from The Hill – by Peter Kasperowicz – Dozens of House Democrats on Monday introduced a resolution that rejected President Obama’s proposal for calculating growth in Social Security benefits.
The resolution, H.Con.Res. 34, was sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), and co-sponsored by 81 other Democrats. It says it is the sense of Congress that “the Chained Consumer Price Index should not be used to calculate cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits.”
Obama used his 2014 budget plan to call for imposing a so-called chained CPI formula. That formula would reduce Social Security cost of living adjustments by taking into account alternative purchases people can make in order to avoid goods and services whose costs are rising quickly.
Since Obama’s budget was released, Democrats have criticized it as a way to shrink Social Security payments to seniors and have repeatedly rejected it in speeches on the House floor.
“We should not expect Rhode Island seniors to sacrifice their earned Social Security benefits to fix fiscal problems that they had no hand in creating,” Cicilline reiterated in a statement accompanying his resolution. “I am proud that so many of my colleagues are standing together in this effort with me, as original co-sponsors, and I look forward to helping lead the fight to protect our seniors by fiercely defending Social Security and Medicare benefits in the federal budget.”
The resolution finds that Social Security payments average about $14,000 per year, and that more than 53 million people receive them. It also adds that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that chained CPI would cut Social Security benefits by 0.25 percent, and would reduce outlays by $112 billion over the first decade.
While Obama proposed his plan as a way to help reduce the budget deficit, the resolution argues that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. Cicilline said the government should not be looking at Social Security as a source of funds to cut the deficit.
“Social Security isn’t an ‘entitlement program’ — it’s a promise our country has made that, after a lifetime of hard work, American seniors can enjoy their retirement years with peace of mind and economic security,” he said. “I will keep fighting to maintain these earned benefits for seniors, veterans, and individuals with disabilities.”
Social Security has been a retirement benefit in which every company and every worker had to pay into it by force by the US government. If those people who were chosen to serve the citizens had been more self disciplined and had set these moneys in a dividend making fund, we could be using the interest off that investment. By no means should these funds be used for any other purpose. In other words, overspending and wasteful spending has used our money for other things. The social security funds was squandered. Had those “ins’ had put this money into a dividend earning fund, the social security recipients would be drawing off the dividends and there would be plenty as the population ages. We Americans has murdered those babies that would be present day workers. We all are reaping the consequences for doing wrong. Taking unnecessary trips that cost thousand of dollars that belong to the citizens of our country. The government officials are paid by the citizens of our country. You work for us and you are being very undisciplined in using our money to satisfy your inflated ego. Cut our social security benefits and you bet there will be an uprising because SS is not budget item. It belongs to those who have paid for SS out of every paycheck we earned.
We are all going under because we have chosen the way that brings curse on our nation. We have become lawless, everybody does what is right in his own eye because we have forgotten the standard that brings prosperity. We have chosen the path which consequences is a curse on our country and our land.
Social Security has been turned into a huge WELFARE fund and that has to change! The only people who should be receiving Social Security money are those who put into the fund (or their minor dependents).
We MUST STOP giving Social Security money out as Welfare! Give the Welfare problem back to the states, then give the states assistance, if necessary, out of the general treasury.
Social Security money MUST BE PUT IN AN ACCOUNT BY ITSELF … NOT in the general tax fund.
Social Security must be preserved for those who were forced to contribute for decades, and NO ONE else.
I am a working man with little income, but I have looked at Obama’s way to reduce the budge by making the rich pay more and it will not reduce the deficet at all. Take every penny they make and it won’t put a dent in Obama’s budget. You need to think before you call out the rich for not paying what they should they already pay over 50% of what they make and we are still in a fix because of spending. Until they cut out the big money they spend no matter the amount they take in it won’t help at all. They have millions of agencies that are overlaping that could be cut out and then out budget would not be a problem. The rich is not the problem, over spending is the problem, so do some research before you jump on people who are not the problem.
I have always been a Republican and always voted that way, but they are about to lose me, I’m tired of hearing about the poor millionaires while they want to balance the budget on the back of my social security and military retirement, one of which I earned and the other I paid for. How about starting with not giving cell phones away, or by not providing any benefits to illegal aliens? How about defunding Obamacare?
Because of politics and the refusal of our elected politicians to be responsible with the money I sent them the past fifty years I have to try and get by on less than half the money I could have had at retirement. Now they want to cheat me out of even more. To make it worse at the time my wife and I thought we could sock a few bucks away with our kids off and on their own the politicians ruined the economy and the housing market with half baked scams that would have landed a private businessman in jail. So I now can’t save any money and my home which was my best investment most of my life has lost much of it’s value too. I never saw a broke politician unless he was on the way to prison and then they have money off shore for that. Good thing my health is good because they are stealing from me there too. My wife and I worked hard to have health insurance for our family and now they want to give it away at my expense. Isn’t there some way to go after Congress with the legal system? Elections don’t seem to make much of a difference.
Really glad to see that SOMEONE in Government is calling Social Security what it is….EARNED Benefits, NOT entitlement! Just because the government TOOK money out of Social Security when they were not ENTITLED to, and now they don’t want to pay it back, doesn’t mean they should take it out on the Seniors!