David Rouzer’s Social Security Sellout: How He’s Enabling Its Collapse

David Rouzer loves to talk about protecting working families, but when it comes to one of the most critical lifelines for retirees, disabled Americans, and low-income seniors, his silence is telling. The Social Security Administration is being gutted—field offices shuttered, staff slashed, wait times soaring—and Rouzer, sitting comfortably in Congress, is letting it happen. He isn’t just watching from the sidelines; his refusal to push back against these cuts makes him complicit in an attack on the very people Social Security was designed to help.

This isn’t just bureaucratic downsizing—it’s an engineered collapse. Trump’s administration is pushing mass layoffs at SSA, shrinking the agency at a time when more Americans than ever need access to their benefits. Offices that once helped seniors navigate their applications are closing their doors. Phone lines are jammed, wait times are stretching into months, and routine processes like benefit approvals and appeals are becoming impossible for people who need them the most. And the worst part? We’ve seen this exact scenario before. When Reagan gutted SSA staffing in the 1980s, tens of thousands of eligible people were shut out of their benefits. History is repeating itself, and Rouzer isn’t lifting a finger to stop it.

The numbers don’t lie. The agency’s workforce was already at a 50-year low before these cuts, and now Trump’s SSA has set a target to eliminate 12.2% of its staff, with insiders warning that the real goal may be closer to 50%. That means fewer caseworkers to process disability claims, fewer field offices to assist seniors, and more people being denied benefits simply because there’s no one to help them through the red tape. And don’t be fooled by the administration’s promises of "efficiency"—they’re already floating the idea of outsourcing services to AI and chatbots, as if an automated system can replace human assistance for people struggling with complex claims.

Rouzer could fight this. He could push back against the one-for-four hiring rule that makes it impossible to replace lost staff. He could demand funding for field offices to stay open. He could take a stand against an administration that is systematically making it harder for working people to access the benefits they’ve paid into their entire lives. But he won’t. Because for politicians like Rouzer, cutting Social Security isn’t a political liability—it’s a goal.

Make no mistake, these cuts are a prelude to something bigger. The same people slashing SSA staffing are the ones calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" and floating plans to raise the retirement age or privatize benefits entirely. If they can make the program inaccessible enough, if they can frustrate people to the point where they give up on getting their benefits, they can turn around and say, "Look, the system is broken. Time to get rid of it." And Rouzer, with his history of backing policies that hurt working-class families while protecting corporate interests, is more than happy to play along.

This is about more than numbers on a budget sheet. It’s about real people—seniors in Wilmington who can’t get their retirement checks processed, disabled workers in Pender County waiting months for a hearing, low-income families in Brunswick County struggling to replace lost Social Security cards so they can access essential services. These are Rouzer’s constituents, and he’s abandoning them in favor of a political agenda that prioritizes dismantling government over actually serving the people.

Rouzer is making a choice. He’s choosing party politics over the well-being of North Carolinians. He’s choosing corporate tax cuts over secure retirements. He’s choosing to let the system collapse so he and his colleagues can justify dismantling it altogether. And if he won’t stand up for the people who depend on Social Security, then they should remember that when it’s time to send someone else to Washington—someone who actually gives a damn about their future.

Hold Rouzer accountable. Call 910-395-0202 and DEMAND ANSWERS!