How do you say, “I am going to break Social Security” without actually saying “I am going to break Social Security”?

Donald Trump doesn’t have to have to say a thing. A leaked memo says it all.

Starting March 31, the Social Security Administration will shut off its phones to newly disabled claimants and new retirees, people trying to update their bank information and certain families with children. They will have to use the internet or physically visit Social Security offices.

The internal memo, first reported by the news site Popular Information, estimates this will increase in-office visits by as much as 85,000 people a day — on top of the current daily average of 119,000. If you’ve ever been past the Orange Avenue office in downtown Orlando on a hot summer morning and seen the line stretching nearly a block, you know how well that’s going to work out.

And we may be the lucky ones. The same people embracing this idea are also rapidly shuttering Social Security offices, making office visits difficult if not impossible.

A Florida office, doomed

A Florida office in Melbourne Beach is expected to close next month. In the next three months, 25 others will close, in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Another 21 are expected to be closed. As for applying online, internet service is not an option in parts of the U.S.

Even if an applicant somehow gets an office visit, the wait could become even more excruciatingly long: 7,000 Social Security workers are expected to be laid off.

Undercutting a system providing rent and grocery money to millions of Americans has real-world consequences.

Food lines growing

Growing numbers of seniors in Central Florida are already lining up at local food banks. Across the state, roughly one in seven Floridians aged 60 or older can’t depend on regular meals, according to the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger.

Nobody’s getting rich off Social Security’s average monthly payment of about $1,900.

Elon Musk has newly promised he will not torch Social Security. But as the memo illustrates, his surrogates can still strangle the system from within.

Trump can stay on the sidelines and, if pressed, wrap himself in the stop-fraud flag.

Musk argues that much of $700 billion in annual fraud and spending waste is attributable to Social Security and entitlements. But his dire math appears based on an inflated version of sophisticated guessing.

First, a 2024 General Accounting Office report cited by Musk found between $230 billion and $530 billion in waste and fraud, not $700 billion. Second, the GAO study includes all government spending, including the Department of Defense, a perennial source of financial boondoggles.

Fraud is below 1%

Finally, epidemic spending distorted the fraud’s extent. The report numbers were a best guess, said an author.

Social Security’s inspector general found less than 1% of total payouts between 2015 and 2022 were wasteful or fraudulent. But because the program is so large, that still translates to a staggering $72 billion.

Make no mistake: Fraud or waste is unacceptable. The inspector general’s office had the background to help DOGE track it. Trump fired the inspector general instead.

Just as firing fraud-hunters does not fit with the political narrative of a serious search for wrongdoing, pulling the plug on phone calls doesn’t fit the narrative of serious cost-cutting.

Just the opposite: The Social Security memo warns that the new phone policy will mean “potential budget shortfalls.” Costs for verifying identity are likely to climb. So are costly suits by applicants, especially the disabled

This still does fit the narrative of an unfixable Social Security. Break it in such a way as to make everyone unhappy, couple that with continued misinformation about it going broke, and people will be primed for radical change.

That word again

Nothing is more radical than the Musk-endorsed idea of privatizing Social Security.

Right now, it’s deeply unpopular. That is why influential BlackRock CEO Larry Fink cautioned that no one should use the word privatization when discussing putting even part of the $2.7 trillion Social Security trust fund money into Wall Street.

The idea is great, Fink said — but he word privatization is “toxic.”

It’s toxic because people instinctively understand that privatization would make financiers rich and leave other Americans praying that a volatile marketplace will be merciful with their money.

Anyone who believes that financial returns are a given could look at what happened to 401(k)s in 2008, when Fink-endorsed mortgage securities crashed and burned, taking down the entire U.S. economy with them.

Americans deserve a Social Security system that’s strengthened, not deliberately dismantled. If people are shut out of its phone system, their next call should be to Florida senators and members of Congress — who need to pick up the phone and listen.

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The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

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