Notorious Trump admin plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board

Notorious Trump admin plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board

Trump’s latest attack on seniors, the chronically ill, and some of the country’s most vulnerable residents.

By Lynda Carson - April 26, 2025

According to the website for the Social Security Advisory Board, in part it states, “The Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994 (Public Law No. 103-296) established a bipartisan Social Security Advisory Board composed of up to seven Board members appointed by Congress and the White House. Supported by a small professional staff, the Board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.”

Reportedly, employee cuts at Social Security are leaving remaining workers struggling to keep up,
according to NPR.

The convicted felon President Trump’s White House rogues gallery is waging a war on Americans.


The Social Security Administration has been sabotaged, and reportedly Martin O’Malley former commissioner of the SSA believes, ““I truly believe there’s going to be some interruption of benefits for some period of time, and I believe that will probably happen in the very near future,” the Long Island Press quoted O’Malley as telling a town hall meeting this week hosted by two Democratic representatives from New York, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi.

“I’ve never hoped I was wrong so much.”

It was not the first time O’Malley – a former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor who headed the SSA from 2023 until last year https://www.ssa.gov/finance/2024/Full%20FY%202024%20AFR.pdf – had warned that the system faced catastrophic failure.

“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” he told CNBC in March. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Trump’s latest attack on seniors, the chronically ill, and some of the country’s most vulnerable residents.

Reportedly, “The Trump administration is poised to eliminate dozens of federal programs, including protective services for vulnerable seniors, chronic disease self-management education, resource centers for people who have been paralyzed or lost a limb and one that tries to help older people prevent falls. Even a more modest federal initiative aimed at making polling places more accessible would be eliminated under the proposal.

All of these programs facing the knife fall under the Administration for Community Living, a component of the Department of Health and Human Services that aims to help older adults and people with disabilities remain in their homes and communities. The whole department is being zeroed out, according to the budget proposal.

Those services are often invisible in the national debate, but they are critical to maintaining independence and quality of life for some of the country’s most vulnerable residents, said ALISON BARKOFF, former acting administrator of ACL, which funds more than 2,500 programs nationwide.”

Notorious Trump admin plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board:

The Social Security Advisory Board https://news.google.com/search?q=Social%20Security%20Advisory%20Board&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen :

The board members include Bob Joondeph, Chair, a Democrat of Portland, Oregon https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202410249719375028 . Appointed by the Senate on October 1, 2018 (first term). Reappointed September 25, 2024 (second term). Bob Joondeph, JD currently serves as Chair of the Social Security Advisory Board and has served as the Executive Director of Disability Rights Oregon for over 30 years, promoting and defending the legal and civil rights of Oregonians with disabilities through legal-based advocacy. Joondeph has represented individuals with disabilities in state and federal courts, agencies and legislatures. Joondeph has served on the Oregon Health Evidence Review Commission, Health Services Commission, Health Fund Board, Mental Health Planning and Management Advisory Council, State Rehabilitation Commission, Governor’s Task Force on Brain Injury, and the Council on Developmental Disabilities. Joondeph is the recipient of the Oregon State Bar Public Service Award, Oregon Disabilities Commission Advocate of the Year Award, Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon Advocacy Award, and the Oregon Civil Rights Leadership Award. Joondeph is a graduate of Case Western Reserve Law School and Brown University.

Jagadeesh Gokhale, is a staunch right-wing Republican extremist who supports the privatization of Social Security in a 1997 release (paper) by David Altig and Jagadeesh Gokhale called, “Social Security Privatization: A Simple Proposal.” Appointed by the Senate on November 19, 2009 (first term). Reappointed October 5, 2015 (second term). Reappointed September 28, 2021 (third term). Dr. Jagadeesh Gokhale is the Director of Special Projects at the Penn Wharton (“Wharton”) Budget Model. Prior to joining Wharton, Dr. Gokhale was a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. An economist by training, Gokhale’s main research fields are macro and public economics with a special focus on the effects of fiscal policy on future generations. Dr. Gokhale has written extensively on policy issues including Social Security and Medicare reform, national saving, private insurance, financial planning, wealth inequality, generational accounting, and public intergenerational transfers; he has testified before Congress several times on these topics. In 2010 Gokhale published Social Security: A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives, which constructs a different method for determining solvency of the Social Security trust funds. Dr. Gokhale is published in numerous professional journals, as well as newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and Forbes.

Amy Shuart, (a.k.a. Amy Shuart Gingrich ) https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/169545/Amy_N_Shuart.html is a staunch Republican https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/find/person/pu00nuu22l46922r984r , and lobbyist https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyists?cycle=2023&id=D000097020 for Onifido Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfido - https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving-door/shuart-gingrich-amy/summary?id=83841 . Appointed by the House on October 7, 2022. Amy Shuart has over 15 years of experience in Social Security, identity, and technology policy.  Shuart is currently the Vice President, Technology & Innovation at Business Roundtable.  She previously was the Head of North America Government Affairs for Onfido, a global digital identity company, where she launched their Washington office.  For over a decade, Shuart worked for the Committee on Ways and Means, most recently as the Social Security Subcommittee Staff Director. Shuart started her career as a Presidential Management Fellow at the Social Security Administration in the Office of Retirement Policy and has also worked at the Office of Management and Budget in the Medicare Branch and the White House National Economic Council. Shuart holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelors of Arts in Public and Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech, and a Master of Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Nancy Altman, a Democrat with Social Security Works https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461373125 , https://socialsecurityworks.org/about/staff/ . Appointed by the House on September 26, 2017 (first term). Reappointed March 1, 2018 (second term). Reappointed June 21, 2024 (third term). Nancy Altman, JD, has a 50-year background in Social Security and private pensions. She is the current President of Social Security Works and Chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. Altman was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and taught courses on private pensions and Social Security at the Harvard Law School. In 1982, Altman was Alan Greenspan’s assistant in his position as Chair of the bipartisan commission that largely developed the 1983 Social Security amendments. She is the author of The Truth About Social Security, The Battle for Social Security and co-author of Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All. Altman has an AB from Harvard University and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

In brief, we need the Social Security Advisory Board and its members to save and strengthen the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Social Security Program for over 70 million social security recipients, as a means to protect it from privatization, and the nefarious Trump administration, the Neo-Nazi Elon Musk and his DOGE goons, and the notorious SSA Acting Commissioner Leland C. Dudek before they totally sabotage the SSA.

Trump administration plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board.

http://web.archive.org/web/20250417032123/https://www.ssab.gov/

Unfortunately, in another move to destabilize and destroy the Social Security Administration, reportedly the ‘Trump administration plans to defund the Social Security Advisory Board’, in an effort to cut the board's approximately $3 million annual budget to zero.

That’s right. The convicted felon President Donald J. Trump and his administration plan to defund the Social Security Advisory Board, according to reports.

Reportedly, Bob Joondeph, the advisory board's chair, told Reuters he had not yet been formally notified about the decision to eliminate the board's funding.

"Its strength is its bipartisanship. It's one of the few places you can go in government and get something that a bunch of people from different parties can reach consensus on," said Joondeph, one of two Democrats on the four-person board.

He added, "The fact that it would be eliminated, to me is symbolic of sort of the larger trends in Washington."

Additionally, reportedly “Congress created the Social Security Advisory Board in the 1990s as an independent federal agency tasked with providing objective analysis on ways to strengthen Social Security, the popular program that delivers $1.4 trillion in annual benefits to 73 million Americans.

Though the board does not have decision-making authority, its research has significantly influenced how the Social Security Administration (SSA) operates and has helped guide key legislative efforts. It played a notable role during the 2005 debate over President George W. Bush's failed proposal to partially privatize Social Security, and its work was instrumental in crafting a 2018 law that eased compliance requirements for certain benefit representatives while tightening oversight for others.

Although technically an independent agency, the Social Security Advisory Board's funding is included each year as a line item within the SSA's budget. Two sources told Reuters that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) this month submitted its proposed budget for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1, which sets funding for the board at zero.”

Meanwhile, there have been Hands Off! social security protests all across the nation https://news.google.com/search?q=Hands%20Off!%20social%20security%20protests&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen . And social security recipients have been very concerned about reports claiming that the https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/04/21/18875741.php “SSA is to block benefit payments if social security recipients do not switch to Login.gov.”


Project 2025 Attack On Social Security:

Reportedly in 2024, according to American Progress, in part it states, “In March, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) released its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, which includes significant cuts to Social Security. The committee’s membership comprises roughly 80 percent of all Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the entirety of House Republican leadership, indicating that the policies outlined in their budget proposal are major priorities for the House Republican caucus.

One policy that has continually been included in RSC budget proposals for years is an increase to Social Security’s full retirement age (FRA), the age at which seniors become eligible to access Social Security retirement benefits without a financial penalty for retiring early. The FRA is 67 under current law, but the RSC plan would push it back to 69, leading to drastic benefit cuts for a large majority of Americans. While raising the FRA is overwhelmingly unpopular among the American people, it has enjoyed the support of some of the most extreme far-right groups in Washington, D.C., including the Heritage Foundation, which is spearheading the authoritarian playbook known as Project 2025.”

Economic Policy Institute:

According to the Economic Policy Institute in 2000, in part it states, “In his proposal for Social Security, presidential candidate George Bush would allow a portion of each worker’s payroll taxes to be placed in a personal account and invested in stocks and bonds. Creating voluntary personal accounts within Social Security would change the fundamental character of the program and potentially carve a path toward its eventual demise. Social Security would no longer be a social insurance program providing a guarantee of inflation-proof, lifelong retirement income. Instead, workers’ core retirement income would be put at risk in an investment program where benefits are determined by the luck and wisdom of their investment choices and the ups and downs of financial markets.

Increased risk — In a privatized system, workers’ retirement income would depend upon many factors: the performance of the stock market, luck, investment savvy, the timing of retirement (i.e., whether the stock market was up or down), and other factors outside a worker’s control. Social Security’s income guarantee would be lost, and it would no longer serve as a source of ensured income for the elderly, especially lower-income workers, women, and minorities.

Winners and losers — Currently, no one gets rich on their Social Security benefits, but most everyone gets by. In 1998, the average benefit a retired worker received was about $725 per month. Under the Bush proposal, some people would do very well but others would fare poorly. People with more experience with investments, those who are willing to devote significant time and effort to monitor the performance of their portfolio, and those able to hire financial advisors will probably make better investment decisions than others. People with less time, talent, money or inclination to manage their personal accounts will likely fare worse. And even in this stock market that is, on average, rising, some investors are still losing money.

Administrative costs — Creating a large number of small accounts is the costliest way of handling the nation’s retirement savings. Fund managers charge administrative fees for handling an account and managing the investments. Annual administrative fees on mutual fund accounts average 1.5% of the value of the account. Over the 40 years of someone’s working life, a 1.5% annual fee reduces the total value of his or her account by 30%. By contrast, Social Security’s administrative overhead is less than 1%.”

Lynda Carson may be reached at Newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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