▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are obviously deceased, but this does NOT mean these numbers are receiving payments. This a list of all current numbers, not a list of payments, and it’s dishonest of Musk to suggest so.
▪️In fact, the reason why this problem has persisted for so long is that payments aren’t being made to these zombie numbers. In the 2015 audit, virtually all of the 6.5M zombie numbers had no earnings and received no payments. Just 266 were receiving payments, and only 12 of those were over 112 (certainly deceased).
▪️Ironically, the bulk of the fraud from these numbers is illegal immigrants using them to work (and pay SS taxes). From 2006-11, almost 67k zombie numbers had $3.1B in reported wages. But since their names didn’t match the SS number, they were transferred to the Earnings Suspense File. These workers would pay in but never receive SS.
▪️While it’s a problem that illegal immigrants fraudulently used SS numbers of deceased people, correcting this problem would mean less tax revenue, not any savings. It’s still possible DOGE could show serious fraud with SS, or reveal new info since the 2015 audit, but this chart does not do that.
It’s funny to see the left use the same conspiratorial rhetoric as the right did a year ago regarding the jobs numbers being downwardly revised. So many on the right, who knew nothing of how the jobs numbers are calculated or why they revise them, were convinced the downward revisions were a conspiracy to help Biden win.
If people want to have a debate about the birth death model or the survey methods, ok, but that’s not what’s happening here. Most people are under the delusion that the BLS report is the govt reporting every job created and lost, and are thus easily swayed it’s rigged when it suits their political ends.
This is almost laughingly misleading, as it leaves out everything before the letter.
▪️After being repeatedly lampooned by the Smothers Brothers over Vietnam, Johnson finally had enough. One night at 3 am he called the head of CBS William Paley, demanding that he “get those bastards off my back.”
▪️Paley then asked the heads of CBS entertainment to get them to back off of LBJ. However, instead of backing off the Smothers Brothers doubled down, booking a folk musician performing “Waist Deep,” an anti-war song about a soldier being stuck in the mud while “the big fool says to push on,” clearly a dig at LBJ.
▪️At the last minute, CBS cut the song from the pre-taped show to the outrage of the Smothers. They continued to push the boundaries off and on for the rest of his presidency, with CBS sometimes cutting segments that they thought went too far. Basically, it was a soft form of censorship.
▪️It wasn’t until Johnson made his surprise announcement not to run in 1968 ...
