💧 All Is Politics

[It sure was nice having some things be apolitical.]
Last Friday, the Social Security Administration decided to celebrate Independence Day by spamming American citizens. Their nauseating email opened with this:

This is simply not something a non-partisan government agency should send. It’s also something between misleading and an outright lie. The law will provide a four year tax deduction leading to 88% of Social Security recipients not needing to pay taxes on their benefits. Of course, under the previous law, 64% of recipients were already not paying taxes. So this temporarily benefits 24% of Social Security recipients. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not something an apolitical part of the government ought to tout to tens of millions of Americans.

More broadly, this terrible law will actually slash the social safety net while also exploding the deficit. It’s a very, very bad bill, right down to its name. What the email calls “the One Big, Beautiful Bill” is officially the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”. The combination of no comma and ending with “Bill Act” is really just the idiotic cherry on top of a sundae of stupidity.

Despite that, I tried to find a bright side. With how Social Security has been managed, I don’t actually expect to get any money when I reach retirement age in a few decades. Given that, I suppose it’s nice that I received something from Social Security.