Posted on 10/11/2010 2:22:11 AM PDT by Scanian
WASHINGTON — As if voters don't have enough to be angry about this election year, the government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through another year without an increase in their monthly benefits.
It would mark only the second year without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation were adopted in 1975. The first year was this year.
"If you're the ruling party, this is not the sort of thing you want to have happening two weeks before an election," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
"It's not the congressional Democrats' fault, but that's the way politics works," Biggs said. "A lot of people will feel hostile about it."
The cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are automatically set each year by an inflation measure that was adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. Based on inflation so far this year, the trustees who oversee Social Security project there will be no COLA for 2011.
The projection will be made official on Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases inflation estimates for September. The timing couldn't be worse for Democrats as they approach an election in which they are in danger of losing their House majority, and possibly their Senate majority as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Sorry about the double post.
The fact that Congress will give themselves a pay raise is a fact that seems to go unnoticed! We need to get that out in the same breath as SS won’t get an increase.
Congress should have their raises tied to inflation the same as Seniors. But as I understand it, all they have to do is NOT vote to receive it. It is automatic unless they vote against it. True?
“The cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are automatically set each year by an inflation measure that was adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. Based on inflation so far this year, the trustees who oversee Social Security project there will be no COLA for 2011.”
What a crock!!! Property taxes a rising every year at least 10%. A loaf of bread costs over $3, gas is $3 a gallon and a $100 doesn’t go very far in the grocery store. And, they say infations in check.
Why would Obama&Co. give a cost of living raise for Social Security recipients when the death panel may get rid of them anyway?.
{It is automatic unless they vote against it. True?}
I don’t know for sure but that sounds like the kind of trick those snakes would use. Then all they have to say in public is...”Hey, don’t blame me I didn’t vote for giving us a raise”...and they’d be right.
Within a couple of years, all income taxes, will go to paying interest ONLY on the debt.
Last year, this year, next year the Federal government will have to go and borrow near half it’s budget. Imagine making 50k a year, but your boss said hold on, I don’t have it. So last year, you only got paid 25k, borrowed 25k. This year, same thing, got 25k, borrowed another 25k( total, 50k), next year, same thing, got 25k, will borrow another 25k, and will have 75k in debts.
This is the past, present, future.
Frankly, I’m 53 and mentally preparing, and physically preparing myself for Wiemar era collapse, junk money, necessary Dictatorship( not for me, but for the majority sheeple. )
In 1913 the citizens gave the money creation power to the private corporation known as the Federal Reserve, LLC.
Right now, it is loaning money out for below free. So, frankly, the paper accounting companies called ‘banks’, that are not in any way a storehouse of value, or a ‘bank’, don’t need your paper. They can get new clean paper from the Federal Reserve Company. And, not have to have a clerk eat up labor dollars to handle little pissant( sorry ) people like you, and me.
...and food. The essentials (food, energy) are inflating while non-essentials(electronics, etc.) are deflating. The 1.1% rate for 2010 is misleading.
When I’m out doing service calls, I talk to a ton of retired folks. Especially when it comes time to paying the bill. I often have to work out arrangements, or heavily discount the work, which, well, is just a sign of the times.
But the story I am hearing more and more, is how property taxes here in Illinois have gone up, yet their property values have gone down.
Utilities have gone up, bus prices, everything else.
It breaks my heart, to know that those who have contributed their whole lives to this country, saved, scrimped, played by the rules, are deciding each week between eating, buying medicine or keeping their home.
I’m not talking about socializing medicine or food, I’m talking about stopping the f*in taxes on these people.
ESPECIALLY when the property values have dropped 25%! I just don’t understand it.
Retirees on a fixed income, should not have to deal with this crap.
The other bit I hear, is that because they own their own homes, they don’t qualify for many of the assistance programs that those who don’t own their homes do. That’s another kick in the groin for these folks.
Work hard, play by the rules, save and pinch pennies, then they come take your taxes, more and more each year, and give it to every illegal that wants to cross the border. I hear it over and over again.
A fixed income and this hyper inflation we are going to see is really going to hurt many retirees.
Whoa - that is a depressing article. Is there nothing the pols won’t do to manipulate and deceive the voters?
Just saw this story on FOX News. I predicted, just Friday, that this was going to happen. I know that some FReepers on here think Social Security is just another Welfare Program. I’ll leave that alone, but FOX News said that with the Dems being in power, they are the ones who will feel the wrath of the Seniors in the voting booth in November.....that’s the good news.
Taxpayer money is being wasted all over this country. Instead of sending stimulus checks to dead people, govt should see that seniors get an increase...IMO
*********************************************************
“STIMULUS CHECKS SENT TO DEAD PEOPLE”
“The combined total of the mistaken payments is $22.3 million. Another 17,000 payments went to recipients who were in prison at the time the payment was made in May 2009.
The SSA says that the stimulus package didn’t include a provision allowing it to try to retrieve funds that were mistakenly sent out, so it can’t try to retrieve the rest of the money.
Money transferred electronically may be sitting untouched in bank accounts of dead people.”
Good...
AARP lost tens of thousands of members over their endorsement of the Health Care Bill.
They forgot to add this to the “Rest of the Story”
Shall we wait to see how the media and the establishment Pubbies handle this one?
AARP deserves to lose thousands of members. I know people who automatically joined AARP for hotel discounts, etc. when they were in their 50's. They can get those same discounts with AAA.
We are already paying more taxes on his Military pension than we were in 2009.
BTW if SS doesn't give a COLA raise then neither will retired Military or federal employees receive one.
My quilt guild meets at the location that food commodities are handed out...the line of old people has tripled in the past 2 yrs. Most of them on walkers, canes, and in wheel chairs, all looking very frail and as if the life as been sucked out of them.
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