"Specifically, what is it Obama should do that he hasn't already done?"

[markpkessinger]

127. From an accounting/budgeting perspective, chained CPI is technically not a cut. BUT . . .

. . . for an elderly person relying in whole or in part on Social Security to meet his or her living expenses (which is to say the real world, as opposed to the abstract world of the budgeting process), it most certainly IS a benefit cut. It seems, at first glance, like a very small cut, but by changing the formula for calculating COLA increases from one based on the standard CPI to one that is based on the chained CPI, that "small" cut has a cumulative effect over the years. After 15 or 20 years, the difference in what a person would have received under the existing formula, versus that under the proposed, chained CPI formula, becomes quite significant. You can say it's "not a cut" all you want, but the bottom line is, recipients will receive less money than they would have otherwise.

Now to your point about Carter, Clinton and Tip O'Neill, all three of those men served in a very different time, and a very different economy, than the one we find ourselves in today. When they were in office, tax rates on the wealthiest segment of our citizens was not at a 70-year low as they are today. The 401(k) scam had yet to completely overtake traditional pension plans, and wealth inequality was nowhere near the all-time high it has reached today. Thus, in this, our current, context, a proposal that will have the effect of reducing benefits (even if it is not, in a technical accounting sense a 'cut', becomes an issue of fundamental fairness and economic justice.