To the editor:

I recently attended the Town Hall with our federal delegation, including Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, and Congressman Gabe Amo. Hosted by the Newport County League of Women Voters, it started with a robust Q-and-A forum, and gave a rare chance for constituents to directly question those represent all of Rhode Island.
But the overall tone boiled down to: a fruitless, predictable rehash of stale Democrat talking-points; a united-front from D.C.’s minority party with no aim to find any compromise; vilification against all incumbent government leadership into a strawman; and our elected officials stoking false fear in their constituents, only to lionize their rhetoric.
Even the reporting on this event was surprisingly slanted, and without proper coverage. Per last week’s article covering the event (“A night to vent about the Trump administration”), under a section entitled ‘A few for Trump’, stated the following:

“There were a handful of pro-Trump attendees who made their presence known near the end of the event. One man repeated the false claim of massive fraud going on with Social Security — that millions of deceased people are receiving payments.”

I was that man. My actual question referenced two reports documented and released by the Social Security Administration (SSA) showing waste, fraud and abuse – something President Trump campaigned on stopping once elected.

The first SSA report, released last August under Biden’s watch, found $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 to 2022, noting previous audits resulted in “dozens of recommendations for the Agency to prevent improper payments before they occur as well as to detect and correct existing improper payments,” but that “to date, many of those recommendations remain unimplemented.” (see report here: https://oig.ssa.gov/news-releases/2024-08-19-ig-reports-nearly-72-billion-improperly-paid-recommended-improvements-go-unimplemented/ )

The second SSA report, released in 2021, stated the SSA issued an estimated $298 million in payments to about 24,000 beneficiaries after they died, finding “... SSA policy does not provide sufficient information to guide technicians when they post a beneficiary’s unverified death based on a returned payment from Treasury, which results in erroneous dates of death on SSA records … [and] SSA did not initiate actions to recover these payments because of these control weaknesses …” (see report on https://oig.ssa.gov/assets/uploads/a-08-19-50800.pdf ).
Interesting, my question was only answered by the recently-re-elected Senator Whitehouse (note both Reed and Amo are up for re-election next year). That led to a swift dismissal, stating “I would dispute the facts that you asserted. Fraud in Social Security is less than 1 percent; it’s really not a thing …”

When attempting to show him the SSA reports after the event, he glibly stated, “I answered your question,” and swiftly left with his entourage.

Overall, it was everything I expected: divisive, empty rhetoric by our federal delegation; a naïve crowd who fall for the false narratives instead of holding politicians’ feet to the fire; even media coverage that downplays opposition instead of being a true Fourth Estate.

Until ‘We The People’ look deeper into the issues instead of playing ‘Red-Team/Blue-Team’ – and expect our elected officials to do the same – policy solutions won’t be solved for future generations.

Will Sousa Grapentine
112 Mulberry Road

Will Sousa Grapentine is chairman of the Bristol Young Republican Town Committee and vice chairman of the Bristol Republican Town Committee.