Posted on 07/08/2011 4:41:50 AM PDT by blam
The Sneaky Way They Plan on Cutting Social Security Benefits
July 8, 2011
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.
We’re broke, so it’s gotta be cut. People who haven’t saved on their own were just plain stupid.
There are far too many “other” areas which can be cut....S.S. is not the Gov.s money it’s the peoples money who paid into it. Let them cut all the fraud and waste first...
Social Security is a socialist abomination foisted upon us by FDR. The sooner it’s killed off, the better.
How about cutting Social Security and medicare benefits... FOR ALL THE FRIGGING ILLEGAL ALIENS.
Wake up, republican morons in the House. You’re about to hand the communist retard an election issue on a silver platter.
It’s a start, cutting this welfare program. But the cut is so minor as to have minimal impact on our overall impending dollar collapse. We’ll need to essentially freeze benefits while inflation reduces their value by 25% or so...that would get the program’s payouts back in line with it’s income.
But it is a start.
Agreed but give me all I put into it plus interest. Not a penny more but not a penny less of my contributions
Perhaps. But you don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater....and you don’t “rob” the people who have payed into S.S. their whole life. Savings or not aside...they have invested in S.S. and they have a right to expect their fair return.
People who saw 6% deducted from their pay for forty years might think they did 'save'. Maybe you're just plain stupid when you ignore the reckless and irresponsible acts of politicians and choose to insult people who contributed to that system all their working years.
So now a sirloin steak will equal a half of can of dog food instead of a full can.
There’s nothing sneaky about it. It’s well justified and sensible. Do this and for those under 55 change the age at which people retire and ss will be solvent for 70 more years.
Gee : And I thought they haven’t given Social Security recipients a raise for the last two years.
If people were looking, they would have noticed the deduction was 12%
The employer contribution is a fig leaf covering the truth
I think SS should be phased out over time staring with the option of investing our own SS payments. But I don’t understand why they always want to stick it to the seniors instead of the perfectly healthy, but terribly lazy, 20-somethings sitting on the couch collecting benefit after benefit. The chick in our local grocery throwing a tantrum because WIC pays for only whole milk and she prefers 2% springs to mind...
No more retirement. We gotta work til we can’t then starve and die.
If there was a “real” social security trust fund it could be invested to keep up with inflation.
As has been posted before: LOOK at Chile!
Chile’s Privatized Social Security System at Thirty - POST SCRIPTS
www.norcalblogs.com/post_scripts/.../chiles-privatized-social.html - Cached1 May 2011 – Workers are free to change from one AFP to another. ... Chile’s SS system was designed by a man who is a fan of capitalism and is now a fellow ... Chile is a republic with a constitution and three branches of government: ...
AND while we are at it, Healthcare:
[PDF] Profile of the Health Service System: Chile
www.who.int/entity/ageing/projects/intra/phase.../alc_intra1_cp_chile.pdfFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
i Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile ... free-choice operation, and the SS have decentralized operations with their network of facilities. ...
“Agreed but give me all I put into it plus interest. Not a penny more but not a penny less of my contributions”
That’s not one of the choices.
You have two choices:
1. Accept less, perhaps even drastically less in Social Security and other government benefits.
2. Get nothing - either through hyperinflation, or through drastic financial duress.
You really don’t have the choice you want.
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