Chained CPI -- Stealing From Seniors

The Republicans have never liked Social Security. They voted against it when it was proposed, and they have tried to get rid of it several times since then ( including efforts to privatize it, so their masters on Wall Street can profit from it). But it is extremely disappointing to see a Democratic president wanting to do something that would damage the Social Security program (and therefore hurt millions of seniors in this country). But that is just what President Obama is expected to do this coming week.

He is going to propose that Congress pass a law adopting the Republican plan to cut Social Security benefits for millions of Americans. That plan is to change how Social Security cost-of-living raises are figured. Instead of using the real rate of inflation to figure those raises each year, the raises would be based on something called the "chained CPI" -- which means those raises would not actually keep up with real inflation. This would cause seniors to lose a bit of buying power each year, until after several years they are experiencing a significant cut in the benefits they receive from Social Security -- a program they paid into all of their working lives and hasn't contributed to this country's deficit and debt problems at all.

This is illustrated very well by the chart above (from the National Women's Law Center). The Social Security program is one of the federal programs that actually works like it was supposed to work. It provides elderly Americans with an income after they retire and keeps millions of elderly Americans out of poverty. That was its purpose, and it has worked very well for many years. Don't let the Republicans (and this president) start down the road of cutting benefits for Social Security. Those benefits are not huge to begin with (averaging only about $1000 a month), and should never be cut. Cutting the benefits will help destroy one of the program's aims -- to keep seniors out of poverty.

I know I probably sound like a broken record on this issue, but it's very important. Wall Street CEOs may think cutting Social Security benefits is a good idea, but they don't depend on those benefits (and probably will never have to depend on them). But millions of seniors do depend on Social Security to live (and a lot of them depend on it alone). For them, the idea of going to a chained CPI is a terrible idea -- because that's just fancy Washington D.C. talk for cutting their already meager benefits.