DailyKos: "A Non-Hysterical Progressive Analysis of so called Social Security Cuts on the Table"

[TheWraith]

I like to read and write about economics and finance but hesitate to do so because (1) it's hard to explain anything without explaining everything, and the draft diaries just get too long until I have to abandon them, (2) a lot of DKers have a lot invested in certain views about economics and finance that are not really open to empirical (ie factual) analysis, but instead are based on political commitments and emotion, and (3) despite how crazy the Republican Party is, once in a while Democrats, Republicans, technocrats and policy wonks actually agree on something, and even if the most credible progressive policy wonk institute says a particular assertion is true, if a Republican also says it's true, and someone on DK finds a link to said Republican saying such rare sane assertion, it becomes automatically discredited.

But today's hysteria over the "cuts" to Social Security on the proverbial political table and the even wilder assertion that the Obama administration is committing political suicide by discussing them, let along enacting them, has persuaded me to provide a dollars and sense (as well as economic theory) explanation of what's going on.

If you don't like economics, public finance or numbers, then let me not bury the lede and explain exactly what's on the table. If enacted, the average social security recipient would get 14 cents less of an increase per month, but only in a month in which the social security benefit actually went up by about $34. So the assertion being made in several diaries is that social security recipients will revolt because their average monthly benefit went up from $1,044 to $1,078.31 instead of $1,078.45. Of course someone would have to point out some highly technical macro economic measuring theory first, and then get them riled about about that monthly dime at a time when they are actually getting a net of more money. So yes, it does look like 11 dimension chess (offering the Republicans nothing of substance).

More at the link. Emphasis mine.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/07/992060/-A-Non-Hysterical-Progressive-Analysis-of-so-called-Social-Security-Cuts-on-the-Table