The waste and fraud in Social Security system is astonishing (02-20-2025--Hour2)

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[00:00:29] So the defenders of the bureaucracy, who apparently don't believe anybody should get fired at the federal government, apparently moved to fire a bureaucrat themselves because he helped to identify waste and fraud. Yeah. This story by Luke Rosiak over at The Daily Wire, dailywire.com, tells the story of Leland Dudek.

[00:00:55] Dudek was an obscure bureaucrat from the Social Security Administration who had dedicated his career to stopping fraud. But when he worked with the Doge Musketeers to do just that, he came close to being fired himself. He wrote a now-deleted post on LinkedIn. He said,

[00:01:19] At 4.30 p.m., my boss called me to tell me that I had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. They want to fire me for cooperating with Doge. Then, a stunning reversal occurred. It was acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King who was out of a job.

[00:01:42] And Dudek was reinstated with a promotion, taking her job leading the agency on an interim basis. Right? This is so awesome. The guy identifies some areas that Doge can look at to find waste and fraud. That's his expertise inside the Social Security Administration.

[00:02:09] And when he says, hey, I do fraud. You guys are looking for fraud. Here's some stuff you should look at. And his bosses put him under an investigation, suspend him, and look to fire him. And the Doge crowd's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's happening here? The top dog gets fired, and they bring in Dudek to take her job.

[00:02:35] Two words for you, people. Force multiplier. Force multiplier. There are people inside these agencies, inside the federal government. There are people who care about this. I played a social media video post by a former federal worker. She no longer, she hadn't been in the, I think she was in Department of Agriculture.

[00:03:01] And we played this clip a couple weeks ago, and she talks about how all of her colleagues, not all of them, but she mentioned a number of instances with her colleagues that were gold-bricking, basically. Riding the clock. Right? They would, one guy would go off every day and sleep in his car for a couple hours around lunchtime, or sleep in the company car, or the government car.

[00:03:28] There are people on the inside that know where the waste and the fraud and the abuse is occurring. They know. And if they tell Doge people, that is a force multiplier. Because the guys that are showing up with their laptops and AI that are going through all of this stuff and identifying the problems, they could really use some help from people on the inside who can tell them where to focus.

[00:03:58] So the Washington Post had reported that the acting social security commissioner, and there's a reason why she's just acting as the commissioner, and I'll get to that in a bit. But she was the acting commissioner, and King exited the agency after refusing to let Doge access agency data. So she's out, and Dudek is in.

[00:04:25] But it was not reported previously that the managers at the agency had tried to punish this guy because he cooperated with the efficiency czars, as they are referred to by Luke Rosiak at the Daily Wire. The LinkedIn Post said the following, quote, I confess, I helped Doge understand SSA, Social Security Administration. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to Doge.

[00:04:54] I confess, I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess, I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices. I confess, I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information,

[00:05:19] and circumvented the chain of command to connect Doge with the people who get stuff done. Everything I have ever done is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency. Okay, here's the thing. If you are genuinely concerned about Social Security not being there, okay, if you are, and I'm talking to Democrats and media, but I repeat myself,

[00:05:48] if you are genuinely concerned that somehow or another, Social Security is going to go away, it's going to get cut, people aren't going to get their benefits, if you are worried about this, you should be helping Doge. You should be helping them. You should be doing what Leland Dudek is doing. Because the program is going to collapse.

[00:06:13] If you don't clean this thing up, the money will be gone. And everybody will suffer. So if you actually believe the things that you are saying and you want to protect Social Security, the way to protect it is not to shield it from Doge. It's to welcome Doge in to find the misspent money, to find the misappropriation of funds,

[00:06:41] to find the waste and the fraud and the abuse. The SSA and the White House did not return requests for comment. One employee speaking on condition of anonymity told the Daily Wire that the person who put Dudek on leave was a woman by the name of Gina Clemens, the deputy commissioner for analytics, review and oversight, and she is still on the job. After the publication of the story, a spokesman for U.S. Senator Mike Lee,

[00:07:10] a fellow by the name of Billy Gribben, said, quote, I hope we see more of this. There are many good civil servants who have been quietly frustrated for years with politically motivated mismanagement, who possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the problems within their agencies. Put them in charge. Hand them scalpels and flamethrowers. All right. So I mentioned why this woman that was shown the door, Michelle King,

[00:07:39] why she was just the acting commissioner. So usually it's a six year term. And that allows the SSA commissioner to, you know, to carry on through presidential transitions. OK, but the norm protecting Joe Biden destroyed that when he fired the person that Trump had appointed in his first term.

[00:08:08] Biden's designated relief was Martin O'Malley. Remember that guy? The dynamo made it like two seconds in the presidential Democratic primary. Martin O'Malley, I think he's out of like Maryland or something. I forget, but he's very forgettable. So he seemed to view agency employees, perhaps even more than taxpayers and beneficiaries, as his constituency.

[00:08:34] He signed a last minute deal with the employee union in November of 2024, granting them telework for five years so they could not so they didn't have to come into the office. Remember that? And then after he did that deal, he quit so he could run for the chairman of the DNC. That led King to assume their top role on an acting basis.

[00:08:58] Now, Dudek will serve in that role until Trump's nominee is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a fellow by the name of Frank Bisignano. I got to believe Dudek will stay on in some capacity. They would be they would be foolish to let the guy go after, you know, after he has done what he has done and proven his worth. Oh, by the way, Kash Patel has passed his first round of Senate confirmation, the full Senate confirmation. They got to do another vote.

[00:09:28] I think there was only one opponent. I think it was Murkowski or no, it may have been Collins. Sorry, I forget. There was one Republican defector, basically, who voted no against Kash Patel, but he made it through the first round. Um, but man, when he gets through, things are going to get crazy. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina,

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[00:11:18] had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits. But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the government payment system. So no problem. See? It's just a coding quirk.

[00:11:49] Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150-year-old figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration's benefit system, which was largely written in COBOL, not COBOLT, as Kevin O'Leary called it, COBOL, C-O-B-O-L, which is a 60-year-old programming language that under, it's not used anymore, really,

[00:12:18] that undergirds SSA's databases, as well as systems for many other government agencies. COBOL is rarely, rarely used today, and as such, Musk's cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it. And because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point.

[00:12:46] And the most commonly used reference point is May 20th, 1875, as this was the date of an international standard-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention de Matheu. Uh-huh. These systems default to the reference point of May 20th, 1875, if there is a birth date that is missing or incomplete. See? So there's no problem here.

[00:13:16] There's other people who are 150 years old. We actually don't know how old they are. Take that, Elon Musk! Ha! This is... This is supposed... Like, this is an own for them? Like, you guys think you're making a point here? It's the same thing. That's actually worse. Because at least if they said they were 150 years old, we actually have a birth date. But the fact that it's coded to this reference point,

[00:13:45] because you don't have any date, that makes it even worse. Musk could also have simply looked up on the SSA's own website, which explains that since September 2015, the agency has stopped automatically paying those benefits when anybody reaches the age of 115. Phew! Oh, thank goodness! This makes it so much better, too! In September of 2015, they finally figured out,

[00:14:14] you know what, maybe we shouldn't be paying these benefits to anybody who's older than the oldest person on Earth. That's a good call, guys. Yeah, I don't know why it took until September of 2015 to figure that out, but they did. Kudos to them, right? Shouldn't be paying people that are, you know, older than the longest ever person, the longest living person ever. So that's a good thing. But it still doesn't correct the problem. Right?

[00:14:43] And we saw this same thing occur with the voter ID issue, where people were like, they don't have birthdates listed because, you know, they don't have, there's, they are a hundred and something years old in our system. It's like, well, that's just because we don't have birthdates. Like, that's not, that's not better. You'd think this is like some sort of an explanation, but your explanation is not better. The fact that the social security system contains millions of entries

[00:15:12] from people who are dead is likely distinct from a potential COBOL coding caused error and also not news. See, here we go. Take this, Elon. A report written by the SSA inspector general in 2023 found that 98% of those a hundred years or older in their databases are not in receipt of any benefits. The report added, the database would not be updated

[00:15:41] because it would cost too much money to do so. See? In your face, Musk. Ha! Again, guys, this is not better either. Why do you have all of these people still in your database for benefits? And they're like, well, they're not getting any. Yeah, but shouldn't they be, I don't know, closed out or something? Why would you still have them in there if they are no longer getting benefits and they're dead and your own inspector general highlighted this problem

[00:16:11] and you're like, yeah, we really do need to update the systems. But no, we can't do that because we don't have any money. We know we need to, but we're not going to. It's just a mess. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events and I know you do too and you probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world

[00:16:41] in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:17:11] Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. So there was a very lengthy piece that was written in 2022 actually by Mark Hemingway and Ben Weingarten. We had Ben on the program a couple of days ago. This was over at Real Clear Investigations and it was about

[00:17:40] Social Security benefits and what's a really interesting thing in all of this discussion is essentially like Musk, Elon Musk and his Doge dudes, the Musketeers, they're like look at all these Social Security numbers. These are probably fraudulent being used to you know send money to to fraudsters bilking the Social Security system and the response

[00:18:10] has been weird in that it's like no, no, no. That's what just that they're going to illegal aliens. That's all. They, you know, they're just committing identity theft with that so they can work. Like wait a minute. That's that's your explanation? And this is a huge problem and I heard today that now they're directing all of the agencies to start looking for the for signs of this kind of fraud

[00:18:39] inside of all federal departments. Three years ago, almost three years ago, at Real Clear Investigations headline, willful blindness, feds ignore illegal alien ID theft plaguing Americans as U.S. coffers fill. I have heard this argument as well that you know oh no, well look a lot of the times illegal aliens will get these ID cards or they'll get fake you know Social Security numbers and they pay into the system

[00:19:09] and they don't even collect the benefits so we should keep allowing this. Like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No. First off like so you're okay with extracting money from these people's paychecks taking it from them and then them never getting it back? Like that's that's not exactly a law and order kind of approach to any of this. It's not ethical. From the piece the historic surge of illegal immigrants across America's southern border

[00:19:38] is fueling a hidden crime spree few in Washington seem willing or able to address. Widespread identity theft victimizing unwitting Americans perpetrated by migrants who need U.S. credentials to work. And by the way you know who is most often affected here it is American citizens some of whom have been naturalized they are immigrants themselves but they are legal and they have names that illegal immigrants

[00:20:07] from particular countries want to have. they tell stories of let me see here I think I highlighted some of their names they went through a couple of these examples yeah Marcus Calvillo Adrian Gonzalez Linda Trevino these are people that are getting victimized and sometimes the people that steal their identity they're not just coming to work I mean they're using the documents they're using these identities

[00:20:37] and they're committing crimes and then you you get pulled over and like you got outstanding warrants on you wait what? ruining people's lives is what they're doing but you don't want to crack down because you need people to clean your house right? you need people to watch your kids right? is that the argument you're making? measuring it with precision is difficult to find out how big of a problem this is how many people there are doing this

[00:21:07] because the lack of data that's provided by the authorities a telling indication though of the scope of the criminality is provided by a little known government accounting book it's called the Social Security Administration's Earnings Suspense File or the ESF it reflects the earnings of employees whose W-2 wage and tax statements have names and Social Security numbers that do not match official records so they actually run reports on this

[00:21:37] called the ESF the total logged in the file has increased from about $189 billion at the beginning of the millennium so around 1999-2000 it was at $189 billion to now $1.9 trillion officials have historically ascribed a high proportion of the file's growth to wages reported by illegal immigrants and it has swelled

[00:22:07] alongside their population which and by the way that $1.9 trillion number is from 2021 so this doesn't even capture all the fraud that's occurred in the last four years under the Biden administration among those doing so working on the books federal authorities have found well over 1 million or 1 million people are using social security numbers belonging to somebody else either stolen

[00:22:35] or shared with a relative or acquaintance or numbers that are just completely fabricated the data that's held in the ESF would enable authorities to pursue many of the fraudsters but the IRS and other agencies responsible for enforcing the law have been reluctant to investigate and regulations have prevented meaningful information sharing among them I keep saying this this is a

[00:23:05] choice people people are making these decisions on purpose a 2017 study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR found that the federal government collects about $22 billion annually in tax receipts from illegal aliens with the bulk going towards social security and Medicare the fraud has the effect of bolstering these financially shaky federal programs

[00:23:34] in one of the agency's rare direct statements on this issue the social security administration chief actuary Stephen Goss told CNN over a decade ago that quote without undocumented immigrants paying into the system social security would have entered persistent shortfall of tax revenue to cover payouts starting in 2009 again it's a choice they're looking the other way they're not

[00:24:03] enforcing the law they're not investigating because of the money given Washington's bipartisan willingness to tolerate illegal immigration whether driven by the multicultural left or business interests seeking cheap labor authorities have focused on this apparent windfall to the U.S. Treasury but they have largely ignored the costs as Thomas Sowell says no solutions only trade-offs right so what's the trade-off well it includes significant strain

[00:24:33] illegal immigrant households place on public finances which FAIR and others other groups estimate vastly outweigh their tax contributions their impacts on crime and the job market and of course on the victims of the identity theft right people say oh they pay they pay more they contribute more to the society oh they're paying 22 billion dollars a year see that they're net positive what is the cost to build all of the schools and hire

[00:25:03] all of the ESL teachers what are those costs right there is another side of the ledger here that people want to ignore but I won't alright I hope you had a happy holiday season but tell me if something like this happened at your house your family and friends are gathered around maybe y'all are in the living room you're laughing swapping stories reminiscing and then somebody says hey dad remember those old VHS tapes did you ever get them

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[00:26:02] discount for you and next year instead of talking about those memories imagine gathering the family to watch them together talk about a are saying that the identity theft that is funneling money into social

[00:26:32] security and medicare is a net positive right so therefore we shouldn't be looking into any of this like hey you know what they're just paying into a system they're never going to collect out of the system is still unsustainable though it's not enough they just look at it as an additional revenue stream reports according to real clear investigations reports dating back over a decade show hundreds of thousands of Americans are unknowingly sharing

[00:27:02] their social security numbers with illegal immigrants such victims may face tax bills for income that they did not earn or even depleted benefits worse some may experience the burden of bad credit histories even criminal records inaccurately attributed to them after being issued social security numbers that illegal aliens have previously invented and used the overall impact on American citizens is largely unknown because federal state

[00:27:32] and local governments as well as financial institutions have generally failed to notify them even when fraud is suspected I cannot stress this enough people lock down or freeze your credit you can do it very easily online with the three major credit rating bureaus put a freeze on your stuff nobody will be able to get access to anything if it's got to go through one of

[00:28:02] the credit agencies because it's frozen now if you want to do something you got to unfreeze it but you can do that very easily on the websites as well you can unfreeze it for like a set period of time do your application and then have it locked down again ironically this is another instance of regulation becoming the mother of criminal innovation in 1986 Congress made it explicitly unlawful for employers to hire illegal immigrants

[00:28:31] right the Immigration Reform and Control Act the IRCA it required people who were seeking employment to fill out i-9 forms attesting to citizenship or work authorized immigrant status and provide corroborating documentation and a valid social security number the law did not slow the pipeline of immigration because enforcement was never done border security wasn't done right that was the hoax that the Democrats played on Reagan

[00:29:01] according to the libertarian Cato Institute the 1986 law spurred the creation of a large scale black market for legal documents in America the value of document fraud increased after this law passed because false documents became necessary for illegal immigrants to fill out an I-9 form to work aliens can procure these numbers in several ways they could simply just make up a nine digit number others use the numbers of kids

[00:29:31] who were born in the U.S. their $200 along with a green card or you go on the dark web and you can find them for as little as four bucks the most common form of ID theft where fraudsters create an entirely new identity by stealing the social security number of

[00:30:14] fraud can be detected as I mentioned they just don't want to look for it the existence of that ESF that report means the social security administration and the IRS with which it coordinates have a database containing a substantial population of fraudsters against American citizens and for the better part of two decades government watchdogs have encouraged these

[00:30:44] in 2006 so 20 years ago GAO report recommended that SSA IRS DHS share the data to address the problem but federal law severely limits the social security administration and the IRS from sharing information from tax forms in part because of privacy concerns the ACLU called attempts to coordinate information sharing between the SSA and immigration enforcement

[00:31:14] authorities during the Trump administration quote an all-out assault on our legal rights and our immigrant communities right so you can't even look for the fraud according to the ACLU that's an assault on our rights to look for fraud where the victims are American citizens it's astounding George W. Bush during his administration um started doing the SSA no match letters which were notifications that would go to employers

[00:31:44] saying hey your employee has a social security number that does not match government records like your I-9 or whatever Obama comes in puts an end to the no match letters why for DACA for Trump gets in and they resume sending the no match letters Biden gets in

[00:32:13] and they discontinue the no match letters once again right you see the pattern here the IRS has enforcement powers that the social security administration lacks but has historically disavowed any responsibility for dealing with illegal alien ID theft in 2016 then the IRS commissioner John Koskinen remember that he told Congress we have social

[00:32:43] security and immigration authorities and others who enforce that part of the law and if we start looking behind the system and doing their job for them we're going to discourage a lot of people from paying the taxes they owe we can't possibly enforce the law here the IRS manual which governs employee policies and practices refers to those engaged in ID fraud as borrowers they call them borrowers

[00:33:13] that people may be borrowing a social security number from somebody else rather than calling it identity theft as I said this is a choice hopefully doge can make a different one and correct the problem all right that'll do it

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