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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew Poll: Seniors Of Both Parties Revile Chained CPI - Joan Walsh/Salon
New poll: Seniors of both parties revile chained CPITwo-thirds of respondents over 50 say they're less likely to support anyone who backs Obama's proposal
BY JOAN WALSH - Salon
FRIDAY, APR 5, 2013 09:53 AM PDT
<snip>
On the news that President Obama’s budget indeed contains a highly unpopular proposal for Social Security cuts known as “chained CPI,” a new poll by the American Association of Retired Persons shows us exactly how unpopular it is.
The AARP reveals that 70 percent of voters age 50-plus oppose the use of the chained CPI to cut benefits, and two-thirds of them – including 60 percent of Republicans — say they would be “considerably less likely” to support a congressional candidate if he or she backed a new way of calculating consumer prices. And 84 percent of voters over 50 say Social Security has no place in budget-deficit discussions, since it is self-financed.
On every single question, Republicans lag only a point or two behind Democrats in their opposition to Social Security cuts.
Michael Lind explains why it’s such a bad deal on policy terms here. I’ve written about it many times, including here. The AARP opposes it on policy terms. Now its new survey shows how risky it is politically.
“The chained CPI reduction snowballs over time and would increase taxes for most taxpayers — at the same time that it cuts benefits for children, veterans, widows, retirees, and people with disabilities,” said AARP executive vice president Nancy LeaMond in a statement. “As this survey shows, older Americans oppose the chained CPI and they’ve historically made their opinions known to their elected officials.”
<snip>
More: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/new_poll_shows_many_hate_chained_cpi/
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santamargarita
(3,170 posts)
Autumn
(48,961 posts)who offered up SS. In a phony crisis that SS has had nothing to do with in any way.
Generic Other
(29,080 posts)
neverforget
(9,513 posts)austerity! Cat food for all! 
aandegoons
(473 posts)And likely 2016.
Obama: Mission Accomplished.
EC
(12,287 posts)representatives to make Obama put social security and medicare on the table? Their all rah, rah about the Ryan Budget which asks for even more ruination of the programs,so what is it they want? Maybe they better tell their reps to stop asking Obama to put this stuff on the table.
broadcaster75201
(387 posts)Polls are meaningless to the GOP. You don't need the majority of people on your side to maintain control, just enough. And all they have to do is keep throwing it against the wall and the drooling TeaBags will vote against the Socialist Negro and his Party.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)are meaningless to many dems, too.
0rganism
(25,642 posts)This is almost certainly political maneuvering. I doubt the mainstream republican voters are doing much pushing on this; rather, the party leaders see this as a way to completely discredit the POTUS. And it might just be working.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)I think average PUKE voters are low information sheeple. When their leaders talk about cutting "entitlements" they think they just mean Welfare.
They live in a delusional reality where they think it's other people's benefits who are going to get cut not theirs.
These people watch and believe Faux news stories for pete's sake.
I agree with you that the PUKE leadership is trying to discredit Obama. Note Boner's words, "If Obama thinks entitlements need reforming" they aren't owning that they are the ones asking for it. Boner's phrasing makes it sound like Obama is the one pushing for entitlement changes not the PUKES.
Obama has given them just what they need to sell that argument by putting Chained CPI and Medicare cuts in his budget. He is owning it and unfortunately by association making the rest of the Democratic party own it as well, as he is the symbolic head of the party for the rest of his Presidency.
eridani
(51,907 posts)The 1% is engaged in a bipartisan attack on the rest of us. The rest of us resent the hell out of that, also in a bipartisan way.
EC
(12,287 posts)the repub tea people and other repubs are out there screaming to cut entitlements...and I'm sure they just don't know that means social security and medicare. I even heard Paul Ryan say "no that's not we are talking about, those on ss and medicare aren't the takers we are talking about" so they make their constituents believe that "entitlements" means welfare and food stamps - not ss and medicare.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)that most PUKE constituents are just too stupid to realize Eddie Munster and Boner mean SS and Medicare, not just welfare or food stamps.
Jakes Progress
(11,213 posts)If this passes, it will be Obama's cut to SS. That's the way it is. The republicans who love this idea will run against Democrats who vote for it. They are hypocrites and liars. But they will win elections on this.
broadcaster75201
(387 posts)Add to that the fact that Obama is a Reagan Conservative and we have the disaster that now exists.
CountAllVotes
(22,214 posts)My parents both lived to be "old" people and I am quickly becoming an "old" person myself.
No one in my family nor I ever voted for a repig.
NEVER.
Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 6, 2013, 04:08 PM - Edit history (2)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022618192
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Yea that's just what I wanted ...to be lumped in with repukes.
gulliver
(13,985 posts)They voted for Republicans, and that is the only reason there even is a chained CPI. Kick the Republicans out of the House and we have FDR politics. As for the seniors who voted Republican, we should do our best to punish them. Let them have the Republican idea of Social Security they voted for.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Obama raised it. Obama and the Supreme Court are supposed to be checks, balances on Congress.
Obama is failing to act as a check and balance on Congress. His power under the Constitution is to veto bills.
Last time I checked, he had only used his veto twice. Obama is not the first president to make these kinds of compromises, bad deals with a Congress out of control, but that is no excuse.
Obama has to stand up for the American people against the idiot Republicans in Congress. He isn't doing it.
What about the debt?
End or renegotiate trade agreements. Put high tariffs on a lot of stuff coming in and use the tax revenue to fund a rebirth of clean industry and infrastructure in the US plus fund Social Security and Medicare.
Whether you chain the CPI or impose import taxes, you lower the standard of living in the US. We will not be able to buy so much junk from third world slave-shops if we have to pay import taxes on it.
On the other hand, if you introduce chained CPI which will affect only the incomes of lower middle class and poor Americans, we will not be able to buy so much.
Either way you shrink the buying power of Americans. The chained CPI shrinks it at the older end -- people who are not working and have no means of increasing their incomes.
Import taxes would shrink it for everyone at every level.
Neither method is fun. I would prefer import taxes.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... so much as one nickel, it will be the last time any member of the Democratic Party gets a vote from me.
pscot
(21,044 posts)What is the GOP incentive to deal? First, getting the signature of a Democratic president on a bill reducing entitlements would be a victory for a generation’s worth of Republican candidates. Casting GOP politicians as Granny-bashers would be harder to do after a Democratic White House tweaks Medicare and Social Security. Second, even token reforms by Obama in 2013, opens the door to deeper entitlement changes in the future
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)if that's the way it works, and there is a bipartisan agreement, then at least that's a bright side. That might be the last we'll hear of it then.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)If they had asked if Social Security increases should be based on the Consumer Price Index the poll results would be different. ESPECIALLY since there hasn't been a decent cost of living increase in years. Under Bush they skipped a lot of them and ANYTHING rather than nothing could have sounded like an improvement.
"Chained CPI" had to have been a focus group product worthy of Frank Lunz.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Otherwise, to paraphrase Rahm, where else are dissatisfied seniors going to go?
IrishAyes
(6,151 posts)It's a tad long for a mere reply to another post, but I don't want to make it another thread either. So if anyone feels I erred in posting it here, hey - cut me a little slack, ok? The decision was a tossup. And remember the letter was originally addressed to an extreme rightwing readership.
................................................................................................
Dear Editor and Gentle Readers:
The mere phrase 'chained CPI' used to give me heart palpitations. Having studied the matter more thoroughly, however, let me tell you why I feel well recovered now. It's not the crushing disaster as popularly portrayed in conservative and even allegedly liberal media. What's being offered (and has been for about 2 years at least) is far more akin to a guaranteed floor for the oldest and therefore often neediest among us. We've seen in the past that many years there's been no COLA increase at all and we've actually been slowly losing ground. So let your minds rest at ease, unless you prefer the hysterical high that certain politicians like to shovel at the electorate. I realize the popular conspiracy theories - Obama's a gun grabbing commie from Kenya or even outer space, etc etc, take your pick of many - might have a certain allure and offer a handy peg on which to hang misguided hatred. But they're as bad for our overall health as chewing firecrackers.
Other headline grabbing tactics dear to GOP and media hearts alike declare unequivocally that President Obama wants to cut Social Security and that the nation is broke. Wrong on both counts. As people increasingly feel that sequester kick in the rear, they should at last begin to see where their true best interests lie and demand relief from the GOP reps presently holding them hostage in the name of protecting every last penny of the ultra-rich to their last breath. If the GOP rebels against Norquist and the abominable Koch brothers, it will deal a self-inflicted death blow to the party at large; there's so little holding it together now except the principle of bleeding the poor to protect the top 1% who've been rejecting a more equitable share of the burden and thereby stealing the rest of the country blind anyway.
Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist - or even the best and smartest man in the White House since Lincoln - to see how the GOP has boxed itself in. President Obama has absolutely no intention of stealing THEIR program of wrecking social security. But he knows what they want, and when the tantalizing possibility dangles before their greedy eyes and they STILL back the 1% against the middle and working class, then they've jumped in the pickle jar all on their own. I give well-meaning conservatives credit for perhaps eventually seeing that. The Weeper of the House can beat that drum about President Obama wanting to starve the poor til doomsday and it won't make it true one bit.
Even if hell froze over and the GOP agreed to President Obama's current budget proposal, and stopped kissing the Kochs' and Norquist's sitting down place, the possible chained CPI would start out with a miniscule reduction at most, one easily corrected as soon as cooler heads prevail. Social Security is not in undue danger any time soon, and as for the long run, the tweaks needed there are minor compared to the benefits to be realized. Stopping Congress from raiding the fund for their own uses would be a great start. Lift the earnings cap, maybe raise the witholding tax for top earners just a tad, and nobody would have to work until they're 75 or 80 even, just to find out too late that it's a shell game Paul Ryan and his ilk have been wanting to trick us with.
So I ask you all again, please; lay down any unreasonable fear you might have been fed against a great man who's working his heart out and risking his life every day to improve this nation's physical, moral, and financial health. He doesn't want your legal firearms and he won't be sending drones after Americans (law abiding or otherwise) on American soil. But if you are and choose to remain addicted to wild conspiracy theories as a handy excuse for blind hatred, well, I just don't know what to do for you except pray and refuse to hate you back.
PS: Please don't anyone think my statements above mean that I advise falling asleep at the wheel. I myself sign every petition against a chained CPI that I can find, although only once each petition. We all need to raise a loud and coordinated shout against chained CPI itself; I'm just suggesting we keep our heads while we're about it and don't mistake this tactical chess move for something it isn't. That would be just as harmful to the body politic as silence.
IrishAyes
(6,151 posts)I fully expect severe castigation from many fellow DU members as well. I didn't say those things blindly.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And, like Obama's proposal, very wrong.
The chained CPI will have disastrous economic effects, and not just for the elderly. It puts the brakes on the economy in a way that will be detrimental for all ages.
Go look at the hairdresser's shop down the street. Who is in there? Yes. Some girls getting ready for the prom. The occasional small child getting a trim. But it's the old ladies who no longer can really do much more than get a comb through their hair who spend the most time in there, who keep that hairdresser in business.
It's the rinse and color crowd, the perm that will last three months crowd of over 50s, even over 70s who keep a lot of Americans in their businesses and jobs on Main Street.
What else is on Main Street? Bars and chain-food restaurants.
And where do people shop? At big box stores.
The bars, restaurants and big boxes pay lousy wages. A hairdresser may be able to make a living, not necessarily a good one, but a living.
The chained CPI will have a cumulative effect on the economy that will be very negative.
John2
(2,730 posts)any of this political maneuvering. The people pushing for these cuts are Wall Street, the corporate media and extremists that hate Obama for other reasons. There are Democratic politicians in Congress that are attached to Wall Street and corporations. Greed is what is pushing them. Obama thinks he has to compromise with them because most of these institutions and people control what happens in the economy.
There is enough money to create new investments but it is those people holding the economy hostage. If you look at this on a smaller scale, it is like the NBA owners versus the NBA players. Unions are not the only ones that have unionized, but these corporations have also. They have spent millions, even billions of dollars to control Congress. There is really no competition when these corporations monopolize. They create organizations that are too big to fail. The only competitor left is the Federal Government. It really doesn't come down to the President but Congress. People supporting the right wing Republicans are really the ones to blame because they are not voting for their own interests. They are voting for the interests of people like the Kochs.
It will be counter productive to target the President because the President isn't responsible for legislation. The Republicans and Congress want you to believe that. The public has it within their power to control the Congress. The best solution is to get rid of the Republican Congress period. You send the Republican Congress a message in 2014, then the rest of those politicians will get the message. Regardless of the Gerrymandering, it is people that vote. Those people in these red districts need to be educated who the real enemy is. Take the whole Social Security and Medicare issue, and tie it around the Republicans' necks in their districts like an albatross. Forget about this compromise garbage and think about 2014. We are already over three months into the year. There are plenty od Republican Governors right now in swing or Blue states, the Democrats can go after in 2014.
NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)it's about the 1%....it's ALWAYS about the 1%. Thank the DLC/New Dems/Conservadems...whatever the hell they want to call themselves this week. think things will change? Not likely...folks who are disgruntled over Obama's right of center policies are willing, and even eager, for "Hillary" for 2016. Hillary, a conservative DLC member along with her husband. The conservatives will have their way in the end. Goodbye American middle class....what's left of you anyway.
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)vote for Rmoney? Apparently they weren't at all concerned about SS and other benefit cuts then.
It's about time those seniors woke the fuck up and started thinking about how who they vote for actually affects them.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)because they believed (apparently rightly so) that Obama wanted to cut Social Security.
I thought it strange then, but I'm not so sure now.
Apparently Obama does want to cut Social Security.
Obama built his campaign on a following of young, mostly college, students. I have always felt that he had very little sympathy for those of us who are seniors.
But even I am shocked at the callousness of his proposal, shocked that as a Democrat he could propose these cuts, insidious cuts, to Social Security.
He gave away too much to the 1% in his dealings with Boehner last year. The taxes on the 1% should go back to what they were pre-Eisenhower for a while. That would get us back in the black.
TomCADem
(17,837 posts)...even greater reductions and benefits, tried to privitize SS under Bush, and strongly support the cuts even without corresponding tax increases to make the system more solvent.
daybranch
(1,309 posts)who favors this or thinks it is even advisable? Who? What economic theory says that taking money from the hands of those who earned it and giving tax cuts to the rich makes for a vibrant economy? Who?
President Obama was elected due to the belief that he was a progressive working for the people. With this action, he could not have beaten Hillary or any other democrat.
He shames us and we weep. His sad legacy is assured unless the republicans refuse the deal again, and he reminds us he was only bluffing.
If this chained CPI comes to be, we democratys will not attract volunteers for his agenda. The widespread disappointment will hurt all future progressive issues. Is this what he wants?
At this moment, the President is asking people to hep institute his agenda through Organizing for America. Call your local OFA group and ask them to complain. If they will not, Dean has a real democratic group called Democracy for America. And Move-on is fighting this too.
This chained CPI trick hurts everyone but the extrmely rich. Veterans, Government retirees, those on social security, those on disability. It wil not stop there. It will be followed by retirement systems in every business field in the country if they are allowed to do it.
Obviously the President does not need any more money, and while I welcome his willingness to cut his own salary and donate it to charity, it ain't the same as the cutback to GS-9s with children to support or the majority of other civilians.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Our national debt is not the problem.
Joblessness and the huge disparity in wealth between rich and poor are the problems (and third: our deteriorating environment).
What bills has the House brought up on jobs lately?
That should be their focus. Jobs, the environment and the disparity in wealth.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)be they Democrat or Republican on one thing. The majority of us think Chained CPI is a really SUCKY IDEA!
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Maybe they figure any changes won't affect them. I don't know.