Free Republic

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- When House Democrats return to Washington on Monday, a top priority will be putting a $250 dollar check in the mail to 58 million Social Security recipients. Democrats plan to vote early in the lame-duck session on a bill that would provide Social Security recipients with a one-time payment, according to the office of Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat from North Dakota who authored the legislation. The bill -- with a total cost of roughly $14 billion -- is designed to make up for another year without an increase in Social Security benefits. In October, the federal...

Leaders of President Barack Obama's bipartisan deficit commission on Wednesday proposed reducing the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security, part of a bold plan to control $1 trillion-plus budget deficits. The proposal also would set a tough target for curbing the growth of Medicare and recommends looking at eliminating popular tax breaks, such as mortgage interest deduction. As proposed, the plan by Chairman Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., doesn't look like it can win support from 14 of the commission's 18 members to force a debate in Congress. Bowles is a Democrat and was former President Bill...

Proposed Resolution for Illigal Immigrants ursurping jobs of US Citizens.

WASHINGTON -- As noted by recent cover stories in Newsweek and Business Week, the first of the roughly 77 million baby boomers turn 60 in 2006. J. Walker Smith of the polling firm of Yankelovich Partners told Newsweek that many boomers ``think they're going to die before they get old'' -- a reference to one survey in which boomers defined old age as starting around 80. Business Week asserted that fifty- and sixty-somethings consider their ``middle age a new start on life'' to indulge hobbies, begin new careers or remarry. These portraits of vigorous baby boomers clash with another reality:...

A senior Republican senator said, "The message coming out of the White House is that we'll fix Social Security by raising your taxes and cutting your retirement benefits and, to get something passed, we'll forget about the personal retirement accounts we promised."

Channel 17 in Decatur Illinois stated that Dick Durbin, Dingy Harry Reid's hatchetman will be hosting a town hall meeting at 9:30 Tommorrow Morning at 426 South 7th Street, Springfield near Lincoln's home. I'm sure he won't mention how much him and his cronies like Senator John Corzine, Robert Rubin, Terry McAuliff, and Howard Dean whose father was a top executive for Dean Witter, etc have benefitted from Wall Street? Ask Durbin how much has he paid into his "Thrift Savings Account" and how much is the current value? What is the average return on investment? Many people wouldn't have...

IS A BIPARTISAN COALITION REQUIRED to pass legislation that would allow individuals to invest their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds? Not really. Surely, the White House will endorse a Social Security reform plan that slows the growth of benefits by roughly 40 percent, right? Don't count on it. And won't Democrats be able to attack almost any reform proposal by President Bush with political impunity? Actually, obstructing Bush carries real risks. But as for all the talk about a new paradigm, doesn't Social Security still represent the third rail of politics--touch it and you get badly hurt?...

<p>The nine — now ten — Democratic presidential contenders will soon gather for yet another debate. As with the earlier debates, we can expect a great deal of give and take about Iraq, jobs, tax cuts and terrorism. But one important issue — Social Security — is likely to slip by again without the examination it deserves.</p>

<p>For seniors like Harry Thaw, the planned 2.1 percent increase in Social Security benefits next year probably won't make life much easier.</p> <p>Mr. Thaw, 78, a retired handyman, stops almost daily at the city-subsidized Encore Senior Center in midtown Manhattan for the hot lunch, which costs $1. Every increase in the rent on his apartment means less for other things, like food and clothes, he said. Though he is not ill now, rising drug prices scare him.</p>