Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Sneaky Way They Plan on Cutting Social Security Benefits

Talk of changing the way the CPI is calculated is now part of on going talks on how to deal with the debt expansion. Reuters explains bluntly what is going on:

President Barack Obama and lawmakers are considering cutting Social Security and increasing revenue by changing the way the government measures inflation.

Four senior congressional aides said lawmakers are discussing using an alternative yardstick to gauge inflation, known as the “chained consumer price index,” to determine annual cost-of-living adjustments for millions of Americans.
How much of an impact will the change in the method of calculating CPI have on Social Security?

It could result in cutting Social Security by $112 billion over 10 years, raising taxes by $60 billion and cutting pension and veterans’ disability payments by $24 billion, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

According to Reuters:

Advocates say the change is needed because the government’s current measure of inflation overstates how quickly prices rise.
Got that? In May, the annualized core CPI came in at 2.4% and the government debt negotiators think this is too high a number.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma goes one better, he says:

There hasn’t been any economist anywhere that says we shouldn’t do that, [change the way inflation is measured]
Earth to Couburn, start with John Williams at Shadow Stats, if you are looking for some one who thinks the CPI measure has been manipulated downward enough already and read up on the last manipulation of the CPI,  which was inspired by President Richard Nixon.

Coburn continues with this outrageous remark:

We need a CPI that truly reflects what’s happening in the economy, not what’s good for the politicians.

Bottom line: D.C. politicians are attempting every way possible to raise revenue and cut expenditures, even if it is on the back of the elderly. They will lie and say things with a straight face, even if a quick trip to the supermarket confirms the absurdity of the statements made by politicians like Coburn.

(ViaJimBrownfield)

11 comments:

  1. My favorite quote is: "[Current inflation calculations] accounts for those who buy cheaper brands of wine or steak when those prices rise, though not for those who opt instead for beer or chicken."

    It's not inflation! After all, if they can't afford red meat, let them eat cake!

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  2. Anthony Gregory:

    Even most of the crony capitalists who constitute a slim minority of the top 1% are angels compared to the government itself. Whatever harm they do is aided by the state, but they tend to do a lot of good. They’d probably do even more good in a freer market. Regardless, the government has the least claim of all to anyone’s income, as it, unlike the private sector, is incapable of producing wealth as a matter of course. Also, it uses a big chunk of every dollar it seizes to murder and cage innocent people, something of which almost no one in the top 1% is guilty.

    As for the poor, cut their taxes too. The left loves to target the top 1% and the right loves to say, crazily, that the bottom 50% pays no taxes. This too is hogwash. For most Americans, payroll taxes are a bigger burden than income taxes. These should be eliminated entirely, for moral reasons and for the sake of honest accounting. They do not go into a retirement fund or insurance program, as the left insists and the right implies by omitting the Social Security and Medicare tax from their analysis of who supposedly pays all the taxes.

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  3. I would think simply outlawing inflation would be a perfect solution, especially for all those Keynesians and monetarists. They never consider time in any of their theories anyway. No matter how much "inflation" you produce, it all balances out over time. Why even calculate it? No more inflation. No more increases to government costs. The Fed and the Treasury can just produce money as they need it.

    Problem solved. Your welcome.

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  4. Just remember, they are running deficits in SS which then cuts into their borrowing from the fund. Their only concern is to get surpluses back up in order to borrow.

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  5. I dont have any problem cutting social security. They should have built in a mechanism to deal with the growing life expectancy to start - then you wouldn't have seen it balloon into the monstrosity it is.

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  6. @Cosmic Vortex: Cutting SS is fine, but doing it though the back door via destruction of the dollar is evil and probably devastating to the middle class.

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  7. Statement by Coburn "He (Coburn)also said he’s concerned that the Federal Reserve’s purchase of Treasuries is “debasing the currency, which will result in significant inflation.” Evidently, Tom can have it both ways.

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  8. Wow, this goverment is slime. they are cutting disability, and so, what? telling mentally disabled (for lack of a better word retarded) men and women, oh well, gonna have to fight, or go work??? this is sick, sick, why not cut out the rich snobs to begin with? instead of picking on the mentally disabled man, or the coma patient, or the vegetable. he's killing millions of u.s citizens, and should stop terrorizing his own people.

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  9. I'm thinking they want to kill off anyone over the age of 65. cut their pay in half, since it comes out of the taxes we pay. and you save the trillions they want

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  10. they better not cut disability. My dad is working his ass off to support my family. My mom has MS and can't work anymore so we NEED disability. My brother who is in Afghanistan pay half of our bills...

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  11. Anon@1222AM-

    I hope that your family doesn't get their benefits cut- not because it's morally right to "rob Peter to pay Paul" via wealth redistribution- but because we have an entire generation of people who have based their "golden years" around a promise made by the government to help them. If these programs are eliminated overnight then millions of people will literally starve.

    The better plan, and the one Ron Paul supports, is to gradually phase out these "entitlements" while cutting SS payments by younger people (allowing them to "opt out") and encouraging (via tax deductions) charities to begin stepping back into the role they played 3 generations ago. It will take 30-50 years for these "entitlement" programs to be flushed out of the system so that private foundations, religious/secular charities, and community based assistance can properly supplant the current model, but we must begin making these cuts NOW or the entire country will soon be bankrupt.

    Dale Fitz

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