Democratic lawmakers are fuming over the "DOGE boys" and their recent crackdown on federal spending, holding a rally outside the newly formed cost-cutting department's potential next target: the Social Security Administration (SSA).

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has been working with federal agencies to identify and cut wasteful spending. Most recently, the group began probing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for potential fraud — a move that wasn't welcomed by Democratic lawmakers who warned that the SSA could be the next agency on the target list.

On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Ma., Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Ma., and Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Ma., gathered for a rally outside the SSA headquarters in Baltimore to criticize DOGE's efforts.

"Every time you hear DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, you just remember it is the department of government evil," said Mfume, a Maryland-based Democrat.

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Fox News Digital previously reported that according to Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, SSA disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."

Democrats, however, have claimed that Americans' Social Security benefits could be targeted. 

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"We have one simple message, which is: Elon Musk, keep your hands off our Social Security," Van Hollen told the crowd. 

"Over the last 21 days, we have seen Elon Musk conducting illegal raids on federal agencies with his DOGE crew," the senator said. "This is a recipe for corruption by the DOGE boys."

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Ma., speaking during the rally, claimed that "the intention of this administration is to make us feel demoralized, to make many of us feel frightened, to incite fear, to silence people."

Many of DOGE's targets have ranged from canceling a number of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at federal agencies to consolidating duplicative agencies and programs.

DOGE, as of the end of January, said that it was saving the federal government $1 billion a day, mostly by "stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President's Executive Orders."

The efforts have been widely rejected by Democratic lawmakers, who have been gathering outside government agency headquarters in protest of the DOGE agenda.

Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller and Eric Revell contributed to this report.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk’s efforts to clean up waste and fraud in the federal government will soon shift its focus to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in a move likely to create a firestorm with Democrats.

The SSA, created by the Social Security Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 and tasked with establishing a federal benefits system for older Americans, will soon become a focus of DOGE, according to a report from Semafor that was not denied by the White House when contacted by Fox News Digital.

While several Democrats — including Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., in a post on X — have been quick to accuse this move as being aimed at slashing Social Security benefits for the elderly, several areas with potential waste exist in the agency that don’t involve cutting current benefits. 

Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, previously reported that the agency disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."

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Just Facts explained that through a policy known as "administrative finality," once the "SSA mistakenly overpays a beneficiary for more than four years, it does not recover past overpayments and deliberately continues to make future overpayments excepting cases of fraud."

The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.

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"Social Security will not be touched, it will only be strengthened," President Donald Trump said during a press conference on Friday. "We have illegal immigrants on Social Security and we're going to find out who they are and take them out."

Trump added, "We're going to strengthen our Social Security, etc. We're not going to touch it other than to make it stronger. But we have people that shouldn't be on, and those people we have to weed out, most of them, or many of them, so far, have been illegal immigrants."

On Friday afternoon, White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer posted a report on X from the Center for Immigration Studies in 2021 that said, "We estimate that there are 2.65 million illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers."

Trump added that DOGE will go through "everything" when it comes to waste and fraud in the federal government.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the SSA said, "We remain focused and vigilant on the integrity of our programs and take seriously our responsibilities to deter fraud, waste, and abuse."

DOGE has dominated news headlines over the past week as Musk's team has moved to slash USAID's $40 billion spending budget and put on leave the vast majority of its employees, as photos of the sign at the door of the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters being taken down have circulated on social media.

Musk has said that both he and Trump "agreed" that the agency should be "shut down." Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been named acting director of the independent agency, on Monday echoed the sentiment, telling reporters, "USAID is not functioning."

"It needs to be aligned with the national interest of the U.S. They're not a global charity, these are taxpayer dollars. People are asking simple questions. What are they doing with the money?" Rubio continued. "We are spending taxpayers’ money. We owe the taxpayers assurances that it furthers our national interest."

Democrats held a rally outside the Treasury Department earlier this week blasting the DOGE efforts as a threat to democracy. 

"Elon Musk is a Nazi nepo baby, a godless lawless billionaire, who no one elected," Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said at a rally, sparking pushback from conservatives on social media.

"Elon, this is the American people. This is not your trashy Cybertruck that you can just dismantle, pick apart, and sell the pieces of."

Fox News Digital's Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.