintain after which finally disconnected. Lastly somebody answered and gave him an appointment for March 13. Then he bought a name delaying that to March 24.
In a huff, he went to the workplace on the ninth flooring of the Henry Jackson Federal Constructing downtown. It’s one of many buildings proposed to be closed beneath what the [Associated Press] known as “a frenetic and error-riddled push by Elon Musk’s budget-cutting advisers.”
It was like a Despair-era scene, he mentioned, with a queue 50-deep jockeying for the attentions of two tellers. The staff have been type however beleaguered.
“They are so understaffed down there,” he mentioned. “They think the office is about to be closed down, and they don’t know where they’re going to go. It feels like the agency’s being gutted.”
Musk has additionally pushed cuts to medical analysis into new remedies for ailments like most cancers and diabetes. The cuts have led to layoffs and hiring freezes at main analysis establishments.
What’s extra, Musk’s DOGE has additionally tried to fireplace tens of hundreds of federal employees, together with hundreds of veterans, with tens of hundreds of firings on the best way.
These terminations have impacted (or quickly will affect) the livelihoods of public servants who earn pennies in contrast with Musk, the richest man on the planet, who’s main the cost to fireplace them. In actual fact, most of the fired federal employees are struggling to acquire unemployment advantages as they search for new work. Why? Musk’s DOGE lied that the employees have been being fired for efficiency causes, which might forestall them from acquiring these advantages.
And firing that many authorities staff might affect the administration of presidency packages—together with Social Safety, Medicaid, and veterans’ well being care.
And to high off the hurt Musk has prompted, economists say the DOGE-led cuts might assist plunge the U.S. financial system right into a recession, which might trigger ache for thousands and thousands of Individuals.
So sure, Musk has carried out so many dangerous issues. Reality be advised, it’s a surprise the protests towards him aren’t larger.
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