Lindsey Graham says Obama came close to cutting a "mini Simpson-Bowles deal" on Social Security

[ND-Dem]

17. Thanks for the verification. Found on p. 46:

In the interest of achieving a bipartisan deficit
reduction agreement, beginning in 2015 the Budget
would change the measure of inflation used
by the Federal Government for most programs
and for the Internal Revenue Code from the standard
Consumer Price Index (CPI) to the alternative,
more accurate chained CPI, which grows
slightly more slowly.

Unlike the standard CPI,
the chained CPI fully accounts for a consumer’s
ability to substitute between goods in response
to changes in relative prices and also adjusts for
small sample bias. Most economists agree that
the chained CPI provides a more accurate measure
of the average change in the cost of living
than the standard CPI.

Switching to the chained CPI, which will reduce
deficits and improve Social Security solvency, has
been proposed in almost every major bipartisan
deficit reduction plan put forward over the past
several years, including the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal
Commission plan, the Bipartisan “Gang of
Six” plan, and the Domenici-Rivlin Bipartisan
Policy Center plan.

The President has made clear that any such
change in approach should protect the most vulnerable.
For that reason, the Budget includes
protections for the very elderly and others who
rely on Social Security for long periods of time,
and only applies the change to non-means tested
benefit programs. The switch to chained CPI will
reduce deficits by at least $230 billion over the
next 10 years.


"Non-means tested" includes SS, which is given to everyone, poor or rich, who worked enough to qualify.