Weather Service losses are growing Looming gaps raise fears as the severe storm season ramps up.​ By SCOTT DANCE The Washington Post

At least 300 National Weather Service employees were expected to take the latest federal buyout offer by a Thursday deadline, departures the agency's top official told employees could leave many forecast offices around the country with half the meteorologists they need to properly monitor extreme weather threats.

The losses will be widespread across the agency, which faced a growing number of impending retirements even before this year's departures began. Eight of the Weather Service's 122 local forecast offices soon will have seven or fewer meteorologists to do the work of 12 to 15 people, NWS Director Ken Graham told his colleagues in a briefing this week, according to two people familiar with his comments.

Some meteorologists and public officials warned that these reductions, which leave the agency nearly 20% smaller than it was when President Donald Trump took office, could have deadly consequences when storms next strike. As forecast offices grapple with the changes, a memo obtained by the Washington Post also details ways they should cut back on certain services, including weather balloon launches.

The looming gaps have elevated fears particularly for forecasters in central states, including in the heart of the country, where tornadoes and menacing storms are frequent. As severe storm season ramps up, it's the offices in places such as Kansas City, Omaha, Louisville, Des Moines and Grand Rapids that were facing the most significant staffing shortages after buyouts earlier this year, according to people familiar with the agency.

"You can only stretch things so much," said Alan Gerard, who recently retired from the National Severe Storms Laboratory and was previously the meteorologist-in-charge at the Weather Service in Jackson, Miss. "Eventually, things start to break."

While there are many sources of weather forecasts, from smartphone apps to broadcast radio and TV, the Weather Service's data and predictions undergird them all. The agency is also responsible for warning the public when a tornado, hurricane or other extreme weather threat is imminent.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the websites of several of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's six regional climate centers went dark because of a funding lapse .
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"This isn't about finding government waste; this isn't about finding fraud. This is about making sure the United States of America is protected," said Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., who worked as a television meteorologist before joining Congress. "I am incredibly worried about the safety of my own constituents."

Make America Great Again, meet ‘beggar thy neighbor’ "beggar thy neighbor" ​describes a selfish and ultimately often counterproductive approach to international economic relations, where one nation tries to prosper by impoverishing others. This approach was particularly prevalent during the Great Depression in the 1930s and is largely discouraged by modern international institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO). JENNIFER BROOKS Columnist IN PROTEST OF THE PRESIDENT, A MASSIVE WAVE OF HUMANITY DECENDED ON THE MN CAPITOL ON SATURDAY.

"Don't be stupid,"
said President Donald Trump, as Americans here and across the country rose in massive protests over the weekend against the chaos he'd unleashed.
"Don't be weak."

His skittish advisers assured Americans that the pain they're experiencing, as the economy is thrown into chaos and our national image is thrown in the woodchipper, is simply an "adjustment."
​
Much as your morning commute might be adjusted if the bus driver yanked the wheel for no reason and rammed full-speed into a wall.
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"The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO," the president posted in caps-locked glee on his personal social media platform. "Don't be Weak!
​Don't be Stupid! Don't be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!).

Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!"
The main result of the president tanking the economy for no particular reason played out in St. Paul and countless other American cities on Saturday. A massive wave of humanity descended on the Minnesota Capitol: retirees, young parents, teachers, scientists.
Thousands of people, possibly tens of thousands, filling the grounds around the Minnesota Legislature. A massive "I'm With Stupid" signal, pointing straight back at the White House.

The protest signs read.

Hands off science, 
Hands off our Medicaid.
Hands off education.
Hands off veterans.
Hands off our civil rights.

Hands off everything, basically, that Elon Musk and his imaginary government agency have had a hand in these past few months.
Most Americans, it seems, would like to pay less for groceries, not more. We liked watching our retirement savings increase, not crater. We liked helping other nations through natural disasters and feeding starving babies on the other side of the planet because it was the decent thing to do. We liked it when Canada was elbows down, not up.

So far, we PANICANS have watched the richest man on the planet throw our neighbors out of work, hollow out our government, defund cancer research and dismantle safeguards that kept water drinkable, air breathable and food edible.
We've watched the names and faces of our heroes vanish from government websites, libraries and museum exhibits.
Harriet Tubman. Medgar Evers. Casualties in the war on diversity, history, civil rights and truth.

Our retirement savings have dwindled along with our hopes that we'll ever be able to collect the Social Security and Medicare we've paid into all our lives. We've watched our closest allies issue warnings against travel to America, because there's a nonzero chance any one of us could get shipped off to some nightmarish Salvadoran supermax without due process.

Now a nation that was absolutely furious about the price of eggs is facing tariff-driven price hikes on ... almost everything we love, basically.
Coffee. Clothing. Shoes. Both chocolate and vanilla.

Tariffs as crippling as they are baffling. It's like someone only read the first half of the paragraph about the Smoot- Hawley tariffs in high school history and just thought tariffs sounded cool.

They skipped the part about how punitive tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression and sparked a cycle of retaliatory tariffs.

The late Sen. Paul Wellstone had a motto: "We all do better when we all do better."

This is the opposite of that.
"Beggar thy neighbor," economists call it. You only win if everyone else loses. Including your own citizens, apparently.

The bodies of four American service members who died during a training exercise in Lithuania returned home last week. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and thousands of mourners lined the roads in Vilnius.
The president of the United States was not there to witness the dignified transfer when the flight landed at Dover Air Force Base. Instead, Trump headed to Florida for the Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament.
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The only surprising thing about the massive protests that swept the country over the weekend is that they didn't happen sooner.
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S&P 500, Nasdaq facing worst quarter since 2022 ​Investors wary amid barrage of new tariffs. By AARON GREGG and JEFF STEIN The Washington Post​

​The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes are on track to clock their worst quarter since spring 2022 as the Trump administration's evolving trade policies rattle Wall Street.

Investors have struggled to find a foothold amid a barrage of new tariffs, which have been subject to repeated announcements and reversals since Inauguration Day. In addition, worrisome new economic data pointing to a consumer spending slowdown has reignited recession fears.

The stock market downturn has entirely erased the short-lived rally that followed Trump's November election win, when investors pinned their hopes on pro-business policies such as tax cuts and deregulation. As of midday Monday, the S&P 500 was down by more than 5% since the start of the year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq index is off more than 11% for the year. The Dow Jones industrial average, which includes a narrower set of stocks, is off 2% since the start of the year.
The sell-off comes amid news that Trump is now pushing for more sweeping tariffs on Wednesday, which he has billed "Liberation Day" for the U.S. economy.

Top Trump aides had previously said they would impose new tariffs on "the Dirty 15," or the 15% of nations determined by the administration to have the worst trade practices. That proposal would target a huge swath of U.S. trade but could pave the way for individual deals with countries and allow specific tariffs to be gradually reduced.

In recent days, however, Trump has pressed advisers to return to his 2024 presidential campaign plan to impose a single, universal rate on all U.S. trading partners as high as 20%.

Without providing specifics, White House aide Peter Navarro said Sunday that Trump's tariffs would raise $600 billion per year, or $6 trillion over 10 years, which appeared to reflect the universal tariff plan.

And on Sunday night, Trump gave his first public indication that imposing a single tariff on imports from every country remains on the table.

As the tariff threat heats up, analysts say the stock market will hit significant volatility, with much depending on what happens Wednesday.

"The April 2 deadline could be a major directional catalyst for most global markets, in either direction," wrote Larry Tentarelli, chief technical strategist for the Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, in a note to investors.

White House officials are studying a 1977 law that gives the president emergency powers as a way to enact 20% tariffs on all imports, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.

The White House has previously announced tariffs on the auto sector and on Sunday reiterated interest in tariffs on lumber and pharmaceuticals.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said he believes that the auto tariffs, in particular, will "send the auto industry into upside-down mode" as the automakers struggle to reconcile their global supply chains with steep new import duties,
​upping the average car price by $5,000 to $10,000.

A WATCHDOG WITHERS; HOMEBUYERS BEWARE Story by ANN CARRNS ​Illustration by TILL LAUER The New York Times

​
House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their pre-pandemic level. Now, with the spring homebuying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled.

Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the homebuying process, consumer advocates say homebuyers need to be their own watchdogs.
"Now when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled," said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. "It's important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away."

Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000.

What role has the consumer bureau played in homebuying?

The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-08 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders.

In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to "wrongful" foreclosures.

On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender's lawyers said Draper and Kramer "considers the matter closed and denies" the bureau's claims but chose to settle in part to avoid "protracted legal costs."

What has changed under the Trump administration?
Since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, the consumer bureau has taken a hands-off approach. Last month, it dropped legal action against Rocket Homes Real Estate, which had been accused in December of illegally steering prospective borrowers to an affiliate, Rocket Mortgage. In an emailed statement, Rocket Homes said it "has always connected buyers with top performing agents based only on objective criteria like how well they helped homebuyers achieve their dream of homeownership."
The bureau also dropped a suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, for making loans to buyers of manufactured homes who it knew could not afford to repay them. A rule requiring mortgage lenders to verify that borrowers are able to pay was a key aspect of changes put in place after the financial crisis, when many people lost their homes because they couldn't make their loan payments.
In a prior statement, Vanderbilt said the lawsuit was "unfounded and untrue, and is the latest example of politically motivated, regulatory overreach."

Vanderbilt also said it exceeds legal requirements for assessing a borrower's ability to pay.

Alys Cohen, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said the bureau had effectively stopped overseeing whether lenders were complying with consumer protection laws. Other federal regulators oversee banks, she said, but their main focus is an institution's overall safety and soundness, rather than its treatment of consumers. States also regulate banks and other lenders.

"People may be exposed to high prices and hidden relationships they may not know about," she said. (The center has joined a lawsuit opposing the administration's efforts to dismantle the consumer bureau.) The consumer bureau didn't respond to an email seeking comment on its activities.

How can homebuyers manage costs and reduce risks?
Research by the consumer bureau found that only about half of borrowers shop for better terms and interest rates when taking out a new home loan or refinancing a mortgage.

That may be because getting quotes takes time, and consumers may get confused when comparing complex choices, leading them to rely on a loan officer they already know or a single referral from a real estate agent or friend.

Yet shopping around with different lenders to compare costs can save borrowers thousands of dollars, according to research from Freddie Mac.
Getting two rate quotes could save as much as $600 annually, and getting at least four quotes could save more than $1,200 a year, Freddie Mac said.
Homebuyers use referrals from their real estate agents for providers like title insurers and home inspectors, but borrowers should shop around for these providers as well, housing advocates say. The consumer bureau found last year that home loan closing costs had risen significantly, in part because rising interest rates were leading more borrowers to pay upfront for "discount points" to reduce the rate on their loans.
​
Cohen, of the consumer law center, also suggested taking a homebuyer education course, particularly if you are a first-time buyer. (Lenders may require the courses in some cases, such as if you seek help with a down payment.) The courses, offered in person or online, help shoppers understand what's involved in finding, financing and owning a home, including how to select a lender. To find a course approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, check the agency's website.
What if I run into a problem with my mortgage or my home lender?
You can file a complaint with the consumer bureau, although it's unclear whether complaints are being processed. "The law stands," Cornelissen said. "It's just harder to enforce" without the bureau.
In a court filing this week, the chief of staff for the bureau's office of consumer response said that many people "are not receiving timely responses to their complaints" and that for those facing urgent situations, like losing their home to an imminent foreclosure, "there is simply no one at the CFPB to help."
Christopher Peterson, a professor at the University of Utah's Quinney College of Law and an expert in consumer law, said, "I still think it's worth complaining."
It's not yet clear, he said, how legal fights over efforts to "de-staff" the consumer bureau will be resolved, but the law requires the bureau to maintain a complaint process.
After showing an error message for weeks, the consumer bureau's website now opens directly onto its complaint portal.
You can also complain to the consumer protection arm of your state attorney general's consumer office, Peterson said.
State regulators may not always have the same resources and expertise as federal agencies, he said, but they may take on a larger enforcement role if the consumer bureau is diminished.
Can I take my mortgage lender to court?
Some consumer loans require private arbitration of disputes outside the courts, but that's not the case with mortgages, Peterson said. If you believe you were overcharged or otherwise mistreated, you can bring legal action yourself. Such claims can be complicated, he said, but because a home purchase "can affect your financial destiny for a long period of time," a lawsuit may be worth it.
One way to find a lawyer who specializes in consumer rights law is to search the website of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

​New rules on Social Security ID imposed By FATIMA HUSSEIN The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In an effort to limit fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration will impose tighter identity proofing measures — which will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with the agency over the phone.

Beginning March 31, people will no longer be able to verify their identity to the SSA over the phone and those who cannot properly verify their identity over the agency's "my Social Security" online service will be required to visit an agency field office in person to complete the verification process, agency leadership told reporters Tuesday.

The change will apply to new Social Security applicants and existing recipients who want to change their direct deposit information.

Retiree advocates warn that the change will negatively affect older Americans in rural areas, including those with disabilities, mobility limitations, those who live far from SSA offices and have limited internet access.

The plan also comes as the agency plans to shutter dozens of Social Security offices throughout the country and has already laid out plans to lay off thousands of workers.

In addition to the identity verification change, the agency announced that it plans to expedite processing of recipients' direct deposit change requests — both in person and online — to one business day. Previously, online direct deposit changes were held for 30 days.

"The Social Security Administration is losing over $100 million a year in direct deposit fraud," Leland Dudek, the agency's acting commissioner, said on a Tuesday evening call with reporters. "Social Security can better protect Americans while expediting service."

He said a problem with eliminating fraudulent claims is that "the information that we use through knowledge-based authentication is already in the public domain."

More than 72.5 million people, including retirees and children, receive retirement and disability benefits through the Social Security Administration.

Connecticut Rep. John Larson, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, said in a statement that "by requiring seniors and disabled Americans to enroll online or in person at the same field offices they are trying to close, rather than over the phone, Trump and Musk are trying to create chaos and inefficiencies at SSA so they can privatize the system."
​
The DOGE website says that leases for 47 Social Security field offices across the country, including in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and North Carolina, have been or will be ended.

​​​TRUMP’S CALL TO SCRAP CHIPS SPREADS PANIC President derided program that helped U.S. rebuild its semiconductor industry. By TRIPP MICKLE and ANA SWANSON The New York Times

WASHINGTON - As President Donald Trump addressed Congress last week, he veered off script to attack a sensitive topic, the CHIPS Act, a bipartisan law aimed at making the United States less reliant on Asia for semiconductors.

Republican lawmakers had sought and received reassurances over the past few months that the Trump administration would support the program Congress created. But halfway through Trump's remarks, he called the law a "horrible, horrible thing."

"You should get rid of the CHIP Act," he told House Speaker Mike Johnson as some lawmakers applauded.

The CHIPS program was one of the few things to unite much of Washington in recent years, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worked with private companies to draft a bill that would funnel $50 billion to rebuild the U.S. semiconductor industry, which makes the foundational technology used to power cars, computers and coffee makers. After President Joe Biden signed it into law in 2022, companies found sites in Arizona, New York and Ohio to construct new factories. The Commerce Department vetted those plans and began to dole out billions of dollars in grants.

Now, Trump is threatening to upend years of work. Chip company executives, worried that funding could be clawed back, are calling lawyers to ask what wiggle room the administration has to terminate signed contracts, said eight people familiar with the requests.

After the speech, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., who championed CHIPS, said he reached out to the White House to seek clarity about Trump's attack because the criticism was "in tension" with the administration's previous support.

"If it needs to transform into a different model over a period of time, I'm certainly supportive of that," Young said last week. "But let's be clear, the CHIPS and Science Act, at least the chips portion, has mostly been implemented.

It has been one of the greatest successes of our time."

The United States pioneered the semiconductor industry, designing the first microchips and the processes for making them, allowing it to become an early tech leader. But in the 1980s, companies began outsourcing most production to Asia.

U.S. lawmakers began pushing to rebuild domestic chip production after the pandemic created a global chip shortage that forced some U.S. auto factories to shutter, resulting in the CHIPS Act.

But the Trump administration has already taken steps to whittle away at the program.

In late February, Michael Grimes, a senior official at the Department of Commerce and former investment banker at Morgan Stanley, conducted brief interviews with employees of the CHIPS Program Office, which oversees the grants.

In interactions some described as "demeaning," Grimes asked employees to justify their intellect by providing test results from the SAT or an IQ test, said four people familiar with the evaluations. Some were asked to do math problems, like calculate the value of four to the fourth power or long division.

Last week, the Commerce Department laid off 40 of the CHIPS office employees, nearly a third of the entire team, these people said.

The administration has also begun discussing changes to projects that received chip-related subsidies, according to three people familiar with the internal conversations. The Biden administration gave preferential treatment for recipients that hired unionized construction workers and provided child care for employees, guidelines that could be changed, the people said.

The reviews and layoffs were previously reported by Reuters and CNBC.

On Wednesday, the day after Trump's speech, the Semiconductor Industry Association organized a call with member companies, said three people familiar with the discussion.

During the call, people chalked up Trump's frustration with the law to personal animus with Biden.

Some said that Trump's criticism could create challenges by drawing public attention to their projects, according to the people. But many also expressed confidence that their legal agreements with the Commerce Department couldn't be changed.

The Semiconductor Industry Association declined to comment.

So far, the Commerce Department has signed contracts to grant more than $36 billion in federal subsidies under the CHIPS Act. Samsung, Intel, Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., known as TSMC, and others in response have pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. chipmaking facilities.

Trump has proposed replacing those incentives with tariffs that increase the cost of making chips overseas. On Tuesday, he said that the threat of tariffs had compelled TSMC, the world's biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, to increase its U.S. investment by $100 billion and double the number of plants it is building in Arizona, to six.
"We don't have to give them money," Trump said. "We just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won't have to pay tariffs if they build in America."

It's unclear how much of a factor tariffs played in TSMC's plans. The company had already acquired land and drafted plans to expand its footprint in Arizona once it had the customers to support three additional plants, said three people familiar with the CHIPS Act. TSMC is investing earlier than previously planned, partly because customers like Apple and Nvidia committed to buying more U.S.-made chips, the people added.

TSMC and Intel declined to comment.

Micron and Samsung didn't respond to requests for comment.
Some in the chips industry have been formulating plans to try to convince Trump of the law's value since the election, including at the industry's annual gathering in San Jose, California, in November.

The initial legislation was spurred partly by a request from officials during the first Trump administration that TSMC invest in the United States, which kick-started an effort from Congress to secure funding for the company.

That soon snowballed into a broader effort to fund the industry, as other companies and lawmakers wanted to participate.

The risk of losing funding has caused some industry executives to complain that the government was too slow to provide subsidies in the first place.

While the law went into place in August 2022, the Biden administration spent months carefully vetting each project.

Most of its largest grants were finalized after the election.

"Is it perfect? No," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., during a Washington tech and policy conference last week.

"But without it, there would not have been another fabrication facility built in America."

DOGE driving Social Security cuts Outsiders will make mistakes as they slash jobs, budgets, acting head says. By LISA REIN, JEFF STEIN, HANNAH NATANSON The Washington Post Your Social Security office has been permanently closed to save money!

​The newly installed caretaker at the Social Security Administration acknowledged this week that Elon Musk's government efficiency program 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 costcutting team — known as the Department of Government Efficiency — 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."

His remarks to skeptical advocates came on Dudek's 12th day in a role that the White House rewarded him with after he secretly shared information with DOGE. His short tenure — while President Donald Trump's nominee to permanently run the agency waits in the wings — has been consumed by a whirlwind downsizing of the staff in charge of the safety-net gram used by 73 million retired and disabled Americans.
​
Dudek has announced plans to slash 7,000 jobs, a cut of more than 12%. He has moved to close regional hubs and field offices that serve the public, eliminated entire programs and consolidated departments.
An exodus of senior executives on his watch — some voluntary, others forced — is fast depleting decades of expertise. And last week, the longstruggling disability benefits system came under threat as backlogged state offices that review claims were told there would be no more overtime or hiring.

Yet it's still not clear what Trump and Musk have in mind as an endgame for Social Security, which has long been a political third rail in Washington.

The president has made promises that "we're not touching Social Security," even as DOGE races to shrink the government. About a dozen Muskaligned tech engineers have gained access to databases containing reams of taxpayer information, and the cost-cutting goal appears to overlap with an urgency to find fraud.

Meanwhile, a group of labor unions are asking a federal court for an emergency order to block DOGE's access. A motion for emergency relief was filed late Friday in federal court in Maryland by the legal services group Democracy Forward against the Social Security Administration and Dudek.

After Musk's claim that vast numbers of centenarians were fraudulently receiving retirement benefits was debunked, Trump doubled down Tuesday night in his address to a joint session of Congress. "We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors," Trump falsely stated.

Musk's attacks last week on Social Security — he described it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" — have further heightened alarm and uncertainty for lawmakers, policymakers and the public about whether Americans' earned benefits will end up as collateral damage.
"They're alleging that they're uncovering massive fraud in the system," said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "But where are they going with this? There's very little fraud in the retirement system. Since they're mispresenting the data in such extreme ways, it's hard to know."

On Thursday morning — three hours after the publication of this story online — an all-staff email went out to SSA employees informing them that they would be prevented "effective today" from accessing certain websites on their government devices, including "online shopping," "general news" and "sports."

"These additional restrictions will help reduce risk and better protect the sensitive information entrusted to us in our many systems," the email stated, according to a copy obtained by the Post.

The new guidance will further limit the beleaguered staff's ability to do their jobs, one SSA employee warned, because news sites — especially obituaries — are key sources staff rely on to prevent fraud.

Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme, a fraudulent investment scam that pays early investors with money from later investors in an attempt to appear profitable. It is an earned benefit program for seniors and disabled Americans funded through payroll taxes that has never missed a payment — though uncertainty about the program's solvency because of falling birthrates and growing life spans has made it a political minefield.

Democrats have pounced on what they say is reckless rhetoric and thoughtless cuts unfolding at the agency of 57,000 employees. Social Security is the government's central hub for some of Americans' most sensitive personal and financial information, and it is the country's largest payer of benefits, issuing more than $126 billion a month in mostly earned benefits — a massive sum that courses through the economy. One of the top motivations for constituents to contact their members of Congress is when they can't get help processing a retirement or disability claim.

"Now we know that something we Senate Democrats have feared for a long time is coming true," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference on Capitol Hill last week. "Social Security is under attack and at risk."

Other lawmakers said they fear the benefit is on the path to being privatized. In recent days, Martin O'Malley, who served a year as SSA commissioner under President Joe Biden, sounded the alarm in a rare public swipe at a successor.

"Ultimately, you're going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits," O'Malley said. "I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days."

Even some Republicans privately acknowledge discomfort with Dudek, who was appointed as acting commissioner when the career senior executive in the role abruptly retired after refusing his push to give DOGE employees unauthorized access to private data.

Dudek — a mid-level data analyst with no management experience until his sudden promotion — has been open about his rapid moves to cut costs.

"For too long, the Social Security Administration has operated on autopilot, creating inefficiencies that burden our employees and all Americans," he wrote in a message to the staff on March 1 . "We have spent billions annually doing the same things the same way leading to bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements. It is time to change that."

Meeting with advocates on Tuesday, Dudek sought to cast himself as someone on their side. He described his parents as blue-collar workers with little formal education who divorced when he was young, according to the notes obtained by the Post. His mother was injured and went on disability benefits, he explained. In high school, he would eat leftovers from the school cafeteria trash, he said.

Dudek said the old ways of "setting goals, doing studies, discussion, getting information and data before making decisions" are gone. Those in charge now "will make mistakes, but I need to move them in a direction that is best for SSA," he said, and asked the advocates for their support.

After Trump's claims Tuesday night, Dudek issued a news release on Wednesday that referred to "significant progress" in identifying and correcting records of people 100 years or older whose date of death was not listed in agency databases, leading to the perception that they were receiving retirement benefits. Dudek thanked Trump for "highlighting these inconsistencies."

The Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment. A White House spokeswoman referred a reporter to the president's comments to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Feb. 18. "Look, Social Security won't be touched — other than if there's fraud or something — we're going to find it. It's going to be strengthened but won't be touched."

The spokeswoman said in an email: "President Trump has nominated a highly qualified individual, Frank Bisignano, to lead the Social Security Administration. As President of Fiserv, he has experience delivering the right checks to the right people at the right time — which is the top priority!"

The Senate Finance Committee has yet to schedule a confirmation hearing for Bisignano.

Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, said shrinking Social Security's roughly $15 billion operating budget would represent just a small fraction of the program's $1.5 trillion in annual costs.

"If you're talking about Social Security solvency, this stuff is a drop in the bucket," Biggs said. "It doesn't make any sense at all."

The uncertainty about Musk's intentions has been fueled by statements from senior Trump administration officials that appear difficult to reconcile with the realities of the federal budget.

On the one hand, Trump and many of his senior advisers have repeatedly promised that Social Security's beneficiaries will not be harmed by the massive cost-cutting underway at federal agencies and that any reductions will only affect fraudulent payments. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reiterated that pledge in an interview on Tuesday, telling Fox Business that "we're going to pay every single person who deserves Social Security." During his first term as president, Trump largely stuck by his 2016 campaign pledge not to pursue spending reductions to the program.

At the same time, Musk and Trump have fueled speculation, particularly among Democrats, that they have designs to cut far more than fraudulent or mistaken payments, estimated at less than 1% of the retirement program. Democrats and advocates also warn that the massive cuts to staffing already underway at Social Security are certain to worsen service for customers.

Dudek has only raised more alarms by issuing news releases touting cuts. In his missive to staff over last weekend, he said the agency would outsource "nonessential functions to industry experts," the first step toward privatizing what could be crucial customer service functions.

Fears have been heightened in particular by false claims of far more waste in the program than has been documented by watchdog reports and audits over the years. Appearing to misread a chart, for example, Musk said on social media in February that DOGE had identified payments to "tens of millions" of deceased Americans — an incorrect assertion repeated by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

In Tuesday's address to Congress, Trump also said Musk was finding "hundreds of billions" of dollars in wasteful spending — a number that appears possible only if entitlement programs such as Social Security are included — and he ticked through examples of those older than 100 who had allegedly received payments.

Substantial budget cuts to Social Security, the single most expensive federal program, cannot mathematically be achieved solely by targeting these kinds of payments. June data suggests that the agency paid less than $150 million to those over 99 years old, which amounts to less than one-fifth of 1% of retiree benefits. Democrats have raised the prospect that the Trump administration intends to declare large amounts of legitimate Social Security spending as "fraud" as the basis to cut benefits.

Some budget experts say it's possible that Musk and Trump are just misinformed and not covertly planning a major cut to retiree benefits. Musk may be aiming to make technical changes to improve the Social Security system, which could save a few or maybe tens of billions of dollars. That outcome would protect retirees but also come far short of meaningfully reducing spending on the program.
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This story includes material from the Associated Press.

​Vaccine advisory meeting canceled! Trump administration’s move could complicate production of flu shots. ​ By ROBERT LANGRETH and GERRY SMITH • Bloomberg News

The Trump administration has canceled an upcoming meeting of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, a move that could complicate efforts to produce flu shots in time for the upcoming season.

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which evaluates immunization data for the FDA, had planned to meet in March to discuss the composition of next season’s flu vaccine. The meeting is a routine but critical step in ensuring manufacturers have suffi cient time to produce doses ahead of the next flu season.

The meeting was originally planned for March 13, but several committee members were notified late Wednesday afternoon that it had been canceled.

“That was the word” that was used, said Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital Philadelphia and a member of the advisory panel who received the email Wednesday at 4:18 p.m. No rea-son was provided, and there was no indication of whether it would be rescheduled, Offit and two other panel members said.

In a brief email Thursday, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed the cancellation, and said the FDA would “make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”

The timing of the meeting is critical because flu vaccine production is a lengthy process, with some doses still made using chicken eggs. Each year, FDA advisers meet to formally decide which flu strains to include, typically aligning with recommendations from the World Health Organization.

Once selected, manufacturers need about six months to produce large quantities of the vaccine. Any significant delay in this process could mean the vaccine isn’t ready in time for the next flu season.

The FDA can make recommendations to flu vaccine manufacturers without the advisory panel. However, eliminating advisory panels removes a key layer of public accountability and transparency in the FDA’s decisionmaking process.

“We have this meeting every year. It’s how pharmaceutical companies determine which strains to use,” Offi t said. “I don’t understand. We’re all just sort of left in the dark.” He added that it was unclear who had ordered the cancellation or why.

A representative for one major flu shot manufacturer who asked not to be identified said the company was in a wait-and-see mode. While some manufacturing can go on without the strain selection decision, the longer the delay goes on, the more uncertainty it creates around the manufacturing process, the person said.

The company will continue with manufacturing for markets other than the US based on the WHO’s recommendations, the person said.

FDA advisory panels don’t issue binding decisions, but they serve an essential role in publicly reviewing data and guiding major regulatory actions. The vaccine advisory panel played a key role during the pandemic, debating whether to authorize MRNA-based COVID vaccines from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.
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The cancellation of this meeting raises concerns that other federal health advisory panels may also be in jeopardy.

THE CFPB TOOK AIM AT BIG TECH. THEN MUSK MOVED TO DISMANTLE IT. By TONY ROMM The Washington Post ELON MUSK IN THE OVAL OFFICE ON TUESDAY. HIS ASPIRATIONS TO INTEGRATE DIGITAL PAYMENTS INTO HIS SOCIAL MEDIA SITE X WERE BEHIND HIS ATTACKS ON THE CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU, FORMER OFFICIAL SAY.

About a week before Elon Musk helped take over the nation's leading consumer financial watchdog, his social media site, X, unfurled the details of a new payment system that may have drawn federal scrutiny — underscoring the complicated web of personal interests at stake as the world's richest man advises President Donald Trump on a reconfiguration of the U.S. government.

The system is called X Money, and in the vision sketched out by executives, it would allow millions of users on X to instantly send money to friends, family members and others. Heralding it as a breakthrough in finance, the company said in late January it would launch this year with the support of Visa, one of the largest credit card networks globally.

Because of its direct ties to bank accounts and debit cards, X Money normally would fall under the remit of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency with vast powers to crack down on unfair, deceptive and predatory corporate practices. Formed in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, the CFPB in recent years has interpreted its mission expansively — policing traditional banks as well as Apple, Google and other tech giants that seek to offer payment services.

But that was before last week, when Musk's team of young agents — acting at Trump's behest — began targeting the CFPB as part of their disruptive campaign to slash spending and regulation across government. As they burrowed into the bureau's computers, Musk made clear his goal is to dismantle the agency, which soon ordered a full stoppage to all of its work to investigate companies and protect consumers.

By Tuesday, top CFPB enforcement offi cials departed the agency after clashing with the Trump administration over the freeze, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post. And Musk's aides, operating under the banner of the U.S. DOGE Service, appeared to gain authorization to access "all" CFPB computer systems, other emails indicated, raising questions about whether those close to the tech mogul might be able to see nonpublic information about his potential digital-payment competitors.

But the shutdown alone amounted to a long-sought victory for Musk and other CFPB critics in Silicon Valley, where executives have lobbied to neuter its oversight — and some companies, including X, have supported lawsuits to scuttle the agency's rules. And it left unclear the future of Washington's approach to digital finance, as a wave of formerly brick-and-mortar banking services migrate online with no clear federal regulator to oversee them.

"This is like a bank robber trying to fire the cops and turn off the alarms before he strolls in the lobby," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said at a rally outside CFPB headquarters Monday .

Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for X also did not respond to multiple requests.

Musk and his team had been laying the groundwork for years to launch a payment system: He reportedly raised the idea at one of his first meetings with staff after acquiring the social media company, then known as Twitter, in 2022. Once he renamed the site the following year, Musk promised that July that X would eventually expand to "add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world."

"Think Venmo at first," Christopher Stanley, who runs security engineering for X, said in a post this past April explaining the app soon would allow users to send cash and make payments. Stanley described the ultimate goal as a payment and lending network in which "you shouldn't ever need to take money out because you should be able to do anything you need on our platform."

Musk's interest in payments reflected a rapid shift underway throughout Silicon Valley, as the largest tech companies — already stewards of vast troves of consumer data — looked to monetize their insights further by serving as the primary conduits through which millions of people spend money. That trend had already raised alarms in Washington, where CFPB officials under President Joe Biden came to fear that federal laws had not kept pace with the digitization of banking.

In a study of major tech firms by the bureau's last director, Rohit Chopra, the agency found most adults had used digital payment apps — even though the money stored on these services is not insured against loss, unlike traditional banks. The bureau also collected tens of thousands of complaints from consumers, who said they struggled to address fraudulent charges and other issues on their accounts.

"Digital payments have gone from novelty to necessity, and our oversight must reflect this reality," Chopra said last fall.

By the end of the Biden administration, the CFPB had meted out a number of punishments against tech companies, products and services, including Apple, Cash App and Zelle, while launching probes into firms including Meta, the parent of Facebook. Many consumer advocates heralded the CFPB intervention, arguing that federal and state laws had created a messy patchwork with no clear consumer protection watchdog.

But Chopra's actions only earned more enemies in Silicon Valley, which had been quietly stoking congressional opposition to the bureau's oversight for months. Shortly after the 2024 election, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen publicly lashed out at the CFPB — attacking the agency on a podcast for "terrorizing financial institutions."
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"Either way, you would have the CFPB looking into the activities of X," said Adam Rust, the director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, which supports the bureau's oversight. "That may be something Musk doesn't like."

Protect U.S. consumers, preserve CFPB
JOHN RASH Columnist

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Economic and employment data told a statistical story of the Great Depression. But the human story was understood visually through visceral images like "Migrant Mother," Dorothea Lange's era-defining photograph of a destitute, desperate farmworker and her children huddled in a California camp after the failure of the pea crop.

The Great Recession didn't yield such similar images — mostly photos of abandoned Arizona, Florida or California condominiums, or "The Big Short," the sublime film about subprime mortgages plunging the country into a deep recession that nearly spun into a global depression — a specter that led then President George W. Bush to say that if Congress didn't cooperate on emergency legislation "this sucker could go down."

The Great Depression's social and economic shock led to temporary programs like the WPA and CCC as well as enduring entities like the FDIC and SEC, among other alphabet-soup Washington and Wall Street institutions.

The Great Recession spurred one significant equivalent: The CFPB, or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which "was created after excessive risktaking by financial companies, many of whom were not supervised by a federal regulator, crashed our economy," Adam Rust, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, said in a statement.

In a follow-up interview, Rust said that "first, they shouldn't shutter it because it's illegal," referring to its creation by Congress, not the White House.

He elaborated that the bureau is "dedicated to consumers, which is unlike any banking agency. When an older person is scammed, when a service member falls prey to a predatory loan, when you can't get resolution on your mortgage bill or your student-loan account, it's the CFPB that steps in."

In fact, the bureau says it's stepped in to claw back nearly $21 billion on behalf of wronged consumers. But the agency has long been fought by financial institutions. And now, by the Trump administration. Which, in action akin to the lightning (and likely illegal) dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has frozen the bureau's work by actions from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as well as the Office of Management and Budget, whose recently confirmed leader, Russell Vought, was one of the architects of "Project 2025," the controversial governing blueprint President Donald Trump disavowed on the campaign trail but seems to now be implementing from the White House.

The CFPB, according to the Washington Post, "has the authority to write rules for financial institutions, impose monetary penalties on those that violate them and provide compensation to consumers who have been wronged by malpractice. Consumers can also file complaints with it about financial products such as credit cards, virtual currencies, vehicle loans and mortgages."

But its nearly 1,700-plus employees were told by Vought to "cease all supervision and examination activity" and "stakeholder engagement."
The CFPB "has been a woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time," Vought posted on X, Musk's social network, using the Orwellian words deployed to destabilize government institutions.

"I don't know what on Earth that means," Rohit Chopra, the bureau's former director told PBS NewsHour. Listing a litany of actions against financial institutions on behalf of consumers, Chopra said that "these are things that people of every political stripe want to protect themselves against." Consumers, he added, often do not have much power against "some of the biggest corporations in America.

And that's what the CFPB does to level the playing field."
Vought added to his post that "This must end." But Musk unsubtly seems to have already buried the bureau, posting "CFPB RIP" on X, next to a tombstone emoji.

Indeed, it seems the dawn of a grave era for oversight overall just weeks into the Trump administration. Beyond the previous unconscionable pardons of people who assaulted law enforcement officers on Jan. 6 and the questionably legal firing of 17 inspectors general of federal agencies, the administration on Monday moved to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (convicted of attempting to in effect sell the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama), as well as issued an executive order to pause all actions taken under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Musk, whose extensive, often federally funded businesses (including $13 billion in government contracts over the past five years, according to an analysis in the New York Times), have made him the world's richest man, is facing investigations by at least 11 different federal agencies, according to the Times. The investigators include the CFPB, which has hundreds of complaints about Tesla, mostly about debt collection or loan problems.

The bureau would also likely monitor Musk's plan to launch a payment system on X.
According to the White House press secretary, if Musk "comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts."

Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democratic senator, is less sanguine. In a letter to Tesla's general counsel and board chair, Blumenthal wrote that Musk's "dual roles — running a for-profit corporation while serving in public office — not only creates glaring conflicts of interest that pose grave risks for America's most sacred institutions but may also violate federal law."

Most profoundly, Chopra told PBS, "Defunding this type of oversight is just begging for another financial crisis."
Another Great Recession is a risk the country can't take — especially since it could spiral into an economic calamity similar to that which was the subject of Lange's Great Depression lens.

Or the camera of her contemporary Walker Evans, whose searing shots of sharecroppers struggling through the Great Depression were compiled in "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," the seminal account of those who were the opposite of famous: anonymous, everyday, dignified Americans, the kind of people the CFPB — and, ideally, the administration — should protect. [email protected]