There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently
about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform
models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical
issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially over the
last few decades. It concerns how the cost of living is calculated.
How does the administration justify not giving a cost of living
increase to Social Security recipients this year?
According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation,
life has gotten cheaper for the first time in decades. If the
government can show statistically that the cost of living has
gone down, not up, then they can make the case for not giving
a cost of living increase to social security recipients. But
does this match reality? Using older calculations of CPI, the
cost of living has actually increased — by roughly 5 percent!
The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is a calculation based on the
average price of a fixed basket of goods that was initially
designed to help businesses adjust for inflation. The government
eventually started using it to determine cost of living adjustments
for entitlement programs. Couple that with politicians’
discovery that they could raid the social security trust fund
to pay for new spending programs, and you have a perfect storm
to deny seniors what they were promised, while hiding the true
size of the deficit. For politicians, it is a win-win.
For seniors, it is a different story. Economist John Williams
of Shadow Government Statistics has estimated that if the original
methodology of CPI had not changed, Social Security checks would
be nearly double what they are today. This represents a lot
of money that politicians have been able to literally steal
from seniors, to spend on their own wasteful programs. One example
of how they do this is to substitute hamburger for steak, which
lowers the average price of that basket of goods. But living
on hamburger, or maybe dog food, instead of steak does not represent
a constant standard of living. This renders the measurement
virtually meaningless, even though politically it comes in very
handy.
I have introduced legislation to keep politicians in Washington
from ever raiding the Social Security trust fund again. HR 219
The Social Security Preservation Act would assure that all monies
collected by the Social Security Trust Fund would only be used
in payments to beneficiaries, or be placed in interest bearing
certificates of deposit. This would at least stop the bleeding
of the fund, and take away some incentive to tease and torture
the numbers in order to give seniors the minimal amount. This
would also cut off a source of funding for government growth,
so it is not likely to get easy support from many politicians.
It is bad enough that Washington imposes high payroll taxes
on American workers. The least Congress could do is use the
tax dollars for their stated purpose. Instead, seniors will
have a harder and harder time trying to survive on a fixed income
in an economy based on variables and deception. For them, it
is too late to start over. Today’s young people will be
forced to pay into the system for years to come. The first step
towards solving the impending crisis facing Social Security
is to stop politicians from raiding the trust fund and to significantly
cut federal government spending.
"When the people find they can vote themselves
money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Fall Of The Republic - Buy
the DVD here
