CPI Unchained

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!!  

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..

Obama's present offer to the GOP to forestall 'falling off' the so called 'fiscal cliff' is a already a disappointing sell out.  His offer contains a really ugly 'cave in' to the deficit hawks -the  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.  To start with the CPI, as far as most people are concerned, understates the real rate of inflation that they experience daily especially with regard daily necessities that fluctuate greatly like gas and food.  If "chaining CPI" will save the government money, it means that the computation will change and the COLAs will be smaller - so they are really unchaining it further to inflation. That is they will be rigging the CPI computations even worse then they already do. This means COLAS will lag further and further behind actual inflation - not good!  Some of the poorest people in this country are the elderly who are relying on their Social Security check to live on. So as time passes they will become successively poorer.  Also all Federal government workers, whose morale is already in the toilet, will slowly loose ground as annual raises and annuities also are subject to reduced annual COLAs.  At this point it's not clear who also would be affected and who wouldn't . Will the poorer SS recipients, disabled veterans, SSI recipients be given full COLAs while everybody gets reduced ones? What a mess that would be. Means testing your SS - bad!  In any case at this juncture in the negotiations it sounds  like a betrayal of  poor.  Again Obama seems to be accepting another Repubs bullshit premise,  that is SS is going bankrupt and that "entitlements" are the chief cause of The Deficit. 

It cannot be stated too often that Republicans only care about The Deficit when the Democrats are in the Whitehouse. The Democrats always become the fall guys and the Democrat President becomes the Janitor-in-Chief  assigned to clean up all the elephant shit the Repubs always leave behind. This long term plan, which is patently obvious, has been place since the glory days of St Ronnie. It  has always been to force the hapless Democrats to whittle away at the "paternalistic" and evil Welfare State.

Going on over the dreaded  Fiscal Cliff would be better than a sellout, especially if the Repubs can be made top  take the hit for the failure to reach an agreement. Obama's present offer already sucks and the Repubs still hate it. They hate it  because their boyz, the gazillionaires, will get tax increase going back to tax rates  that most of them got obscenely rich with anyway. Let's hope the Repubs under Boehner and his Plan B is so awful that Obama can let them take the balme for a fiasco they caused in the first place. The Fiscal Cliff was last ditch compromise to avoid a threatened default on US bonds engineered by the Repubs. 

 So as we go into 2013 and face the worse case scenerio - stiff taxes increases for every one including the rich pigs, all  government agencies get  brutal meat axe type reductions especially the bloated DOD -  and the Repubs get blamed for whatever hell breaks loose (we hope.) Of course it won't be that simple. Things never are ...