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TELL THE WHITE HOUSE: STOP THE SNEAK ATTACK ON SOCIAL SECURITY!
As soon as I read about the new proposal for measuring inflation and cost of living increases for Social Security, I thought, “Oh, here we go again.”
This particular bit of bipartisan trickery preoccupied the Obama administration, and before that, the Bush administration. Each time, we successfully fought it. (I wrote about it so many times that just hearing “chained CPI” triggers me.) Now we have Donald Trump embracing the same back-door policy to cut not just Social Security cost of living increases (although that’s the big one), but basically any government program whose benefits are tied to the cost of living. Over 10 years, it could also kick a million families out of health care and food assistance programs.
Oh, and it’s a tax hike. Taxpayers will be kicked into a higher tax bracket at a lower income level. It won’t affect anyone in the highest bracket because they’re already there. And guess what else is affected? If you’re buying health insurance via the ACA, and you’re pushed into a higher bracket, your premiums go up!
This would also change the calculations of how many people actually live in poverty and make far fewer citizens eligible for the help they need. In other words, they’re going to stop counting poor people, and claim that they fixed poverty. What a cynical move in an election year.
The chained CPI (Consumer Price Index) is a way of calculating the cost of living by incorporating ways that consumers save money by switching to cheaper goods. It may sound good to the untrained ear, but it’s not. Because they’re not really trying to be accurate, they’re using it as a political tool to undermine government programs.
Any change like this is required to be done through legislation. But the Trump administration plans to simply change the regulation -- and then fight it out in court. In the meantime, he’ll be bragging about “the lowest poverty rate ever.”
So we have to fight back now. Please sign the petition and let this administration know we won’t back down on this.
Thanks,
Susan Madrak
Consumers United For Fairness
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