Afternoon all. Sending along the recording of a live discussion we had earlier today with my good friend Jon “Bowzer” Bauman about the ongoing Trump-Musk assault on Social Security and Medicaid. Jon is the President of the Social Security Works PAC, Vice-Chair of the DNC’s Senior Council and is among our most effective and spirited defenders of these vital programs. For those who would rather read than watch or listen a transcript is above, and thank you for your patience as we learn how to use Substack’s new “Live” platform.
His two big messages - Musk’s destabilization of the Social Security Administration may be a precursor to the privatization or direct benefit cuts of the most successful anti-poverty program in our history; and the planned GOP slashing of Medicaid will dramatically impact the primary funder of long-term and nursing home care for Americans across the country. It is all part of what we call the “more for us and less for all of them” strategy Trump-Musk-GOP are advancing this year.
Two followups from the discussion. First here’s a link the House Democrats’ Shadow Hearing on Social Security from Tuesday that Jon helped put together. Second, in our discussion Jon referenced an important Washington Post story from this morning, Social Security faces thousands more job cuts even with service in a tailspin. Here is how it begins:
The Social Security Administration — already reeling from plunging customer service following a rapid downsizing under the Trump administration — is drafting plans to begin layoffs of potentially thousands more employees as soon as next week.
The cuts have been ordered by leaders of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team, the U.S. DOGE Service, which reviewed the agency’s plans to shrink its workforce last week, according to four agency officials familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans. DOGE determined that the 7,000 jobs eliminated since February under acting commissioner Leland Dudek through early retirements, buyouts, resignations and firings were not enough, the officials said.
The DOGE team, which has amassed unprecedented power throughout the federal government, has demanded significantly deeper cuts to ensure that Social Security meets President Donald Trump’s goal to shrink federal agencies, officials said.
Dudek had told the remaining Social Security workforce of about 50,000 in March that he hoped to avoid layoffs known as reductions in force, or RIFs, altogether. But that changed in recent days, when agency leaders were notified that they needed to propose a “more extensive RIF proposal,” one official said.
The Social Security press office did not respond to a request for comment.
The DOGE team did not provide a specific number of jobs that must be eliminated, officials said, but asked for staff reductions to broad areas of operation, including communications, personnel, legislative and congressional affairs, retirement and disability policy, and other “support components.” Also on the list is the information technology department of about 4,000 employees, which is confronting a flurry of website crashes that has shut out customers from accessing their benefit information. Up to 800 people could be laid off in that department, according to one senior official.
Get to the interview when you can and try to make through to the end when Jon closes with an aspirational song that will lift you up a bit in what has been a dark few days for our great country. I am pleased to introduce my good friend to the Hopium community and plan and having him back in the days ahead to report in on our efforts to save Social Security from the Russian-backed Trump-Musk wrecking ball.
More About Jon “Bowzer” Bauman
Jon “Bowzer” Bauman is President of Social Security Works PAC & Vice Chair of the DNC Seniors Council. You still might know him best as “Bowzer,” formerly of the hit TV series and rock group “Sha Na Na” & the movie “Grease.” But since 2004, Jon has participated in hundreds of political campaigns, criss-crossing the country to endorse candidates who will fight for a better quality of life for older Americans. An expert on senior issues, Jon did endorsement events in 57 campaigns in 2018, literally traveling from Alaska to South Florida & Northern Maine to Southern California. In 2020, he did 110 Zoom events as a surrogate for the Biden/Harris campaign & in Congressional races. In 2022, he visited 35 more campaigns on the ground, helping Democrats to much better than expected results. Now, in 2024, he hosted the launch of both the Biden/Harris & then Harris/Walz campaigns for Seniors, traveled the country for the ticket & still found time to do events in 20 swing Congressional districts, half of which resulted in victories. That resulted in ‘24’s only true success - the slim margin Republicans have in the House that’s going to stop a lot of their worst legislation. Jon lives in California’s beautiful Santa Ynez Valley & Los Angeles with his wife of 53 years, Mary, retired Clinical Director at the HELP Group, one of America’s biggest agencies for educating young people on the autism spectrum. They have two children, Nora, 44 and Eli, 42 & four wonderful grandchildren.
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you and good luck to everyone heading to protests tomorrow! - Simon
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