Republicans in Congress have enabled the dismantling of the country’s social safety net with dramatic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program while also extending significant tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and pouring money into purges of undocumented migrants. Today Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an audience at an event for the right-wing media outlet Breitbart that the new “Trump accounts” established by the budget reconciliation bill are “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”