Commentary: At Leisure World, they’re up in arms, crying ‘hands off’ their Social Security

Memorandum to President Trump and Elon Musk:

If you keep messing with social security, the Seal Beach leisure world will bring you.

Members of the two groups, Peaceful Seniors and Democracy Club, gathered outside a club on Tuesday on a 500-acre property, planning a weekend demonstration and distributing flyers for warnings:

“Start it social SecurityMedicare and Medicaid! ”

When I asked if their monthly budgets were heavily dependent on social security checks, most of these 15 revelers ranged from the age of 60 to the 80s. What they were ticked is that Musk is a multimillionaire who calls Social Security Ponzi scheme and planned to cancel thousands of jobs in the agency.

But there is a real threat to the preservation of a sacred, 90-year-old American commitment Most support A cross-party rights plan?

“Yes, it’s definitely true,” Dan Larkin said. “Now we don’t have a branch of the government, that’s the administration. [Trump is] Be able to do things that you are impunitive. …It’s so scary. ”

“It’s our money,” Shel Magnuson said, noting that the staff is social Security Deductions through wage deductions during work.

“I’ve been paying since I was a kid,” Larkin added.

Ray Olsowka, who plans to show Saturday under the main gate of Seal Beach Boulevard, said he has an idea for a protest sign against Musk.

“Please fly to Mars.”

As you might imagine, not everyone in the 9,000+ residents in a community aged 55 and older is queuing with Trump and Musk, even though one resident is cruising through a golf cart that has a large laminated sign on the ground listing “fascist warning signs.”

Democratic Club president William Bruce said about one-third of Republicans are Democrats and one-third have no partisan affiliation.

“There are a lot of magazines here,” Pamela Mills-Sen said, aligning with the anti-Trump Legion and believing the president is drawing inspiration from Putin’s script, trying to marginalize people “economic and emotionally” and to weaken their energy and resources to fight back.

But Don Horning, president of the Leisure World Republican Club, has a completely different view. He likes what he sees from Trump and Musk and says his views are informed by his own administration services.

Honning said he and his wife, Hope, are U.S. Navy veterans who work in veteran management healthcare. They argue that bureaucratic inflated and misunderstood tax claims are legitimate in government at all levels, he noted that in California, Undocumented immigration Eligible for Medi-Cal.

Horning talked to me at the clubhouse and spoke over the phone the day before, saying it would be “very sad” if retirees see a drop in earnings. But he said that when he saw mathematics, there was not enough laborers to support the growing population of beneficiaries and that something had to be done without the guaranteed compensation profitability certificate.

“Whatever happens, there is always a problem in funding social security,” Hunning said. “The direct effort can’t do anything but help because it’s fighting all the waste.”

Is there any waste in government spending and there is still room for efficiency improvement?

There is no doubt, but Social security has been relatively effective Musk’s claims of widespread fraud have not yet been supported by having millions of people avoided poverty for nearly a century.

In the federally-wide program Trump targets, we are not witnessing the precise strike to improve services and the common good. Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, is like kids playing with explosives. Enemies include public schools, advanced training, scientific research, health care, courts, and anyone with disagreement.

Jeffrey Mulqueen, a leisure world peace senior, said he saw the need to reduce administrative expenses and cut budgets when he was school principal in Massachusetts. But he said his actions were to improve services and outcomes rather than to engage in promiscuity.

“What we’re seeing now is that they’re just getting the axe to the federal budget,” Mukun said. “If the mission of Social Security is to … protect and support the most vulnerable members of our community, such as the elderly, the disabled and the children… they can do that in a meaningful way.”

But Bruce said, but there was an ulterior motive.

“I think the Trump administration really wants to reduce things so they can fund the tax breaks they implement in their first term,” the DEM club chairman said.

Trump said he did not intend to reduce social security benefits, but the cynical people in the leisure world did not believe him. They cite thousands of times the firing of a critic who has called an understaffed agency, and they also cite Chaotic news reports A website crash makes it difficult for beneficiaries to access their online accounts.

“Trump, Musk and the Republican Party are … trying to make it fail from the inside out,” Mills-Senn said.

Larkin patted his phone, tried to get into the Social Security website, and showed me the reply:

“Online service is not available. We are sorry, but the online service you requested is not available at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

This is in Trump’s tariffs, where people with fixed budgets may happen due to higher prices for consumer goods and may see their nest eggs threatened by stock market volatility.

Lily McCoy is worried about her social security benefits and her son’s disability checkup, but she is worried far more than she is. She was the one who made tools around the casual world around the American flag golf cart and showed off placards that listed “Fascist warning signs.”

These signs include “identification of the enemy as a cause for unity,” “controlled mass media,” “protected by corporate power,” “suppressed by labor,” “swept against intellectuals and art,” “obsession with crime and punishment,” and “rampant cronyism and corruption.”

Yes, it sounds like everyone is very familiar with it.

McCoy intends to attend Saturday’s protests, saying she’s got cheers and barbs from her fellow countrymen, and she has two suggestions for her neighbors, which gives her a tough time:

“Keep going.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com