Pic Of The Moment: Chained CPI? No Thanks. The Older You Get, The Less You Get

[EarlG]

Follow @demunderground

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. K and R #1. n/t

[Autumn]

2. Earl. Thank you and may your holidays be

as blessed as we are for the gift of DU that you gave us.

[limpyhobbler]

3. thanks dude. For a minute I was scared DU was going to "officially" come down on the side of cutting

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[santamargarita]

5. Don't even pretend to go there. It's dead anyway I hope.

[FlyByNight]

6. K & R!

[libdem4life]

7. Well gosh, they eat less, right? (sarcasm) n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. So, this country does not respect babies, children, women or the elderly.

Got it.

[louis-t]

9. Death Panels anyone?

Maybe Soylent Green!

[Stonepounder]

10. How chained-CPI works.

So, the idea is that if the price of something goes up - like beef, instead of continuing to buy beef, seniors would switch to something cheaper - like chicken, so their actual cost of living doesn't actually go up. OK. So then when chicken goes up, we switch to, ummm, peanut butter. And when it goes up, we switch to cat food. And our cost of living still hasn't gone up. Yeah, I got it!

They don't call it the catfood commission for nothing.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. Thank you.

It's a bad proposal. We need to make sure our politicians know how we feel.

[4 more years]

12. Cat food for the white house

Who the hell said SS cola was on the table ? That's what you get when you re elect a bad poker player.

[Coyotl]

13. Pay for Bush's wars by starving the elderly! NOT gonna happen.

The uproar is reaching record decimal levels, thankfully.

[riverbendviewgal]

14. What is the logic in this?

Can someone explain this to me?

[Kip Humphrey]

15. How to begin turning Social Security in a Progressive Poverty Program.

[abelenkpe]

16. Thank you! nt

[MADem]

17. Killing 'em softly...plus, the CPI doesn't reflect consumer needs as they age. nt

[Progressive dog]

18. You're right, they should go to CPI-E

Won't this also lower the beginning benefit so that those at 45 will start at the decrease of those at 85 and so on?
Where is the fairness? A fair system would increase benefits to keep up with per capita income. Of course then the rich would have to be taxed at a fair rate.

[MADem]

23. A fair system would acknowledge a need for increased "health related" spending.

I'm not just talking about doctors, I'm talking about the things that elderly people need that young people do not, from replacement rubber tips for canes/walkers to incontinence products, to lozenges to combat dry mouth, or eye drops for dry eye, etc. A lot of this stuff is part of the "grocery bill" and isn't prescribed, but the person still needs the stuff to have a reasonable quality of life.

I'm not sure what the mechanics proposed were; I just know that CPI is always bullshit. You've got to cut cloth according to the measure, and the measure of an elderly person is very different from the measure of an individual in middle age.

They used a similar system to determine allowances for military personnel, and the shit they would put in the "shopping cart" as stuff an "average family" would use was straight out of Leave It To Beaver. It had no relation to the way families--particularly military families which are sometimes single parent or dual income with childcare required--actually lived. Years ago I worked that issue and tried to shake some sense into the idiots on the ASCs....didn't meet with much success but I did try.

[NorthCarolina]

19. K&R nt

[radhika]

20. It's not a budget, it's a HINT! n/t

[cui bono]

21. And a decrease in people's pocket books leads to less spending

which will weaken the economy.

It is absolutely insane to think of doing this while in a recession, or any time for that matter, especially when you are supposed to be a Dem.

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. Thank you!