John,

I keep telling people, no one voted for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from taking their narrow election victory, led by an ex-president who publicly swore up and down that he wouldn’t touch our Social Security system, as a sweeping mandate to do whatever their billionaire donors want. Which means giant tax cuts for billionaires and giant benefit cuts for the rest of us.

Below, Michael outlines how Slash & Burn Commission co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy is describing their plan to cut Social Security benefits without Congressional approval.

Republicans are desperate for Democrats to collaborate with them, to confuse voters about who is to blame. We need to make it clear: NO CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, OR MEDICAID! Donate today!

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Thank you,

Alex Lawson
Social Security Works

-- MICHAEL'S EMAIL --

John,

We’ve put a lot of attention on Elon Musk’s Slash & Burn Commission taking aim at Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

It’s worth taking a look at Elon’s co-chair, pharmaceutical billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. While Musk’s comments have been limited to quote-tweeting anti-Social Security rants with the comment “interesting thread”¹, Ramaswamy has been far more forthcoming. He told CNBC:²

“You look at the way in which that money is being spent through Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security…There are hundreds of billions of dollars of savings to extract just from basic program integrity measures.”

He went on to describe the process that he, Elon, and Trump plan to use to bypass Congressional approval on their cuts scheme:

“I think that that ignores what can be done through the executive branch already. The executive branch has no obligation to send out a payment if it is wasteful or if it is known to be fraudulent or has a reason to believe that there is error associated with that payment.”

That’s the plan: Declare hundreds of billions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits as “wasteful,” then stop sending the checks.

That’s why it’s so important that ZERO Democrats go along with this Slash & Burn Commission. There’s simply no way that a pharma billionaire³ and a defense contractor who is also the richest man in the world⁴ will engage in an honest process to root out corruption in Donald Trump’s government. This is not a serious process―it’s a set up.

We’re putting Democrats on notice: Boycott Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Slash & Burn Commission! Social Security Works is preparing to run billboard trucks letting the constituents of any Democrat who gives cover to the Commission know what’s going on. Chip in to our billboard fund today!

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Thank you,

Michael Phelan
Social Security Works

¹ https://www.commondreams.org/news/elon-musk-social-security
² https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/04/cnbc-transcript-exclusive-doge-co-lead-author-and-former-us-presidential-candidate-vivek-ramaswamy-speaks-with-cnbcs-eamon-javers-and-morgan-brennan-live-from-the-cnbc-cfo-council-summit-in-washington-dc-today.html
³ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/us/politics/vivek-ramaswamy-wealth.html
⁴ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/elon-musk-federal-agencies-contracts.html