Bernie Sanders: Chained CPI: An economic and moral disaster

[eridani]

http://thehill.com/special-reports/state-of-the-union-february-2013/282395-chained-cpi-an-economic-moral-disaster

How many candidates for Congress last year won on the following platform?

1. That Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are too generous. Social Security should be cut over the next two decades by more than $1,000 a year for 85-year-old widows living on $1,200 a month.

2. That benefits earned by disabled veterans as a result of losing their arms, legs or eyesight in Iraq and Afghanistan are too generous. Disabled veterans’ benefits should be cut over the next 15 years by more than $1,400 a year.

3. That working families and the middle class don’t pay enough in taxes. We need to enact an across-the-board tax increase that disproportionately hurts workers making between $30,000 and $40,000 a year.

Answer: None.

And yet all of these things will happen if Congress changes the way inflation is calculated by switching to a consumer price index (CPI) designed to lower cost-of-living adjustments.

The so-called “chained CPI” is Washington shorthand for one of the most-talked-about cuts favored by Republicans and some Democrats.

[russspeakeasy]

1. Maybe dirty hairy and the turtle have a handshake deal.

That can save us all.

[ProSense]

2. Not a single

"And yet all of these things will happen if Congress changes the way inflation is calculated by switching to a consumer price index (CPI) designed to lower cost-of-living adjustments. "

...Senate Democrat should vote for such a proposal. In fact, they should be out in force pushing Senator Begich's proposal.

Dem Senator Introduces Bill To Lift Social Security’s Tax Cap, Extend Its Solvency For Decades
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021871773

Reintroduce it in this Congress and mention it in every release denouncing the chained CPI.

[MotherPetrie]

4. Even more important, the president needs to permanently back off chained CPI

So those Dems don't have to fight HIM as well as the Repugs on it.

[theaocp]

5. It's what he wants.

Why is this so hard for some to grasp? He keeps telling them that's what he wants to do, but they keep telling everyone to wait until he actually does it for proof. Talk about hero-worship. Sheesh.

[ProSense]

7. The most important thing is that it doesn't pass the Senate.

It's like filibuster reform. People seem to forget that Congress has a role to play.

There are 55 members of the Democratic caucus, with fewer conservative Senators than the last Congress.

[MotherPetrie]

3. K&R

[ReRe]

6. Well...

...why don't we encourage PO to tell the American People what the definition of "Chained CPI" is.... Who's going to tell the people? Who? I'm telling you...it's not nice to fool the American People. You think PEOPLE don't like what's going on up there now? Dems might have gotten away with dancing over that line before, but I pitty the day that they cross over the line on anything relating to Medicare or Social Security.

[woo me with science]

8. K&R

[woo me with science]

9. kick