On Feb. 21, Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, publicly upbraided Donald Trump over his transgender policies.
Here’s what happened after that. Out of the blue, the Trump administration canceled a contract that allowed parents in the state to apply for Social Security numbers for their newborns by simply checking a box on a form at the hospital—the way parents in all 50 states have done for decades, as the Social Security Administration has said.
The change meant that new parents would have to bring their infants to one of only eight Social Security field offices in Maine, sometimes by traveling for hours, exposing the newborns to infectious diseases in public.
It makes absolutely no sense to me at all to do this.
Dr. Joe Anderson, American Academy of Pediatrics
That happened Thursday. The change, which came with no explanation, created an immediate uproar among Social Security advocates and healthcare providers in Maine.
Dr. Joe Anderson, advocacy chair of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that eliminating the program “creates a lot of unnecessary and unfair burdens for families.”
“It makes absolutely no sense to me at all to do this,” Anderson told the Portland Press Herald. “I see no logical explanation for forcing parents and newborns — with 11,000 babies born in Maine every year — to sit in a crowded waiting room, when we have done this easily, securely and efficiently for decades.”
As has happened so often with the Trump White House’s thoughtless policy decisions, this one was reversed a day later.
Lee Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, issued a press release Friday, stating that the contract allowing parents to apply for their newborns’ Social Security numbers through Maine’s healthcare agency, along with another through which Maine authorities reported deaths of Maine residents to the Social Security Administration, had been reinstated.
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“In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent,” Dudek said. “For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated.”
If throwing a stink bomb into Maine wasn’t the “intent,” what was? No one in the administration has said. I asked the Social Security Administration for further explanation, but haven’t received a reply.
To Social Security advocates, however, the intent was clear. The move, said Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, “defies common sense and implies nefarious motives….Why on earth would the administration want to make it harder for parents to register their children for Social Security unless the aim was to shrink the size of the program?”
The advocacy organization Social Security Works had the same impression. “Canceling those contracts created waste, abuse, and at least the potential for fraud,” said Nancy Altman, its executive director. “There is no policy reason for canceling them, and many policy reasons against it. The only explanation is political revenge against Maine Gov. Janet Mills.”
Trump has said that he’s “not touching” Social Security, but actions speak louder than words.
A few points about the Enumeration at Birth policy, which allowed Maine parents, like those of all other states, to register their newborns through their state agencies, almost immediately upon giving birth.
Read more: Column: The richest Americans finished paying their Social Security taxes last week. Most of us will pay all year
The Social Security Administration website advises new parents on the simplicity of the process:
“When you complete the application for your baby’s birth certificate, you will be asked whether you want to apply for an SSN [Social Security Number] for your baby. If you say ‘yes,’ you will be asked to provide both parents’ SSNs. If you don’t know both parents’ SSNs, you still can apply for your child’s SSN.”
The procedure has been in effect since the 1980s, and has covered all 50 states since 1997. The Social Security Administration says that 99% of all babies born in the U.S. get their Social Security numbers this way. Since about 3.5 million babies are born in the U.S. every year, that’s a lot of babies.
Having a Social Security number soon after birth has become only more important over the years. It’s needed so parents can claim the child tax credit if they’re eligible, claim the newborn as a dependent, open a bank account or buy savings bonds for the child, and for infants to be covered by public healthcare programs, 529 college savings plans, and other services.
Requiring parents to bring their infants to a field office is, as Dudek acknowledged, a burden — and dangerous besides. That’s especially true as the DOGE budget-cutters rampaging through the Social Security Administration have stated their intent to cut the agency’s customer service budget, in part by closing field offices.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s website, where it lists contracts it has canceled and their value, listed enumeration contracts in five states — Maryland, Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico and Rhode Island (but not Maine) — totaling about $8 million. But those cancellations were purportedly aimed at stripping diversity, equality and inclusiveness elements out of state policies, not at forcing parents to register their newborns in person.
I reported a few days ago on the sheer ignorance of the attacks on Social Security by Trump and Elon Musk, his DOGE czar. Musk has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” which is utterly untrue, and Trump has trumpeted claims that the system is rife with fraud — also untrue.
This latest fiasco underscores how little they know about Social Security, and how little they care. They’re taking aim at the most popular public program in America, and the best anti-poverty program in its history.
Their meddling is certain to produce a massive political blowback. They might even have been able to get away with this latest stunt, but they seem to have read the writing on the wall. Still, the very idea that they tried it was infuriating, embarrassing, and, perhaps more importantly, very scary.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
