Dear Congressman Barrett,
Thank you for your response to my email regarding my concerns about DOGE’s rampage through our government, and specifically, Social Security. In responding, you wrote. “While some programs have been temporarily paused for review, this does not include Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. These are programs that I will always fight to save and strengthen.”
Well Congressman, it’s time for you to start fighting, because since then, Elon Musk has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” and Commerce Secretary Lutnick has stated publicly that anyone who complains about not receiving their monthly benefits would have to be a “fraudster.” Thousands of Social Security staffers are being fired, and several regional and field offices are being closed.
It’s getting tiresome to hear that the reason for this intrusion of chaos into our federal agencies is an attempt to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse.” We already have — or until recently, had — competent people in the Federal government tackling that problem, such as the Inspector General of Social Security, who was recently fired along with 16 other agencies’ IGs. Social Security actually had a pretty good track record in rooting out false claims, Mr. Musk’s rants about “dead people” to the contrary.
For now at least, we still have the Government Accountability Office, which recently issued a report citing fraudulent Medicare payments, Department of Defense boondoggles, and uncollected taxes as major sources of waste. According to Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post (March 6, 2025), three quarters of a trillion dollars have been saved by implementing GAO’s recommendations over the last 35 years.
By contrast, DOGE’s actions don’t seem to match their purported mission. Rather, the goal with Social Security seems to be crippling it to the point that it will cease to dependably administer benefits. Why else cut staff when caller’s wait times are already long? Why close offices to make it harder for recipients to apply for benefits or straighten out snafus? Why hamper staff by requiring DOGE authorization for purchasing basic office supplies costing more than one dollar? How can it possibly be cost-effective to go after pencil pilfering to bring down the debt?
Our government is undoubtedly too large and cumbersome. I doubt any of your constituents would object to genuine, well thought-out plans to streamline it for efficiency and cost-savings.
But that is not what we see happening. We see destruction of numerous programs and services put into law and funded by Congress, and the Republican-controlled Congress doing nothing about it. Instead of trying to placate us with sound-bites, please work with your colleagues to hold DOGE accountable for abusing the programs that Americans have paid into their entire working lives.
Penelope Goldstein
Brighton
