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This one hits a bit close to home for me. My mom is just over 70-years old and I have helped her navigate Social Security (and failed a few times). Due to a number of past events she also has little savings (and no retirement aside from Social Security) so she also works, for the most part, full-time.

The idea of Social Security was to ensure that the elderly would not be homeless or in poverty when they retired (or someone could not work anymore). Also, social security was designed when the average lifespan was all but 65 or so years old.

There are issues with the system for sure. My mom gets about a grand a month from her Social Security which is not enough to even pay the rent on her apartment. Becuase she works she has to pay taxes on her Social Security income (which I think is ridiculous).

Anyway, that is why this piece from the Washington Post hits close to home. This 70-year old woman was homeless because the Social Security Administration messed up (and trust me they mess up a lot). Add to that she was homeless for 16-years while fighting for what was owned her (up to now over $100,000.00). If you want to fight for what is owed you, it is advisable to get an attorney. But when you make so little, and the attorney takes either percentage of what is recovered or several thousand dollars that many elderly can ill afford, many people choose not to fight (my mom is one).

As the article points out there are more claims now than ever due to the Boomers retiring. Add to that budget cuts and staff reductions at the Social Security Administration and we have a recipe for disaster: long waits for appointments, backlogs of claims processing. Is this what we want for our parents (I don’t even say us because Social Security likely will not be there when we retire)? If we don’t want this for our parents what can we do to fix it? That is a big question, one that I don’t have time for in this post, but I think is starts with the following issue that we have to figure out: do we want a social safety net (welfare, and social programs) to be a part of our society? If we do, then we must fund them, which means we must pay for them. If we do not, then we have to figure out a way to transition the soon to retire so we don’t have a generation of the elderly on the streets.

Is Trump ‘pivoting’ on immigration, softening his position on forced deportations? TBD. But his recent near-suggestion that he might graciously allow some long-time undocumented stay on as non-citizens already has Ann Coulter, ultra right-wing commentator and author of In Trump We Trust:E Pluribus Awesome! scrambling to interpret his scramble.

In the book, launched just yesterday, Coulter declared:

“There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.”

A few hours later she tweeted:

“I think he panicked and he had to say [it] … I don’t think he is softening. I mean the big thing is the wall.”

So is he panicking, softening, pivoting or just blowing more smoke? Take a look at this timeline on Trump’s ‘evolving’ immigration position posted by The Hill and let us know what you think is happening.