in his speech to Congress on Tuesday Donald Trump set an ambitious goal balance the federal budget but as a Fox News anchor Maria Boma tried to explain to him in an interview this morning he can't do that without going after entitlements when you look at where the spending is 76% of the spending going to the mandatory programs don't you have to really cut into those mandatory programs in order to really make a dent you said you're going to balance the budget you can't balance the budget just Doge Cuts we're going to have growth like you've
never seen before we have that's true yeah you said that we're going to have growth I'm not going to touch Social Security Medicare Medicaid now we're going to get fraud out of there put a pin in that one folks yeah okay uh because the Congressional budget office ran the numbers and they found that to balance the budget Republicans will have to cut from social uh security and Medicare Medicaid that safety net those benefits and Americans don't want that especially when it comes to Social Security the single largest program in the federal budget a poll from
January found that more than 2third of all Americans think we're not spending enough on Social Security and only 6% think we're spending too much here's the deal there's a reason is the third rail of American politics but that's not stopping Republicans from wrapping their hands around it Elon mus mus has been repeating the line that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and in his speech on Tuesday Donald Trump actually lied about millions of dead people receiving benefits even the guy Trump installed to lead the Social Security Administration has said that that's not true but it
doesn't seem like he has much control over what's going on the Washington Post reported this week that privately senior staff has been told that doge is running the show show and that they will make mistakes reports are already emerging about long wait times and delays in reviewing disability claims and soon all of this meddling could mean that people don't get their checks on time I mean folks take a moment do you really trust Elon Musk to get you your checks on time well the most recent commissioner of the Social Security Administration definitely does not martinal
told CNBC ultimately you're going to see this system collapse and an interruption of benefits I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days and he added people should start saving now joining me now is Martin Ali he served as the commissioner of the Social Security Administration under President Biden before that he was governor of the great state of Maryland it's great to have you at the table Governor um so let's it's good to see you man so if Social Security misses payments uh it would be the first time in 90 90
years of his existence uh that that will have ever happened what exactly are you seeing that doge is doing that makes you so worried wow um do I call you lieutenant governor chairman [Music] Excellency friend work there are several there are several things you're doing um Michael there are that it appears they're doing everything they can to break this agency to degrade customer service and these acts are also and to drive uh employees out of this agency keep in mind you know the uh uh the Republican house was reducing Staffing and cutting Social Security before
the the the Doge Bros even had driver's licenses so this agency was serving more and more people every single day because of us baby boomers with Staffing that was reduced to a 50-year low so the biggest threat to the agency is the way they're driving experienced knowledgeable employees out of it including those who are about 30 to 40% retirement eligible that run the it systems so what we're going to see is more and more intermittent shutdowns of you know the processing apps and also you know yesterday for a Time the portal that allows people to
check their myssa account went down you're going to see more of that for longer durations you're already seeing the wait times the lines all going again in the wrong direction after they were made to go in the right and more timely Direction by the end of last year they're all going in the wrong direction and then you're going to see all of those things having a cascading effect because just because that base of the it system that old cobal system is old doesn't mean that it doesn't have to be maintained and the people that know
how to maintain it get this are being paid for an entire year if they will leave now and not let the door hit their backside on the way out that's the waste and I and I I I see that you know as sort of the Lynch pin to a lot of this um it is not about the functionality of the system it is about a clearing of the decks we we want these people out um if this system collapse uh certainly that's that's going to be a devastating thing how then do you get things up
and running again I mean at some point when when your your cousin your aunt your mom your dad yourself don't get that check that you need to cover your expenses whether it's health care whether it's other things you you may use um the the the your Social Security payments for what do people do and how does how do you get the system back in line you know 40% of seniors living alone over the age of 65 Michael depend entirely on Social Security it's the difference between you know living under a bridge living in poverty or
living with dignity uh I suspect just like after they fired the people that knew the nuclear codes they're going to realize that they fired some really talented experienced it people that understand how to get systems back up and running again uh especially if as I believe they are if they drive this to a system collapse and an interruption of benefits within the next 90 days whether those people are willing to come back how quickly they come back or how long those benefit interruptions last is anybody's is anybody's guess because just because these are some of
the only folks in the country that understand the architecture of that system and of course what I learned was it's not just about knowing how to write Cobalt code it's understanding the architecture and all of the apps and customer service uh it systems that sit on top of it so these are talented people they all not only know Cobalt and the architecture of Social Security and how to make sure everybody keeps getting their check on time they also have options in the private sector to go to other places so uh they're creating a mess it's
a mess of their own making you know our our fellow marylander Barbara molski texted me and said they're trying to break it so they can privatize it I think they're trying to break it so they can loot it they want what's in that Social Security trust fund for some reason and they now have these kids and t-shirts mucking around up there you going through people's personal data plugging into systems that they can't even read and understand themselves uh which is why they concluded that there was some zombie apocalypse with tens of millions of people walking
around with check spewing out of their cadaverous pockets it's a real mess up there and uh the guy running it only ran an office of about five people before but he's doing whatever they ask of them yeah there we are and that and that's it it's the zombie apocalypse within our Social Security Administration
