Apparent Doorways, 41st Day of Summer, 525 ME (Atlas): I'm old. I'm so old that I've been collecting Social Security for five years now. My communications with the SSA are generally minimal - usually just an annual notice about the cost-of-living adjustment and an occasional warning to be on lookout for fraud and scams.

Thursday, I received an unusual message from them with the heading, Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors. It sounded like propaganda, and in fact that's exactly what it was. The email read:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.

The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation's economy.

The email falsely claimed the big, bad budget bill includes "a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries . . . ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned."

However, the Stable Genius' budget bill does not actually eliminate federal taxes on Social Security like the email claimed. The rule, passed through the reconciliation process to avoid a Democratic filibuster, provides a temporary tax deduction of up to $6,000 for people over 65, and $12,000 for married seniors. These benefits will start to phase out for those with incomes of more than $75,000 and married couples of more than $150,000 a year.

Need I point out that a temporary tax deduction is not the same thing as eliminating federal tax on benefits?  

The big, bad budget bill also includes provisions that will strip many people of their health insurance, cut food assistance for the poor, kill off clean-energy development, and raise the national debt by trillions of dollars, but the email doesn't mention that. Further, the bill imposes a new limit on all itemized deductions and makes permanent the termination of most miscellaneous itemized deductions. So whatever savings and gained from the over-65 deduction may disappear due to the limit on all deductions. 

New Jersey congressman Frank Pallone wrote on X that “every word” of the email is a lie. “It’s disturbing to see Trump hijack a public institution to push blatant misinformation,” he wrote. Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the SSA during the Biden administration, told CNN the email “doesn’t sound like normal government communications, official communications. It sounds like – you know – partisan.”  Jeff Nesbit, who served as a top SSA official under Republican and Democratic presidents, went further, posting on X, “The agency has never issued such a blatant political statement. The fact that Trump and his minion running SSA has [sic] done this is unconscionable.”