There’s an insidious new “fix” to Social Security making the rounds in Congress called “chained CPI.”
It’s been a popular option with both parties in Congress lately as they hash out ways to lower the annual $1 trillion deficit and pay down the $16.4 trillion national debt.
Here’s how chainged CPI will affect payments to seniors:
Just this morning on Squawk on the Street, Senator DeMint said the latest round of negotiations between the White House and Speaker Boehner include this “chained CPI” as a part of their new deal.
The idea is to adjust the annual cost of living allowance to how seniors spend their money. The official party line is that seniors’ purchasing habits change as they learn to live within a budget (roughly $1200 a month from Social Security). If a senior decides to buy tuna instead of salmon then their monthly allotment should be decreased to reflect this change in purchasing habits.
Democrats rail against this as a morass of morality. They say this method assumes people make these changes in their buying habits out of personal preference and not because their limited income forces them into extreme thrift.
Social Security payments are already barely enough to survive on. By adjusting the Cost of Living Allowance or COLA to match “core” inflation, which excludes the price of food and energy, the government already grossly underestimates the real inflation rate.
Democrats see through this twisted logic. By focusing on this core inflation Conservatives are able to quantify a senior’s selection of tuna over salmon as a lifestyle choice when in fact it’s an economic choice made of necessity.
Chained CPI will force seniors to choose cat food over tuna!
As far as that goes, why can’t the chained CPI work the other way – as seniors are forced to spend more on gasoline or heating oil or electricity, their monthly stipend should go up. Why must a downward revision be cooked into the magic formula the government thumb suckers use to calculate payments?
Of course, neither party says a peep about the $2.5 trillion that Congress stole from the Social Security Trust Fund over the years. The fact is that if the Social Security Trust Fund still had that money then no cuts would be necessary, and Social Security would be solvent forever.
The really sad part about this is that the Democrats and Republicans are in lock step on this one. “Don’t mention the $2.5 trillion we stole from working people’s retirement. That will muck up the whole works! Promise – not a f-ing world.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has been printing $50 billion a month to pump easy money into the financial system. This will continue for years if necessary, at the rate of $500 billion a year; the official deadline is until the unemployment rate drops below 6.5%.
How come they can’t use that monopoly money to pay back the $2.5 trillion IOU to Social Security?
Who’s brilliant idea is it to give filthy rich bankers and investors unlimited access to money at 0.25% interest rate? While I pay 18% interest on my credit card? While they force seniors to eat baked beans instead of pasta, cat food instead of tuna?
Personally, I prefer dry cat food.
Illustration courtesy of NWIC.org
