"Chained CPI" Americans (across the board) GET IT: [View all]

[Faryn Balyncd]

"In order to strike a budget deal, would you accept Changing the way Social Security benefits are calculated so that benefits increase at a slower rate than they do now or is this something you would find unacceptable?"

The December Washington Post/ABC poll :


60% of all adults oppose (60% to 34%)
57% of registered voters oppose (57% to 36%)
68% of Democratic voters oppose (68% to 26%)
54% of Republican voters oppose (54% to 40%)
56% of Independents oppose (56% to 36%)
65% of liberals oppose (65% to 29%)
57% of moderates oppose (57% to 38%
58% of conservatives oppose (58% to 33%)



It would appear that Americans across the board can see with their own eyes the reality that returning Congressman Alan Grayson pointed out in his recent DU post: that the current CPI calculation methodology ALREADY UNDERSTATES inflation.

It would appear Americans are unwilling to be fooled again by those who believe they can dress up the slashing of earned benefits as "technical" accounting adjustments.

That scam has been long ago exposed: A few years after the Boskin Commission slashed SS benefits by rigging CPI to understate inflation, Greg Mankiw, chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2003, seeing no reason at the time to continue the charade, publicly admitted the truth everyone already knew: “The debate about the CPI was really a political debate about how, and by how much, to cut real entitlements.”

On the issue cutting Social Security by means of again cooking the CPI calculation books, Americans across the board are in agreement, with the House Progressive Caucus, with the AFL-CIO, the AARP , MoveOn.org, Disabled American Veterans.





This appears to be a defining moment.

The Republican strategy is clear: Demand that DEMOCRATS initiates, pass, and OWN the issue of slashing Social Security. Regardless of how much Republican leaders may want to cut Social Security, through chained CPI or otherwise, they are unwilling to be the party to propose and own the issue. Their recent plan avoided "chained CPI" like the plague. The Republican strateg is to manipulate Democrats into betraying their base.




Will a disgraced & defeated Republican Party now succeed in manipulating Democrats to do such a thing?


Will we learn from the past?


In 1997, as the Boskin Commission's fraudulent rigging of CPI was on the verge of implementation, The Atlantic published an eerily prescient "How to Re-Write Economic History" which illustrates the profound attraction that cooking the books has for politicians:

“Given the questionable intellectual foundations of the Boskin Commission's findings, the commission's high standing in Washington requires explanation. Both Democrats and Republicans have been keen to see its recommendations adopted, because they provide a potentially uncontroversial way to achieve deficit reduction. Raising taxes is unpopular, and little discretionary government spending is left to be cut. Restating the CPI as a measure of cost-of-living inflation offers an easy way to lower Social Security payments through reduced COLAs and raise tax revenues through reduced exemptions. The hope is that the CPI can be presented as an apolitical and boring technical issue that voters won't notice.

“Revising the CPI would get the Republicans off the hook of deficit reduction, while simultaneously advancing the interests of business. This, however, would occur at the expense of working Americans and the elderly. Revising the CPI would get the Democrats off the same hook, but at the cost of another shameful desertion of the constituencies they claim to represent.”


- - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97apr/econhist.htm