Nazism against Social Security continues

Social Security's benefits for disabled workers - SSI and SSDI - are always the target for cuts by right-wing politicians. Always. It's been that way for years. I have Google set up so news articles are automatically e-mailed to me every time certain topics are mentioned. One of them is SSDI. In all the time SSDI has been on this list, I don't think there's been any good news at all about it.

Like retirement benefits, Medicaid, and Medicare, SSI and SSDI are earned benefits - which is different from welfare. Even if it was welfare, it would be a moot point for this story. SSDI, however, requires a longer work history. It got even longer when Republicans - out of malice - instituted a rule allowing work credits to expire. Plus, Republicans - again out of malice - have made it harder and harder to qualify for these programs.

Now the Trump regime wants to make it even worse. Fascist members of Congress have introduced bills year after year to cut disability benefits by removing certain criteria and requiring cases to be reviewed more frequently. Because Congress has failed to pass these bills, the Trump thugocracy has now taken it upon itself to try to enact changes like this without even passing a law that allows it.

The proposal would establish a new category for disability beneficiaries called "medical improvement likely." For some of these conditions, however, improvement is not likely. If a person's case is moved to this category, their case will be reviewed much more often. One of the main goals is to make it harder for claimants to complete the huge volume of paperwork, so their benefits are revoked altogether.

Another change would remove factors like age from determining whether a person qualifies. It's as if the government thinks a person is less likely to be disabled as they get older.

These changes wouldn't save money, because more would be spent doing the reviews. It's about meanness. Simply put, those who proposed these changes are bad people. They enjoy harming others. They don't want a system that works effectively or lets people receive the benefits they've paid for. Besides, if they're such budget hawks, why do they squander so much taxpayer money on illegal wars and handouts to big corporations and the 1%?

These changes to disability benefits would in fact be illegal. But Trump does a lot of things that are illegal. With so few resources to fight these new rules, don't count on much being done about it.