From TPM Reader DS …
In your comment ‘Obama’s Dangerous Game’ you forgot to mention that the curbing of Social Security benefits will have no effect on the budget. They are separate accounts. Everybody KNOWS this. Boehner boxed Obama into a corner where to keep the dialogue going, he had to lose something. He chose to lose me, a poor senior. To a lie. To what end?
Whether they rationalize it as “chained CPI” or “chained grocery store,” the end result will be a reduction in the $1000 a month that keeps me alive. Their result drives their process, name it what they will. The particular way they justify reducing my payments really doesn’t matter. “Chained CPI” is a fluff overlay, not the story – “reduced payments for Medicare and Social Security” is the story.
Suppose Social Security payments and Medicare payments instead were increased 10%? How would this affect the economy? Has anyone asked?
Without serious questions, then by a thousand nicks and cuts Social Security may be turned into another US Post Office. This at a time when it could be used instead to feed the economy from the bottom up. From the very bottom. An IV.
So Obama folds to the fake ‘austerity’ sales pitch, and you call it what?
