'BradCast' 6/29/2026 (Encore: Trump Policies Imperil Social Security Trust Fund; Guest: Nancy Altman of Social Security Works)

This is Bradcast producer Desi Doyen. We're off this week. Today's Bradcast was originally recorded on June 11th, 2026. Donald Trump and the Republic, today's Republican Party, not the one I work for. Today's Republican Party are a clear and present danger to our social security. Yes. Yes, they are. So what did we do about it? on the stairs. Clouds to the letter me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you. Yes, I am from Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles. This is the broadcast as heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations. Over both the public airwaves and the internets around the country and the world, blanketing. Planet Earth, I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker, and all-around, swell fellow, says me from bradblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Glad to have you with us. Lots to get to. But let's change things up a little bit today. I've got a guest coming up shortly. You actually heard her at the top of the show there. She'll be here to discuss the news out of this week regarding a new report, warning that Social Security will have to begin shrinking benefits if action is not taken soon to save it. Where have I heard that before? Also, Desi Doyan will be here with our latest Green News report, also coming up this hour. Hello, Desiree. Yes, indeed. Hello. So to try and sort of make things seem not quite as bad over the rest of the show. Let's start with the very worst news I could find first so that everything else after, it kind of seems less bad thereafter. And frankly, I cannot think of anything worse than Ebola, especially an Ebola emergency that emerges during a Donald Trump presidency. As reported by the New York Times this week, in most Ebola outbreaks, fewer than 500 people have been infected. On Monday, when this was published, as I've been trying to get to it all week, there were already over 569 confirmed cases just 25 days since the latest outbreak was initially declared. The latest outbreak is so far still contained to parts of Africa, but is now far ahead of the worst outbreak ever. The one back in 2014 when eventually some 28,600 cases were identified. And we are already on pace to beat that outbreak. The response has been slow. The time explains in part because America abdicated its leadership role in global outbreak response.

Even with some containment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned this may become one of the worst Ebola outbreaks on record. See, gerrymandering Florida U.S. House Districts does not seem really all that bad now, does it? We'll get to that in a moment. In August 2014, writes Jeremy Conn-Dyke for the Times on Monday, I traveled to Liberia and witnessed firsthand how devastating and uncontrolled Ebola outbreak can be. Conn-Dyke, president of Refugees International, was formerly a U.S. aid official, the Agency for International Development. During the Obama and Biden administration, he was at the time in August of 2014, serving as the Director of Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID. And he was coordinating the U.S. government's response to that outbreak. At a hospital in Monrovia, the capital and largest city in Liberia, not the small city outside of L.A., which is also in today's news. We'll get to that later. But several prominent doctors at the time had already died from the virus by August of 2014. Cases across the city were rising so rapidly. that Ebola treatment units were overcapacity and turning away patients. The outbreak overwhelmed all efforts to contain it. That surge in cases, he writes, grew into an epidemic 67 times as large as any prior Ebola outbreak before it. A warning of what the virus is capable of if not contained. early. It came to an end because the international community led by the United States stepped up to help frontline health workers and leaders in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea in their fight against the virus. Wealthy countries sent doctors and nurses, military resources, mobile laboratories, masks, gloves, and other supplies and built trust with local leaders to stop transmission in their communities. When Ebola emerged in 2018, In the eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a region embroiled in conflict for decades, the international community stepped up again to support local responders, this time with the help. of the World Health Organization coordinating and ample U.S. government backing of the WHO. Even with more than 700 WHO officials deployed to reinforce the Congolese Ministry of Health, it took two years to contain it, and the outbreak claimed 2,300 lives.

The current situation in eastern Congo and Uganda writes, Kahnndyke combines some of the most dangerous aspects of the 2014 and 2018 outbreaks, the worst Ebola outbreaks in history. The virus this year was already spreading for several months before it was even detected back in May, and there are no approved vaccines or treatments for this particular form. As bad as the situation is, He writes, we have a playbook for addressing such crisis, but it requires a huge team effort, and this time, the United States has undermined its ability to help by shuddering USAID, by cutting staff at the CDC, and withdrawing from the WHO. Thousands of people, he warns, could pay the ultimate price for that recklessness. He goes on to explain that the two worst outbreaks in history in 14 and 18 were exacerbated by spreading into densely packed urban areas and or conflict zones and that the current outbreak amid conflict in eastern Congo where the government has lost control of parts of that area with more than 100 armed groups now active in the region and nearly three and a half million people displaced from their homes. Well, it will require the international. community he writes to pool hundreds of millions of dollars to set up specialized clinics by lab diagnostics carry out large large scale contact tracing manage safe burials send personal protective equipment to health workers and build trust with skeptical community members Amid these challenges, the resources and people to help keep the virus in check have been painfully slow to materialize Kondack rights. This is not surprising given that aid organizations were forced to dramatically cut back operations in eastern Congo last year. Why? Well, after USAID's departure. After Donald Trump and Elon Musk and his doge bros all but gutted USAID. In 2024, Joe Biden's last year in office after years of steadily increasing its support for Congo, USAID sent the country $545 million. This year, however, under Donald Trump, funding has plummeted to just $84 million. And by the way, the U.S. has withdrawn from the WHO. Global aid budgets have fallen and defense spending has increased. Leaving health facilities across the region without the supplies in place to combat the virus. The U.S., he argues, must shore up its responsive capacities and restore support to humanitarian organizations that it has abandoned. Ebola can still be contained, he writes, but only if the world finds the will to do it. So there's your canary in today's coal mine.

Store that potential horror story in your back pocket if things otherwise go grim on today's program. It almost makes the report on the return of the flesh-eating New World screw worm down in Texas, which... Desi covered in our Green News report earlier this week sort of seem quaint by comparison, doesn't it? Yes, I guess you could put it that way, sure. So you're welcome. You're welcome. It's not all that bad. And with that, frankly, how bad could Florida redistricting be? Well, pretty bad, but not like Ebola pandemic bad, right? The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed new gerrymandered U.S. House districts drawn by Republicans on their already gerrymandered state U.S. House map. to be used in this year's critical midterm elections, marking another victory for the GOP in a nationwide redistricting war, started by Donald Trump, a pathetic and desperate effort aimed at helping his party retain its slim House majority since Republican policies are on their own wildly unpopular among the American electorate. Rather than change policies, of course, just rig the maps. On Wednesday, The High Court in Florida, packed by Ron DeSantis' appointees, refused requests to issue a temporary injunction against the new districts, attorneys for voters who sued. argued that the new house districts violate a state constitutional provision adopted by more than 60% of voters just back in 2010. Prohibiting partisan gerrymandering and the court should order the state to continue using the same districts as in the previous election. They didn't. Republicans already hold 20 of Florida's 28 U.S. House seats. The new voting districts recently signed into law by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis after a very quick two-day special legislative session could improve the GOP's chance to win four additional seats this year. Opponents had cited the 2010 voter approved amendment prohibiting In very clear language, congressional districts intended to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbents. Florida, of course, was just the latest of several Republican-led states that have undertaken mid-decade redistricting as part of Trump's plan to try to hold on to a slim house majority this November by gerrymandering district boundaries to the GOP's supposed advantage. We will see.

They argued that the state Supreme Court, to the state Supreme Court, that the new districts are, quote, among the most extreme partisan gerrymanders enacted in any state over the past half century. Because, of course, they are. In fact, they explained under the new House map, 82% of voters in districts represented by Republicans, remain in the same districts as under the previous map. No change for them. But just 41% of voters in districts represented by Democrats are kept in their same districts, according to the plaintiff's attorney from the group common cause. And that, of course, is because the maps were drawn to try and write Democratic representation in Congress. For Floridians out of existence. Exactly what the constitutional amendment voters adopted in Florida was meant to prevent along with the Voting Rights Act. But Republicans do not care about the rule of law or constitutional limits. They care about holding on to power, period, at any cost. And I'm really hoping that Florida voters and voters in the rest of the country notice this as we head toward this year's elections. Because if they don't, I'm not sure how this nation will ever dig out from under this authoritarian one-party rule that Republicans are shamelessly working toward right now. But I do have confidence in voters. Let's see what they think, what they think of this crap that these corrupted people are trying to pull off this year. I still think it ain't going to work. We'll find out soon enough. If I'm right about that, we are now less than 150 days away from Election Day, 145, to be exact, not that anyone is counting. Republicans are now planning and hoping, by the way, to cut your Social Security next year if they can get away with it, if you let them get away with it by allowing them to hold on to Congress this November. For that, we turn to Nancy Sam Altman of Social Security Works. That is next on the broadcast. I'm Brad Friedman.

The Bradcast and the Green News Report are 100% independent, 100% listener supported. But we can't do it alone. We need you. Please help us bring real facts to listeners at independent stations around the nation. Please drop by Bradblog.com slash donate. That's Bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Hey, this is Brad. You're listening to an encore presentation of the Bradcast. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's the Bradcast, Brad Friedman from brandblog.com. Well, here we go again, and just in time for the critical November midterm election. So actually, in truth, I think it's actually a great time to have this conversation, frankly, as tiring as it may be, year after year after year, it seems. Social Security's retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall by 2032, a year... earlier now than last year's projections, according to an annual report released this week. Despite what you are likely hearing from Republicans, the looming challenge for the program AP notes is a partial funding gap, not... a collapse. Even after trust fund depletion, the system will continue issuing benefits, albeit at reduced amounts. At the current trajectory, according to the program's trustees, Social Security's combined trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. Unchanged from the 2025 report, but after that, incoming revenue would only cover about 83% of scheduled benefits. Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano said President Donald Trump's administration is, quote, committed to protecting and strengthening. Social Security, and, quote, eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and ensuring program integrity. Oh, is that the problem? What does that mean exactly? I'll ask our guest in a moment, but the new funding shortfall is mainly the result of lower projected birth rates, reduced immigration because, yes, immigrants pay into Social Security, whether they receive it back later in life or not, and reduced trust fund revenue due to the cost of, yep, Republicans massive tax and spending bill, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law last summer.

Something that I suspect Republicans won't spend much time talking about on the campaign trail, their own culpability in all of this as they talk about the need to save Social Security and Medicare. But do be sure to read the fine print. Here's Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson this week during an interview, lumping Social Security in with Medicaid and Medicare to suggest that we just can't afford all of these so-called entitlements anymore. And then we're going to lead up to what we have to do and address the largest spending items. The reason we're in trouble is because over 74% of federal spending is on autopilot, mandatory spending. That's your entitlement programs like... like Medicare, Medicaid, and then things like Social Security, they have to be adjusted and fixed. We have a plan to do that next year, and it's critical because we're at $40 trillion plus in debt. At some point, you get into a hold so deep you can't climb out of it. So desperate times call for desperate measures. You know, we're going to get it done. They have to be adjusted and fixed. They have a plan for that. Desperate times called for desperate measures. What are those plans? Well, in fact, what exactly does he mean by any of that? The trustees who include Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, Labor Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretary, and the Social Security Commissioner say that the latest findings show the urgency of needed changes to the program, which have faced dire financial projections for decades. But making changes to the programs has long been politically unpopular, at least the type of changes that Republicans generally propose, like cutting benefits or privatizing the program. entirely. AARP's CEO Machia Minter Jim Jordan said in a statement that the latest numbers, quote, should be a wake-up call. Congress needs to act. Americans have worked hard and paid into Social Security their entire lives, and they deserve to count on it when they retire, she said. No family should see any cuts to what they've earned in Social Security. Social Security benefits were last reformed roughly 40 years ago and the federal government raised the eligibility age at the time for the program from 65 to 67. Nancy Sam Altman, president of the nonprofit Social Security Works, issued a response to the new report arguing that Donald Trump's and Republican policies are, quote, hurting Social Security. Quote, this is the first Social Security's trustee's report that begins to take Donald Trump. Trump's second term policies into account, wrote Sam Altman, a tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants. All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system's finances.

So is the solution to cut benefits for recipients to save the program, as Mike Johnson seems to be suggesting, or is there a way to bring more money into Social Security, to keep it fully solvent? for generations to come. Joining us now is Nancy Sam Altman, co-founder and president of Social Security Works, chair of the strengthened Social Security Coalition, and a member of the Social Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan, independent federal government agency. Nancy Sam Altman, welcome back to the broadcast. Thank you so much for having me. Now, good to talk to you. You noted in your statement for Social Security Works that, quote, Congress has only two options to address the projected shortfall. Bring more money in to Social Security or cut benefits. Let's start for the moment with the latter. Cut benefits, since that seems to be. Frankly, where these conversations seem to go first, and I promise we'll get to the real solutions, at least as I see them shortly. But as I suggested at the top, it seems like we have the same debate, if that's the word for it, year after year, Social Security is going broke, Republicans will tell us it has to be fixed. And in the case of Mike Johnson, saying he has a plan to adjust and fix it, not because they want to make them more helpful or generous for Americans, but because they are making Social Security. Medicare, Medicaid are making the deficit worse. He doesn't say what the plan is, but I think we can guess at this point. Can you decode his cryptic remarks there to, quote, adjust and fix social security for us? Everybody should hold on to their wallets because. It is Washington insider speak for stealing our earned benefits. At the best, it's cutting benefits. At the worst, it's really dismantling the program. And in fact, these people have such, I mean, the wonderful part of Social Security is that as divided as our country is, we're not divided over Social Security. You talk to Maga Republicans. voters, not the ones who were elected, but the voters. And they agree with progressive Democrats that Social Security should not be cut. It's more important than ever. In fact, its benefits should be increased. And it should be restored to solvency by requiring Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump and the other billionaires to start paying their fair share, which they're not doing. What? That's a crazy idea. And we'll get to that crazy idea. Yeah, go ahead. But the point is that they have, the Republicans, Donald Trump particularly, but he's kind of convinced his cronies that they understand the politics. So they know if they talk about cutting benefits, they're going to be, you know, run out of town. So they use these cryptic words like fix and adjust. But they can't help. They have so much animosity.

But they can't help but say the quiet part outland. Ted Cruz and, you know, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said that these so-called Trump accounts that were enacted are really a disguised effort to privatize social security. There was, there were foot in the door to get people used to private accounts. So you get rid of social security. So. That, when they say fix and adjust, as they say, The best they mean is stealing your own benefits. The worst is causing the whole system to collapse. And I want to go into some of those details about, you know, the idea of what is wrong with privatizing Social Security. I'll get to that in a second. But Mike Johnson in his remarks, he sort of lumped in Social Security with Medicare and Medicaid as part of what he claims is increasing the national debt to an intolerable $42 trillion, he suggested there. But does Social Security Nancy? actually add anything to our national debt or deficit? It adds not a single penny. It by law cannot pay a single penny of can't pay full benefits unless it has sufficient revenue, not just to cover all the benefits, but all the associated administrative costs, all the field offices and all of that. Those come from the dedicated revenue. They don't come from general taxpayer dollars. So it does not add not only. And it has no borrowing authority. It has to have that, and it does have dedicated revenue. And since it was enacted, it has never missed a payment. And it won't in the future. It just means what this trustee's report means is that. Congress has to act in the about probably the next half decade, which means that six years, people running for the Senate this year will vote on our Social Security. So it is a voting issue this year. Why do you suppose folks like Mike Johnson say that? They sort of lump it in. We just can't afford it. It adds to our deficit, $40 trillion. Do they not know better? Certainly Mike Johnson knows better. Or am I giving him too much credit by saying they don't know better? I'm sure. I know it's a question of venality of stupidity. I mean, take your pick. You know, it's really. They should know better, and I'm assuming they know better, and it's certainly easy to find out the reality if they really wanted to know the truth. The reality is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are quite distinct programs, organized in very different ways, for very different purposes. And in fact, Medicare and even Medicaid, which is means tests, it's so expensive to administer, they are much more efficient.

and have much better coverage than private health insurance. The real answer is we should be covering everybody under Medicare and improving those benefits and paying for those out of progressive revenues, so no more premiums and so forth. And Social Security is great the way it is, but those benefits also should be expanded with more revenue coming in. And the good news is... that we are the wealthiest country in the world, and this is the wealthiest moment in history. It doesn't feel that way because all the wealth is going to, you know, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and all of those people. But the reality is there is plenty of wealth and the question of whether we expand or cut Social Security and Medicare or questions of values, not affordability. There's no question we can afford. Both are those things. Now, I want to just note, by the way, that if Mike Johnson really is concerned about the trillions in the national debt, that in fact, Mike Johnson engineered the Republican passage of Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill last year, which increases the national debt by anywhere from $4 to $5.5 trillion over the next 10 years. So if he's really concerned about that, perhaps he needs to look in the mirror. is fraud. They always talk about, you heard Bissignano, the administrator of Social Security, talk about waste fraud and abuse. Is fraud in the Social Security problem? Is that the thing that is resulting in the potential shortfalls for recipients? The only waste fraud and abuse that's coming, that's in Social Security is what's been brought in by the Trump administration. They have decimated the agency. They have given, if you can believe it, they have paid people to quit. And now they're scrambling around hiring them back. So they're, you know, they're getting, and they talk about waste. And I mean, these are hardworking civil servants. So I don't. But it was so outrageous to push out around 8,000 of the most experienced and knowledgeable people. And that's created an enormous amount of waste. The value of fraud and Social Security is vanishingly small. And you know how it generally is caught when there is. It's by these experienced workers on the front line. And they're the ones who've been pushed out. The same ones have been cut. Yeah. And the other way there's fraud is that people steal our data and scam. And in fact, What did the Trump administration do? It has stolen our data. It is unbelievable. This should be headlines in every paper, but there's so many.

You know, it's the flood the zone. It's like, where do you start with this administration? And it, so all of our most sensitive data is already, Trump administration had to admit in court that they actually did take the data and put it in an insecure server and, in fact, gave it to some right-wing voting. You know, the whole voting is fraud. That's another kind of fraud they claim. The voter fraudsters is what I call them in that case. You're talking about the folks that true the vote who they gave this information to. Yeah. Exactly. So the reality is that social security up until now has been extremely efficiently run, extremely, as they say, vanishingly small amounts of fraud less than, you know. It's like 0.0065% or something. It's very small. And it's because you have very dedicated civil servants who are at the end of their ropes. I mean, they are many have left. Many are looking for jobs. In polls, they say it's the worst agency to work at. And they are overworked and completely stressed out. And even some of them talking about suicide. It's really. Yikes. It's very upsetting what is going on. That's the real least of abuse that's going on. And yet we see these patterns, Nancy, you've been obviously covering this more closely than I have over the years. But it seems like every time the Republicans come into office. in recent decades. It is their own policies that make things worse for programs like Social Security, whether it's firing people who work there or cutting off revenue from immigrant workers, all the things you mentioned in your statement. It seems like they make the program not work, and then they say, oh, no, it's broken. We must, you know, kill it, cut it. kill it, whatever it is, to save it. Is that my imagination? Or have we seen that pattern over and over again, Nancy? That is exactly right. Those of us who are old enough to remember Vietnam, it's, you know, we had to destroy the village to save it. And it's that exact same concept. You know, it's interesting because Republican President Dwight Eisenhower was a supporter of Social Security and wrote a private letter. to his brother Edgar, which is now online and people can see. And he talked about how there's a tiny splinter group that wants to get rid of Social Security. And this is a literal quote from him. Their number is negligent, and they are stupid. He described them as the oil, you know, the oil millionaires and those kinds of people. And the problem is that those people, first of all, they've gotten much wealthier because of Republican policies of... cutting these programs and cutting taxes and not raising the minimum wage. So, you know, during the pandemic, billionaires just got wealthier. And so there's all of this. And they, with their wealth, they have bought power. And they control the Republican Party. And that is, so today's Republican Party is not the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower. Today's Republican Party wants to give us much money.

to Wall Street and their donors as they possibly can. Speaking of, and I got two more points I want to get through quickly here with you before we get to some solutions, as you mentioned, privatizing Social Security. Scott Bessent, Ted Cruz, have been out there sort of hammering that old idea that failed so dramatically when George W. Bush tried to push it on American people. What is wrong with the idea, Nancy, of privatizing Social Security, let people invest their savings in... Wall Street. Look at how much money investors have made over the past few months in the market. What's wrong with that? All of us need insurance. We need a certain, we need absolute secure income in the event that our wages are gone as a result of disability. dying, leaving dependents, retirement, where you obviously lose, you know, after a lifetime of work, you're eligible and should get a dignified and secure retirement. For that, you don't want to leave it to the whims of the stock market where all the risk is on you as an individual. You know, everything's great if the stock market's going up. But, you know, if you had to retire during the Great Recession or you became disabled during the Great Recession. you were and you had private accounts not social security you wouldn't have been able to live on that right the point is that it's It's absolutely everyone should save, and we should have higher, you know, minimum wage and higher earnings so people are able to save. Most people don't have savings, and what they should be saving for are if you have student debt, canceling the student debt, you know, paying that off, if you have starting a family or you want to buy a house. I mean, those are, or you want to take a nice vacation, those are all. You know, very important things and valuable things to save for. But what you don't want is to risk your retirement having to work until you die, having people, you become disabled and you wind up in the street. Or one parent dies and the children wind up in orphanages. And that literally happened prior to the enactment of Social Security. Children wound up in orphanages when they still had a living parent. In 1935, every state but New Mexico had poor houses. And who were in those poor houses, people who had worked independently of their whole lives, but they did not have adult children. Back then, people routinely moved in with their adult children because they couldn't support themselves. And if they didn't have adult children, who could or would take them in. off to the poor house that went. And they were called inmates. They were separated from married couples were separated. Social Security transformed the nation. Private accounts would send us back to those old days.

One more before we get to the increasing benefits. What's wrong with the idea of means testing? We hear that a lot from Republicans as well, the idea that if, you know, people have enough money, they don't need Social Security. I suspect Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump will not need Social Security. And so if it doesn't go to people like that, wouldn't that save money for the entire program? It sounds sensible. What's wrong with that idea as you see it? There are a number of things that are horrible. idea. First of all, just to be clear, if you really, say you set the means test at a million dollars, it wouldn't change a penny. It wouldn't change a single number in the trustees report. You have to go down to like $50,000 or $40,000 to make a difference in those trust fund projections. But there's a much more fundamental problem with that with means testing. And that is completely. turns the program upside down. Today, the program is an earned benefit. It's insurance. Now, welfare is something that's very important, but our country's always been hostile to welfare. And what this... What means testing would do is turn Social Security from insurance into welfare. So when you go in to collect your benefits, what do you have to show? You give them your Social Security number. They have your birth, you know, your date of birth, and they have your earnings record, and they figure out what your benefits are. Imagine if there were a means test. You'd walk in and they'd say, okay, show us your... income tax do you have any um do you own any property do you have any you know what do you own a house do you have a summer home do you have this do you have that it would be so intrusive and And again, it would mean that we're already facing a retirement income crisis. And if Social Security were only available for the very poor, which is what the goal of this is, we would have the middle class falling into poverty. I mean, the wonderful thing about... Welfare is designed to assist people who are already in poverty. Insurance is designed to prevent people from falling into poverty in the first place. Without Social Security, it means testing would convert Social Security and it would be gone within a decade. We would convert it so that middle class people would all fall into poverty, which is why they would wind up moving in with their adult children. And we have seen what, you know, lawmakers have done two programs like welfare and making it harder and harder and harder each successive year to take part in those programs. So, yeah, so Social Security. Yeah, very simple. And if I interrupt just one thing that, you know, the Grover Norquist, who was someone who pushed for tax, got some tax pledge and no raising taxes.

He described the goal of conservatives as shrinking government to the size where you can drag it into the bathtub and drown it. And that's their goal for Social Security. They won't say it. But when they say that's what they have done to all the welfare programs. What they want to do is convert Social Security into one of those programs they can drag into the bathtub and drown. Yep. And they're doing a pretty good job of it as long as you don't count their increases to defense spending, immigration enforcement, and all the money that goes into Donald Trump's pockets. Yes. Yeah, you explain that it's a simple program. You pay in, you get out. It works for everyone along those lines. But it is not entirely equitable in that I think I pay a lot more money out of the total money that I bring in per year towards Social Security than say Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump does. You reference this at the top. If there is a problem with a shortfall in the social Security Fund, the easiest thing. And correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the one that they don't put out there right at the top, just increase the cap on how much you make. Isn't it, was it, $250,000 now after that? 185,000. 185,000. So. You pay everybody up to 185,000 pays the same amount into Social Security. But after that, if you make more, even billions or in must case, trillions more, you don't pay any more in Social Security, correct? That is correct. That is correct. And in fact, as important as it is to require everyone to pay the same rate in, we should go further. We have... Income inequality over, you know, back in 1983, when the last Social Security amendments of 1983 were enacted, Social Security was projected to be able to pay full benefits. on time for the next 75 years and beyond, which would have taken us to 2057. Well, why are we now talking about 2032, the early 2030s rather than the 2050s? It's because what the actuaries did not predict and they could not have. All of the income and wealth inequality was started with the Reagan revolution on all the tax cuts and so forth and all of that. And that, if you can believe it, Just that alone, the income inequality has cost Social Security $1.4 trillion over the last since 1983. Essentially because more and more money are going to fewer and fewer people, and those are people with a lot more money, and they don't pay into the system anything above $185,000. Exactly. And a fee, we remove the cap, which makes perfect policy sense and is very popular.

All that does is make it proportionate. So, you know, and in fact, Jeff Bezos only claims the salary of $80,000. So he wouldn't pay a penny more. You know, you'd have, you'd have. you know, upper middle class lawyers in New York and that sort of thing. And they should contribute more. And that absolutely. But that simply makes a proportionate. We should go much further. We should require the very wealthy to pay on all of their income because they have all of these ways to avoid. the income that's subject to the FICA contributions. I pay all of my income. Why don't they have to pay theirs, all of theirs? And minimum wage workers pay on all their income. So why doesn't Jeff Bezos have to pay on all of his? And if we do that, that not only restores Social Security to balance for the next 75 years and beyond, we can increase benefits substantially, which we should do because we are facing a retirement income crisis with... So-called the traditional pensions have essentially disappeared and 401Ks have proven completely inadequate for anyone but the very wealthy. Why is it, and I've only got a minute or two here left, Nancy Sam Altman, but why is it that we hear so much more from Republicans about cutting? these earned benefits than we hear from Democrats about how to make sure that the entire program not just remains solvent, but as you said, increases benefits. Why do we hear about the cutting, not about the improving? Well, I'm so glad you asked that question because there are a number of Democratic proposals that have been introduced in Congress that do expand benefits and do require the very wealthy to contribute more. And in fact, the Republicans use all these euphemisms like fix and adjust. I mean, we can understand what they're saying. But they, you know, again, the thing that makes Social Security really, it should be easy is that. members of Congress, if they simply did what their constituents wanted, there's overwhelming support for expanding benefits and requiring the wealthy to contribute on all of their income. But the donors, the Wall Street, they want some of that money. They want benefits cut. And too many Republicans are listening to their donors, not their voters. As I said at the top, it's actually a great time to have this conversation as tiring as it may be. But it is while, in fact, you know, Republicans and Democrats alike are out there trying to make their case to win.

primaries and then this November's midterm elections last thought here. What would you like to see candidates asked on the on the trail, either by media or by voters, for example, at town halls and campaign events? What would you like to see folks ask of those candidates, Nancy? Will you promise to never cut a penny from Social Security? That's what I'd like to hear. I'd like to hear the answer to that question and get them on the record so that when they do start to talk about cutting benefits, their voters can at least say, hey, you lied to us. Yep. If they hear about it, if they know, if the media informs them, if the Republicans don't come up with some, you know, way to say, oh, we didn't cut it. We just decreased it, spread it around. We, I don't know what the hell. Or worse, or worse, what we should all be worried about is a backdoor process where there's an up or down vote without amendments. And then they can say, well, you know, I didn't like that part, but I didn't have a choice. I couldn't amend it. So avoid political accountability. What we need to do, don't let anybody running for office get away with platitudes of I love social security. I'm going to save social security specifically. Will you go, will this be a transparent process that we can look at, look at the legislation, you can offer amendments to, and will you promise to do what the American people want, which is. Expand benefits or require the wealthy to pay with zero cuts. There's an idea. Nancy Sam Altman is the co-founder and president of Social Security Works. You can find their work at social security works.org. They are also on the blue skies. You should follow them there. Nancy is also the co-author with her co-founder, Eric Kingston, of Social Security Works for everyone protecting and expanding the insurance Americans love and on Nancy. Always a delight speaking with you, and I very much look forward to the next time. Thanks, Nancy. Thank you so much. And by the way, that next time might be later this year because Nancy has a new book coming out, I think, in September called The Road to Medicare for All. A Call to Action. Nice. I hope that she, I hope that we get to have her on again to talk about that. I hope we get to answer that call. Yeah, something positive to look forward to. Speaking of something positive to look forward to, Let's take a quick break, and we will get to the latest green news report. It couldn't be worse than Ebola, right? That's straight ahead on the broadcast. I'm Brad Friedman.

Hey, this is Brad. Please consider supporting whichever progressive media outlet is serving you. Most, just like us, do not receive corporate or political support. We all need your support to counter the powerful corporate media echo chamber. From Desi Doyen and myself, thank you. You're listening to an encore presentation of the broadcast. We'll find out if, in fact, it is not worse than Ebola in our latest. Green News Report. The heat will not only affect those players, but all athletes who compete outdoors this summer. Scientists warn grueling heat could impact a quarter of this year's World Cup games. The planet's oceans are under mounting stress and increasing pressure. The time to act is now. The world's oceans are under severe stress from humans, UN report warns. Plus, solar power has overtaken coal in the U.S. electricity mix. All of those stories and more straight ahead from brand blog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Tessie Doyen. Stand by for six minutes of independent green news, politics, analysis, and snarky comment. Over the next six weeks, America's sexiest singles will land in Fiji looking for love while competing for a share of $100,000. I mean, wow, you could get half a tank of gas for that. Wow. Sign me up for Love Island. This is your Green News Report. I'm going to soak up.

Okay, Desi Doyen, it looks like I'm going to Fiji for the next six weeks, so what do you got for us today before I leave? Well, first, the FIFA World Cup kicks off this week in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. In a new analysis, climate experts at World Weather Attribution warn that roughly a quarter of World Cup matches are likely to be played in very hot and humid conditions that exceed recommended safety limits affecting us. athletes, fans, workers, and officials. In an open letter last month, a different group of international experts in health, climate, and sports performance called on FIFA to implement stronger heat protections, including longer cooling breaks for players and clear protocols for postponing or delaying matches in extreme conditions. In science, the United Nations released its third World Ocean Assessment report on Monday. in conjunction with World Oceans Day. I bet it went well, huh? It didn't. The report warns that the world's oceans are in crisis under, quote, severe and accelerating pressure from human activities, including man-made climate change, pollution, overfishing, and habitat degradation. We ruin everything. Plastic pollution remains a major threat. The rate of sea level rise has doubled since 2015. Ocean heat is rising. The ocean absorbs about 90% of the excess heat and 30% of the carbon dioxide released by humanities burning of fossil fuels. Warming of the oceans is accelerating ocean acidification and deoxygenation, devastating species and coral reefs and undermining vital ecosystems that support fisheries and the... ocean food supply. The report calls for global collaboration to preserve marine ecosystems. Good Lord. I'm deoxygenated just hearing about that report. A different analysis from the World Meteorological Organization warns that an unusually powerful El Nino is now virtually certain to arrive in coming months. It will boost global temperatures worldwide and fuel more intense, extreme storms, floods, droughts, and heat waves. a video statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez warned officials they need to get ready. The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is. Elinio conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis. Fakeest accent I've ever heard. Here in the U.S., ProPublica reports that Trump administration officials earlier this year killed off a... federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Republican Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia, whose companies have racked up tens of thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act. The coal empire of Jim Justice. Yep. Granted immunity by Donald Trump. Yep. In other news, a backlash against energy and water-guzzling data centers has spread across the nation in recent months, sparked by rising energy bills and increased pollution. Voters in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia just approved the nation's first ever permanent ban on the construction of data centers within city limits. Good. The New York Times reports there are now more than 100 proposed data center moratoriums at the local, county, state, and national level.

Also nice. And finally, despite the Trump administration's push to boost costly polluting coal and block cheap renewable energy, solar power in the United States has hit a new milestone. In May, for the first time ever, solar energy supplied more of the nation's electricity than coal. That's according to a new analysis by energy think tank ember. Solar also became the third largest source of electricity in the U.S. in May, gaining... ground on natural gas and nuclear energy. Globally, renewable energy expanded faster than electricity demand around the world, and the share of natural gas and the global electricity mix has fallen for the fifth straight year in a row. Let the sun shine in. For much more on all of those stories and the ones we couldn't get to today, check out our website at greennews.bradblog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. And this has been your Green News Report.

See, that wasn't so bad, was it? Better than Ebola. We just have to lower expectations at the top of the show, and then everything else is easy from there on end. Ah, that's the trick. That's the trick. Thank you very much, Desi Doin. Thanks to our guest today, Nancy Sam Altman of Social SecurityWorks.org, and thanks to you for spending... A portion of your day or night with us. It's always tremendously appreciated. Thank you very much. If you missed any portion of today's show, want to share it with someone you know, love or hate. You can do so for free at bradblog.com. The newly redesigned brandblog.com. Check it out. I think you like it while you're there. Please consider. Hitting a donate button to help us stay on your public airwaves. We are 100% listener supported. That means you. Bradblog.com slash donate. Drop me email. I am Bradcast at Bradblog.com. If you like, I'm also on the social medias at The Bradblog. And you can also find Desi there at Green News Report. Stop by and say hello. Yes, please. Until we'll see it all of the above. Until we see you next time, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world.