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On Feb. 21, Maine's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, publicly upbraided Donald Trump implicit his transgender policies.
Here's what happened aft that. Out of the blue, the Trump medication canceled a declaration that allowed parents successful the authorities to use for Social Security numbers for their newborns by simply checking a container connected a signifier astatine the hospital—the mode parents successful each 50 states person done for decades, arsenic the Social Security Administration has said.
The alteration meant that caller parents would person to bring their infants to 1 of lone 8 Social Security tract offices successful Maine, sometimes by traveling for hours, exposing the newborns to infectious diseases successful public.
It makes perfectly nary consciousness to maine astatine each to bash this.
Dr. Joe Anderson, American Academy of Pediatrics
That happened Thursday. The change, which came with nary explanation, created an contiguous uproar among Social Security advocates and healthcare providers successful Maine.
Dr. Joe Anderson, advocacy seat of the Maine section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that eliminating the programme “creates a batch of unnecessary and unfair burdens for families.”
“It makes perfectly nary consciousness to maine astatine each to bash this,” Anderson told the Portland Press Herald. “I spot nary logical mentation for forcing parents and newborns — with 11,000 babies calved successful Maine each twelvemonth — to beryllium successful a crowded waiting room, erstwhile we person done this easily, securely and efficiently for decades.”
As has happened truthful often with the Trump White House's thoughtless argumentation decisions, this 1 was reversed a time later.
Lee Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, issued a property release Friday, stating that the declaration allowing parents to use for their newborns' Social Security numbers done Maine's healthcare agency, on with different done which Maine authorities reported deaths of Maine residents to the Social Security Administration, had been reinstated.
"In retrospect, I recognize that ending these contracts created an undue load connected the radical of Maine, which was not the intent," Dudek said. "For that, I apologize and person directed that some contracts beryllium instantly reinstated."
If throwing a stink weaponry into Maine wasn't the "intent," what was? No 1 successful the medication has said. I asked the Social Security Administration for further explanation, but haven't received a reply.
To Social Security advocates, however, the intent was clear. The move, said Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, “defies communal consciousness and implies nefarious motives....Why connected world would the medication privation to marque it harder for parents to registry their children for Social Security unless the purpose was to shrink the size of the program?"
The advocacy enactment Social Security Works had the aforesaid impression. "Canceling those contracts created waste, abuse, and astatine slightest the imaginable for fraud," said Nancy Altman, its enforcement director. "There is nary argumentation crushed for canceling them, and galore argumentation reasons against it. The lone mentation is governmental revenge against Maine Gov. Janet Mills.”
Trump has said that he's "not touching" Social Security, but actions talk louder than words.
A fewer points astir the Enumeration astatine Birth policy, which allowed Maine parents, similar those of each different states, to registry their newborns done their authorities agencies, astir instantly upon giving birth.
The Social Security Administration website advises caller parents connected the simplicity of the process:
"When you implicit the exertion for your baby’s commencement certificate, you volition beryllium asked whether you privation to use for an SSN [Social Security Number] for your baby. If you accidental 'yes,' you volition beryllium asked to supply some parents’ SSNs. If you don’t cognize some parents’ SSNs, you inactive tin use for your child’s SSN."
The process has been successful effect since the 1980s, and has covered each 50 states since 1997. The Social Security Administration says that 99% of each babies calved successful the U.S. get their Social Security numbers this way. Since astir 3.5 cardinal babies are calved successful the U.S. each year, that's a batch of babies.
Having a Social Security fig soon aft commencement has go lone much important implicit the years. It's needed truthful parents tin assertion the kid taxation recognition if they're eligible, assertion the newborn arsenic a dependent, unfastened a slope relationship oregon bargain savings bonds for the child, and for infants to beryllium covered by nationalist healthcare programs, 529 assemblage savings plans, and different services.
Requiring parents to bring their infants to a tract bureau is, arsenic Dudek acknowledged, a load — and unsafe besides. That's particularly existent arsenic the DOGE budget-cutters rampaging done the Social Security Administration person stated their intent to chopped the agency's lawsuit work budget, successful portion by closing tract offices.
The alleged Department of Government Efficiency's website, wherever it lists contracts it has canceled and their value, listed enumeration contracts successful 5 states — Maryland, Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico and Rhode Island (but not Maine) — totaling astir $8 million. But those cancellations were purportedly aimed astatine stripping diversity, equality and inclusiveness elements retired of authorities policies, not astatine forcing parents to registry their newborns successful person.
I reported a fewer days ago connected the sheer ignorance of the attacks connected Social Security by Trump and Elon Musk, his DOGE czar. Musk has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," which is utterly untrue, and Trump has trumpeted claims that the strategy is rife with fraud — besides untrue.
This latest fiasco underscores however small they cognize astir Social Security, and however small they care. They're taking purpose astatine the astir fashionable nationalist programme successful America, and the champion anti-poverty programme successful its history.
Their meddling is definite to nutrient a monolithic governmental blowback. They mightiness adjacent person been capable to get distant with this latest stunt, but they look to person work the penning connected the wall. Still, the precise thought that they tried it was infuriating, embarrassing, and, possibly much importantly, precise scary.
This communicative primitively appeared successful Los Angeles Times.
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