There are now multiple press reports that President Obama will agree to a fiscal deal that enacts a so-called ai???Chained CPIai??? to calculate Social Security and veteransai??i?? benefits. Under this plan, beneficiaries would get cuts in their cost of living adjustments. Outraged Congressional Democrats have been speaking out for days against these cuts.
The cuts to Social Security benefits under such a recalculation would amount to about $112 billion over ten years.
Let’s put this in perspective. In the offer Obama gave to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), he also put $100 billion of Pentagon spending cuts on the table for the same period.
That means that Obama offered to cut a program that doesn’t add a penny to the deficit — Social Security — by more than the single largest drain on discretionary spending, the Pentagon.
We did polling in the swing states of New Hampshire and Virginia and found that voters overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Social Security benefits while they support cutting defense spending.
Obama should listen to the people.
We set up an ActBlue page to highlight and reward bold progressive members of Congress who are speaking out publicly against Social Security benefit cuts.Ai??Check them out and donate $3 to them here.
Click hereAi??to pledge to hold any Democrat who agrees to a deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits accountable.
Click hereAi??to call your Member of Congress and demand that they oppose this bad deal.
Slash all military spending, including veteran benefits. Veteran benefits are unearned. Veterans get those for free. That is wrong. Why should the United States spend tens of thousands of dollars training anyone to perform meaningless tasks, then buy them a house and pay for a university education after they are discharged?
We need a moral budget! One that is a statement of our values and desire to reduce human suffering and poverty, our desire to create a broad based economic growth that helps All Americans.
That must exclude cuts to Social Security and include cuts to the bloated Military budget!
http://liberalscreatingprogress.com/a-common-sense-budget-solution/ my latest article on the Cliff deal.
Orrin Hatch (Repug) confessed that with the bipartisan partnership of Max Baucus (Democrat) they recently and secretly passed a bill forbidding Medicare to negotiate Amgen’s dialysis drug prices for two more years, value: $500 million. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/02/fiscal-cliff-deal-amgen-atch_n_2607175.html
Meanwhile, Obama is begging for a delay in cutting financial support for many of the social programs that Mid America needs to survive. Yet he never mentioned or publicly condemned, this and other ongoing, secret deals to drive up the cost of Medicare and the deficit. Why is he willing to pass on our personal investments in SS and Medicare to some of the most profitible corporations in the world? We deserve his honest answers.