ArcaMax

I am so embarrassed by my former employer, the Social Security Administration. By issuing a press release that not only supports but outright glorifies the recently passed "One Big Beautiful Bill," they have crossed a line that should never have been crossed. They may even have acted illegally. It was One Big Ugly Press Release.

Before I proceed, I must make an important point. I am NOT going to provide general comments on the newly enacted legislation itself. Whether you think "One Big Beautiful Bill" is the greatest piece of legislation in American history or whether you think it is the biggest boondoggle in American history, I don't care. I am simply not smart enough to comment on it.

But I am smart enough to comment on the Social Security Administration's response to the passage of the bill. They issued a press release headed: "Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors." And then they turned around and sent it by email to all senior citizens in this country.

The bill may indeed provide "historic tax relief for seniors." Again, that is not the point of this column. The point I must make is that a federal government agency has no right to engage in political commentary. In fact, the Hatch Act specifically forbids partisan political activity by federal government employees.

A federal government employee's job is to simply carry out the laws passed by Congress. It is not their job to comment on those laws. Of course, each employee has his or her own political beliefs. During my 32-year career with the SSA, I worked with both staunch, conservative Republicans and die-hard liberal Democrats. I worked with Libertarians and I worked with Socialists. But all of us knew our job was to keep our opinions to ourselves and just help people get the Social Security benefits that they were entitled to.

And now the agency has crossed the line and made their opinions public. Well, actually, one person has. More about that in a minute.

But first, let me share this. As part of my three-decade career with the Social Security Administration, I served for a time as the agency's deputy press officer. During my tenure, we never issued any kind of press release that was even remotely political in nature. In fact, we rarely issued any news releases at all because, well, there rarely was any news to issue a press release about. The agency was doing its job. Benefit claims were being taken and processed quickly, and Social Security checks went out on time every month. So, no news was good news.

But under the Trump administration, the people running the agency have been issuing press releases almost weekly. And some of them have been overtly political. For example, a press release issued on April 29, 2025, was headlined, "Social Security Administration Highlights Key Accomplishments in the First 100 Days of the Trump Administration."

I could parse the dickens out of the "One Big Beautiful" press release but let me just look at the first three words: "Social Security applauds" (passage of legislation ... ).

That implies that the Social Security program itself applauded the legislation. And of course, that is not true. I'm sure they meant to say, "The Social Security Administration" applauds the legislation. But even that is not true. The agency as a whole was not applauding, and again, because of the Hatch Act, cannot applaud the legislation.

What was meant to be said is that one person was applauding the passage of the legislation. And that one person is Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive whom President Donald Trump appointed as the Commissioner of Social Security several months ago.

As a political appointee, of course Mr. Bisignano is going to have political opinions and he has every right to express those opinions. He could have issued his own statement saying that "I applaud the passage of One Big Beautiful Bill." But he should not have issued an agency press release and then emailed it to every senior citizen in the country, saying that "Social Security applauds the passage of the bill." Shame on him!

In addition to the blatant political messages, the press release and the email sent to all seniors were a bit misleading. For example, it said that "the new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits." By now, I think most seniors have learned from more reliable news sources that it doesn't do that. What it does do is introduce a temporary deduction that some seniors can claim to lower their federal income tax. And notably, this deduction does not apply to all Social Security beneficiaries. For example, it does not apply to retirees who are under age 65. And it does not apply to people getting Social Security disability benefits, nor does it apply to widows and widowers who are under age 65.

Here is another misleading statement that was in the SSA press release. It said that " ... this legislation reaffirms President Trump's promise to protect Social Security." Well, not really. Many Americans may not know this, but the money derived from the taxation of Social Security benefits is a small but important source of income to the Social Security trust funds. For example, last year, about $55 billion was added to the trust funds because of Social Security benefit taxation. While not all of that is going away, a significant percentage of it is.

So, this provision of the "One Big Beautiful" bill does not "protect Social Security." Instead, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, it pushes up its bankruptcy date by one year -- from 2033 as the Social Security Trustees recently reported to 2032.

Finally, because of the long lead time to write, edit, and publish this column, I am writing this just a day or two after the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed. I, and millions of other Americans, are still digesting what was in the bill. Once that happens, I will likely write a follow-up column on this issue.

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If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called "Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security." The other is "Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts." You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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