r/politics • u/Dustypigjut Oregon • Nov 27 '24

Elon Musk publicized the names of government employees he wants to cut. It’s terrifying federal workers Soft Paywall

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/27/business/elon-musk-government-employees-targets/index.html

31.6k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

I don't think they care I work for a public utility company and my MAGA dad is always on about how we are lazy, do nothings taking away tax payer dollars and a private company can do it better because there are no civil service protections. Compares us to the DMV it's rather sad.

20

u/3MATX Nov 27 '24

Haha. It’s his and his parents generation who screwed social security so badly that anyone under 30 right now has zero chance of seeing any benefits. Or maybe Trump will reform it such that the age is 80 to start drawing and or the working classes are taxed at roughly 50% while tax breaks occur as the income grows. Neither is great.

7

u/Chimie45 Ohio Nov 27 '24

taxed at roughly 50% while tax breaks occur as the income grows.

You do realize rich people already do not pay into social security right?

There's a maximum income on Social Security tax. In 2024, the maximum earnings subject to Social Security taxes was $168,600. In 2025, the maximum will increase to $176,100.

So for even people like well paid upper middle class jobs like doctors or engineers, most of them do not even pay Social Security on a majority of their income if they're making the low end of mid-6 figures.

Simply removing this cap would make social security last for decades more.

5

u/MichaelJayDog Nov 27 '24

This is exactly the type of thinking they want. They want us just resigned to the fact we'll never see it, they don't want us demanding they just raise the taxable income threshhold which would keep it viable for decades to come.

5

u/noforgayjesus Nov 27 '24

Probably makes him even more mad that we get a pension at my work and don't have to rely on Social Security.

3

u/Ih8melvin2 Nov 27 '24

The town next door to me has a public utility company and everyone in my town is jealous (gazes west with envy in my eyes).

0

u/noforgayjesus Nov 27 '24

It's rather interesting I think SoCal Edison is cheaper than we are at LADWP by like .02 cents a KWH but we also have less outages

2

u/Ih8melvin2 Nov 27 '24

Yeah it's more a service issue here. We had a small private company for decades and they were fine. Then they were bought out by a larger company who promptly quit as much maintenance as they could. After 3 five-day power outages we bought a standby generator. We have a well so no power equals no water. The town took over the tree maintenance so the outages haven't been as bad. For cost we have "choices" but they are all expensive.

2

u/noforgayjesus Nov 27 '24

This was actually talked about by John Oliver about how these companies refuse to do any maintenance on their grid.

1

u/Ih8melvin2 Nov 27 '24

I'm sure less regulation will make things better. sigh

1

u/noforgayjesus Nov 27 '24

I am happy to be here in California, we do have a lot of regulation but even here PGandE really badly dropped the ball.

1

u/ObeseVegetable Nov 27 '24

Governments do things at cost and private corporations do things with a profit margin.

Every cent of profit a private solution takes in is a cent that wouldn’t be paid by the government solution.