It was very disappointing to read that Obama's
present offer to the GOP to avoid 'falling off' the so called 'fiscal
cliff', contains a really ugly 'cave in' to the deficit hawks - his innocuous
sounding offer to 'chain the CPI'. This means that the Cost of Living
Allowances (COLA) that kicks in every year based on 'official
inflation', the Consumer Price Index (CPI), will be lowered. First of
all the CPI, as far as most people are concerned, understates the
real rate of inflation they experience daily especially with regard to expenses on necessities like gas and food, commodities whose prices fluctuate greatly. If 'chaining CPI' will save the
government money, it means that the computation for
COLAs have to be smaller - so they are really unchaining it to inflation. Another case of Orwellian doublespeak. They will be rigging the CPI computations even more than they already do. This
means COLAS will lag ever further behind actual inflation - not good! This will be especially painful if inflation comes roaring back as some predict. Some
of the poorest people in the US are the elderly who rely solely on
their Social Security checks to survive. So as time
passes they will become ever more desperately poor. Also all Federal government workers, whose morale is already in the toilet, will slowly
loose ground as their pay is subject to annual
COLAs as will retired Federal workers. It's not clear who will and who
won't be affected. Will the the poorer SS recipients, disabled veterans, SSI recipients be spared and receive a higher COLA? Will this lead to means testing on those receiving SS benefits? Not good!
Going on over the "dreaded" Fiscal Cliff would be better than a sellout especially if the Repubs can be made to take the hit for the failure to reach an agreement. Obama's offer already sucks and buys into the right's devious intentions, and the Repubs still hate it. They hate it because 'their boyz,' the gazillionaes, will get their tax rates raised back to the rates they paid in the 1990s, a tax rate that allowed most of them to get obscenely rich anyway!!
Going on over the "dreaded" Fiscal Cliff would be better than a sellout especially if the Repubs can be made to take the hit for the failure to reach an agreement. Obama's offer already sucks and buys into the right's devious intentions, and the Repubs still hate it. They hate it because 'their boyz,' the gazillionaes, will get their tax rates raised back to the rates they paid in the 1990s, a tax rate that allowed most of them to get obscenely rich anyway!!
A lot is at stake here. Many are unhappy with this concession by Obama and offer alternatives. Will he remove this odious offer or will more concessions follow? Or will Obama stand up against these crazed maniacs? We shall see..
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