Dear “Chained-CPI”: When You’ve Lost the VFW, You’ve Lost America

Raising Medicare age is now off the table. The chained CPI needs to be off the table too. Not surprised at awareness among veterans, as this would hurt disabled veterans even more than SocSec beneficiaries, for the simple reason that they are on disability far longer than most people are on SocSec.

http://www.nationofchange.org/dear-chained-cpi-when-you-ve-lost-vfw-you-ve-lost-america-1355398183

The “chained CPI” is an attempt to camouflage deep cuts to Social Security and other benefits, along with tax hikes on middle class wages (but not for high incomes), in a forest of numbers and terminology.

Know who’s expert at camouflage? Veterans. And a whole lot of their organizations hate the “chained CPI.”

A wide range of organizations representing the nation’s veterans signed a joint letter to leaders in Congress which said “we are writing to express our opposition to changing the formula used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) because of the harmful effects it will have on veterans and Social Security benefits.”

The organizations signing on to the letter (17 in all) spanned generations, with the Vietnam Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It includes former enlisted personnel as well as the Military Officers Association of America. Gold Star Wives, an organization of widows and widowers whose spouses died while on active duty, was represented. And so was the VFW, or Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization that had traditionally been staunchly conservative.

Here’s a thought for politicians who might be considering the “chained CPI”: When you’ve lost the VFW, you’ve lost America.