03/07/2025

DOGE is Driving Social Security Cuts

Its acting head says it will make mistakes

The newly installed caretaker at the Social Security Administration acknowledged this week that Elon Musk’s non-governmental-approved task force, U.S. DOGE Service, is calling the shots as the agency races to slash thousands of jobs and shrink its budget, telling a group of advocates, “Things are currently operating in a way I have never seen in government before.”

In a meeting Tuesday with his senior staff and about 50 legal-aid attorneys and other advocates for the disabled and elderly, acting SSA commissioner Leland Dudek referred to the tech billionaire’s cost-cutting team as “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs,” according to a meeting participant’s detailed notes that were obtained by The Washington Post.

“DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA,” Dudek told the group, according to the notes. “I am relying on longtime career people to inform my work, but I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.