John,

We’ve made thousands of calls to Congress, urging action to stop Donald Trump’s plan to raid Social Security’s dedicated funding. Your calls are working. Pressure is building―chip in $7 today to save Social Security from Trump!

Nancy wrote to you yesterday, explaining exactly how Trump’s scheme works. That message is below, in case you missed it.

This is a critical moment for our Social Security system. We can’t afford to let up. Chip in $7 today!

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Thanks,

Alex Lawson
Social Security Works

--NANCY'S EMAIL--

John,

Donald Trump already has the blood of 185,000 Americans on his hands.

Now, he’s going to find out if he can get away with killing Social Security.

During his last Presidential campaign, Trump claimed that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any voters.¹ His stubborn approval rating, which has held remarkably steady since the bodies started piling up in March due to the pandemic, proves he may have been right.² Will that still be true when his voters find out what he has planned for Social Security?

Social Security Works is going all-out over the next 2 months to ensure that every voter knows that a re-elected Trump will destroy our Social Security system. Chip in $7 today to fuel our campaign!

Trump’s unilateral, unprecedented step of deferring the collection of payroll taxes, the backbone of Social Security, is the first step in his murder plot.

Trump has already ordered the Treasury Department to stop collecting Social Security's dedicated payroll contributions for the next four months pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, which permits deferrals of taxes when a disaster is declared. Once re-elected, if he keeps deferring those taxes, all benefits will come to a screeching halt, with no Congressional involvement whatsoever.

According to estimates from the independent chief actuary of the Social Security Administration,³ if all Social Security contributions from payroll tax stopped on Jan. 1, 2021, the nearly 10 million people today getting Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, which averages about $1,125 every month,⁴ would see them stop abruptly in the middle of 2021.

If Donald Trump is re-elected, he’ll never have to face voters again, and he’ll fully drain Social Security's $2.9 trillion trust fund all by himself. Voters don’t know this yet―and we need to change that. Chip in $7 to save Social Security from Trump!

55 million people receive Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance benefits, which average around $1,440 a month. In 2023, every single one of those benefits would disappear. (Congress could only stop Trump by enacting veto-proof legislation, a highly unlikely proposition.)

Section 7508A of the Internal Revenue Code allows Trump to issue deferrals for up to one year, long enough to stop the disability insurance program. Killing off the rest of Social Security takes two years longer, but a re-elected President Trump could declare a new disaster every year, and with it, a new deferral.

Senior White House advisor Larry Kudlow has already indicated that that’s exactly what Trump plans to do. Every single Social Security benefit could be stopped with just two new disaster declarations―and he’d never even have to face voters to do it.

This election could be the last chance to save Social Security―chip in $7 to make sure that every voter knows it!

With a presidential threat to have zero benefits paid whatsoever, congressional supporters of Social Security would effectively be held hostage, with little they could do but give into Trump’s demands.

Without Trump’s deferral, Social Security advocates have a strong hand―Social Security’s trust fund can pay all benefits for more than a decade, and 80% into infinity from that point. If the wealthy pay their fair share, we can not only pay full benefits forever, but we can afford to expand benefits!

But Trump’s defunding of Social Security changes that calculus. Instead of a worst-case scenario being 80% of promised benefits, the alternative to right-wing demands becomes the total destruction of Social Security.

It is not hard to imagine that, as the disability trust fund runs out, a backroom deal could be struck that fulfills the longstanding right-wing goal of eliminating the popular, universal features of Social Security that Americans cherish.

Prior to running for president on the Republican ticket, Trump endorsed privatizing Social Security and raising its full retirement age to 70, asking, "How many times will you really want to take that trailer to the Grand Canyon?"⁵ Other longstanding right-wing goals are to means-test Social Security and adopt the technical but far-reaching change of price-indexing. Those are not only deeply unpopular, but would impose enormous cuts,⁶ while also ending Social Security as it has existed since its enactment 85 years ago.

Some so-called fact-checkers and pundits are giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, arguing that Congress would simply make up for the missing payroll contributions with general revenue. That, though, is highly unlikely. We are talking about general revenue of over $1 trillion a year. Since no one is suggesting raising taxes to make up the lost revenue from Social Security, that additional $1 trillion would have more than doubled the fiscal year 2019 deficit.

Thanks to the pandemic, spending has already gone up and revenue has gone down. Vultures like Mitt Romney are already designing ways like the TRUST Act to fast-track cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for pandemic relief spending―and that was when the programs were fully funded!

Together, Social Security Works members have stopped the TRUST Act in its tracks. Our voices together are powerful―chip in $7 today to turn up the volume!

Importantly, even just substituting general revenue would fundamentally alter Social Security. Its dedicated revenue and inability to deficit-spend means that Social Security does not add a penny to the nation's federal debt. Social Security's creator, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, clearly understood the importance of those Social Security contributions, which, in his words, "give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their [Social Security] pensions."⁷

Trump has shown himself willing to attack numerous fundamental institutions. He has attacked the US Postal Service, which the Constitution explicitly lists as an enumerated power of Congress. He has attacked the free press and our elections. Does anyone believe he wouldn't take our Social Security system hostage to attain a radical reform?

Adding insult to injury, it is easy to imagine that Donald Trump will host a Rose Garden signing ceremony for legislation ending Social Security as we know it. He will use the occasion to brag about "saving" Social Security―as he signs its destruction.

The best way to stop it is to ensure that EVERY voter knows Trump’s plans. That’s exactly what we’re doing between now and Election Day. Chip in $7 to save Social Security from Donald Trump!

Thanks,

Nancy Altman
President, Social Security Works