Here's how the Obama administration can cut Social Security benefits without calling them cuts!

The Administration does not call a new method to calculate cost-of-living increases and/or an increase in the early and full retirement age a "slash" in current benefits. In fact, they deny reports that they are proposing to cut the current benefits of social security recipients.

That's true and also very misleading.

The two proposals, changing the way cost of living benefit increases are calculated and increasing the retirement age, will in fact mean much smaller cost of living Social Security increases in the future and a substantial decrease in total benefits received due to later retirement eligibility.

Those are cuts!

But how careful, clever and deceptive they are in their formulations and choice of words!

Oh .... and there is also means testing for future recipients and tighter restrictions on medical disability benefits.

BBI

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WASHINGTON -- Prominent Social Security advocates expressed deep concern Friday at news that lawmakers may change the way the government measures inflation for taxes and federal benefit programs, weighing such a move as part of a last-minute deal to raise the nation's statutory debt limit while simultaneously cutting the federal budget.

Lawmakers and the Obama administration are reportedly considering switching to a "chained" Consumer Price Index. According to the advocacy group Strengthen Social Security, the chained-CPI could lead to annual Social Security benefit cuts of $560 for those aged 75, $984 for those aged 85 and $1,392 for those aged 95.

"The proposal to shift to the chained-CPI is actually a stealth attack on Social Security," said Joan Entmacher, director of family economic security at the National Women's Law Center, during a Friday conference call with reporters. Her comments were echoed by Strengthen Social Security Campaign co-chair Nancy Altman. She said, "The chained-CPI is poor policy, and given that seniors vote in disproportionately high numbers, it is equally poor politics."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/01/social-security-advocates_n_888899.html

That's the propaganda line that will be pushed in defense of means testing.

:shrug:

"story" soon.

How about you?

I assume you will be waiting until legislation cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is actually signed before making excuses for such cuts after you're finished criticizing those who are opposed to these threatened cuts.

and you want justification for doing so. Unfortunately, you don't have it.

Give proof of your position that social security cuts are not being actively discussed by Congress and the Administration. Considering the overwhelming evidence against this position, I suspect you are going to have a bit of a hard time doing so, however; the search for evidence supporting your position might either make you change your mind or at least think twice against posting such silly and easily disprovable twaddle.

Proof that Republicans aren't discussing cuts to social programs wherever they go? Talk about twaddle.

plan that eventually can be wadded up and drowned in a bathtub, like Grover Norquist always wanted.

which is a second language in the current White House

liberals with misleading headlines.

Sid

And/or that a new calculation will result in a "cut" vs. an increase for some?

Some politicians in Washington are preparing to cut your Social Security COLA for good – even after two years without getting a cost of living adjustment. This COLA cut has an obscure name – the chained-CPI – but it would do real damage by changing the formula used to calculate the COLA.

The important thing to know is that this change would cut the benefits of all beneficiaries, including current retirees, disabled workers, and others – even after politicians promised repeatedly that any changes to Social Security would not affect current beneficiaries. The COLA cut is a real threat to the financial security of every American who does currently or will rely on Social Security.



The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that switching to the chained-CPI could save the government $208 billion over ten years by reducing Social Security, veterans and other benefits, and by increasing revenues. More than half of this amount – $112 billion – would come from Social Security alone.

These earned benefits would be taken directly from beneficiaries, as the chart above shows. The average earner retiring at age 65 would get a $560 cut each year at age 75, and an almost $1,000 cut by age 85. By age 95, when Social Security benefits are probably needed the most, that person faces a staggering 9.2 percent cut. The chained-CPI will cut $1.6 trillion over Social Security’s 75-year valuation period – mainly from the oldest of the old, primarily women and disproportionately poor.

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/media/blog/2011/social-security-cola-cut-a-new-analysis-0

a chained CPI might be.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpisupqa.htm

"At lower levels, and for short periods of time, it is possible for the C-CPI-U to increase faster than the CPI-U."

The report was prepared by the Strengthen Social Security coalition made up of over 270 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans including:

National Organizations

AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
Alliance for Retired Americans
Alzheimer's Foundation of America
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Association of University Women
American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American GI Forum
American Medical Student Association
American Network of Community Options and Resources
American Postal Workers Union
Americans for Democratic Action, Inc
Americans United to Protect Social Security
B'nai B'rith International
Campaign for America's Future
Center for Community Change
The Claude Pepper Center
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Coalition on Human Needs
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Common Cause
Communication Workers of America
Democracy for America
Democratic Socialists of America
Dēmos
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Economic Policy Institute
Feminist Majority
Food Research Action Center
Frances Perkins Center
Generational Alliance
Generations United
Gray Panthers
Hispanic Federation
Institute for Puerto Rican/Hispanic Elderly, Inc.
International Association of Heat and Frost
Insulators and Allied Workers
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE)
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen
International Union, United Automobile,
Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers
of America
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA)
Latinos for Secure Retirement
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
League of Rural Voters
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
MANA, A National Latina Organization
MoveOn.org Political Action
NAACP
National Asian Pacific Center on Aging
National Association for Hispanic Elderly
National Association of Social Workers
National Organizations(Cont’d)
National Association of State Head Injury Administrators
National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc.
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
National Collaboration for Youth
National Council on Independent Living
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of Negro Women
National Council of Women's Organizations
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Hispanic Council on Aging
National Human Services Assembly
National Indian Council on Aging
National Nurses United
National Organization for Women
National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW)
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Senior Citizens Law Center
National Women's Law Center
National Women’s Political Caucus
OWL - The Voice of Midlife and Older Women
Pension Rights Center
ProgressiveCongress
Progressive Democrats of America
ProgressNow
Roosevelt Institute Campus Network
SER – Jobs for Progress, Inc.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE)
Social Security Disability Coaltion
Social Security Works
Sojourners
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees
The Arc
Transport Workers Union
UAW Local 2230
United Cerebral Palsy
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)
United States Student Association
United Steelworkers
USAction
Voices for America’s Children
Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW)
Women Employed
Working America
Working Families Win

And the report uses the data provided by:

1Congressional Budget Office, “Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options,” March 2011. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12085/03-10-ReducingTheDeficit.pdf
2 Analysis of data from the Social Security Administration Chief Actuary contained in a letter to Rep. Xavier Becerra, June 21, 2011. http://ssa.gov/oact/solvency/XBecerra_20110621.pdf
3 Social Security Administration Chief Actuary, private correspondence with Nancy Altman, Co-Chair, Strengthen Social Security Campaign, June 30, 2011.

But, if you want to describe that report as solely "one persons analysis" your comment won't have much credibility here. Especially since you probably haven't even read the report!

The full report in PDF format can be read at:

http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/CPI%20fact%20sheet%20with%20graphs%207-1-11%20FINAL.pdf

that funded the speculation.

I'm listening.

On well, facts are facts whether you recognize them or not.

http://www.nasi.org/sites/default/files/research/SS_Fact_Sheet_03_Shifting_to_a_Chained_CPI.pdf

The CBO analyzed a Chained CPI scenario. This doesn't mean we're moving to a chained CPI calculation for SS.

Whatever.

So you apparently believe that discussion about or opposition to proposed cuts in Social Security is pure mindless speculation and should not be a subject for discussion and debate until such cuts are signed into law by President Obama.

Is that about right?

But, do you care to vention an opinion on if a chained CPI would represent a cut in benefits .... or is that also mindless speculation no matter what the CBO says.

Do you have an opinion on anything regarding proposed cuts that you'd like to post or will you be waiting until after President Obama signs a budget cutting deal before tipping your toe in that hot water?

The CATO states that discussions about a chained CPI, surround imposing a stealth tax increase.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/chained-cpi-a-stealth-tax-increase/

Who to believe. Ho hum.

do YOU speak for what will be accepted "here?"

Pure arrogance.

He ain't the only one using "doublespeaK".

:toast:

should not even be on the table

the use of the collective "you" is in order. I've seen no evidence of independent thought on behalf of the OP.

It helps to have friends in low places....

I always knew why but at least it's out in the open now.

Keep shining light on the cockroaches.

The shifty language is already spreading here. One poster already told me point blank that adopting chained CPI is "not a cut," and I have seen at least two others brazenly challenge other DU-ers to "define a cut."

You are absolutely right. This is exactly how they can try to reduce future benefits while simultaneously denying that they "cut" Social Security.

We must make it clear that stealth cuts - whether through chained CPI, raising the retirement age, or any other method that reduces projected benefits - are just as unacceptable as direct cuts.