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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's immoral no matter how you look at it.
If the President really thinks that chained CPI is some kind of answer, it's an immoral position. In fact, I haven't seen a single person on this website, even the "centrists", argue that it's a good idea or justifiable in any way except one.
What I have seen people say, over and over again, is that we need to trust the President. That it's strategy. He's got this.
But you know what? Even if the centrists are correct and this is a long term plan to make the Republicans look foolish, even if this is a game of "3D chess" that the President is going to win (debatable) , it's still immoral. Why? Because the poor and the elderly are the ones being used as the pawns. It's despicable.
I'm not saying I'm going to vote third party. I won't even say I've completely lost faith. But I will say I had an image of the President as a man with a moral compass, even if I didn't always agree with him. That's gone now. For good.
robinlynne
(15,481 posts)in 3 months he has lowered taxes on people earning 400,000 and corporations and dvidends. (The Bush tax cuts EXPIRED. Obama put them back in place twice already.) So we (the Dems) simultaneously lowert taxes on the rich while raising cost of living for the poor and cutting social safety nets.
who needs republicans?
just1voice
(1,362 posts)We are seen as nothing but numbers and as Rahm said, "F-ing retards". It's a severe problem for the people at the top, the elite, they sincerely believe they are better than the people and sincerely believe their own propaganda.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)it's 11 dimensional chess...bah humbug!
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)The poorest of the poor will be lifted above the poverty line. Those are the poorest elderly and the ones who are "hurting" at this moment being below the poverty line. They eat cat food right "now". What about them? What about morals now?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Why don't you explain in detail and with links what it is you are attempting to pawn off here?
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"They get a better COLA now". That is your comeback?
Tell me what COLA would do for someone below the poverty line, compared to being actually lifted above THE poverty line?
HarmonyRockets
(397 posts)You can start with this article:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173786/top-5-myths-about-chained-cpi-debunked#
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)Their analysis is that it cannot be viewed as anything other than a cut in benefits, and especially for the oldest and the poorest.
All a chained CPI does is say that people will buy cheaper and cheaper stuff as they get poorer and poorer, so instead of giving them money to buy the old stuff, we'll just give them enough to buy the cheaper and cheaper stuff.
Two problems: poorest don't have the ability to shift as readily: no transportation out of their immediate area to find these bargains, and no Internet access to order it online. Same for the oldest of the old - lack of mobility due to age, and again, lack of Internet access.
So no, the poor will not be lifted above the poverty line - the line will be moved so that they no longer are "officially" poor. This is what happened when we changed the definition of unemployed and cut the unemployment rate in half - magically. Trouble is, "discouraged" workers still don't have a job or money (their benefits have run out).
It's like changing the F on your report card to a B - hey, ma! Look! Happy for a moment, but the transcript still has the F, and you ain't going to college. How happy will ma be then?
I'm 61, and I wish people would just be honest about people my age and older - they hate us and would like to take us the gas chamber, but that conjures up negative images, so they will simply starve us in our houses and prevent us from getting decent medical care - same result.
Chained CPI is smoke and mirrors. Smoke gets in your eyes. When it gets in your lungs, it kills you.
Oh, and YES, I do hold a degree in economics. Thanks for asking!
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)I understand that it would take your savings from going cheaper over a higher priced product. That's where the loss over years accumulate. But we are talking about the poorest elderly living below the poverty line and being "lifted above" the poverty line.
"So no, the poor will not be lifted above the poverty line - the line will be moved so that they no longer are "officially" poor. "
Move the line. But be fair ok. Because right now their are elderly living below today's poverty line eating cat food.
"Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year.
The largest of these expenses is typically the rent required to live in an apartment, so historically, economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line affector. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_poverty_line
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)What they are really eating in our part of the country is beans and bread.
I own a small apartment complex where nearly all our tenants are 75+ years old. All worked their entire lives, and several are still working, because they draw a whole $947 a month from Social Security. After they pay our rent, which includes their electric and water bills, they have less than $350 to buy food, pay their medications, new socks if they need them for the whole month.
Forget owning a vehicle - no way with insurance and gasoline, even if paid for.
Most others live with their family, because most other rents are insanely high - 1 bedroom apartments are routinely $800+ with no utilities, with a requirement for first month, last month, and deposit to move in.
Just ordinary modest working people. Now why would anyone want to punish them for simply working their entire lives and doing the best they could?
Because you know, and I know, that Social Security has NO impact whatsoever on the deficit or debt, period. So these cuts, and that's what they are, are just for meanness. They are to mollycoddle a group of mean old bastards who hate and hate and yet somehow remain in office (Satan keeps his promises, apparently, although they always forget to ask for not being as ugly outside as they are on the inside.)
Mean people suck.
If the chained CPI actually goes into effect, I will act accordingly.
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)Compare a 61 year old near-retiree (me) with perfect cholesterol, 120/80 blood pressure, great sodium and all other counts, resting heart rate 54, never been in a hospital in my life except to be born, have my tonsils, appendix, and all the rest, except for a few teeth.
Now take one of my high school classmates - champion swimmer then, now confined to a wheelchair after having amputation from the shoulder down to control a horrible cancer and a stroke post-operation which left her paralyzed on her right side (yes, the one that was not removed).
No speech, no control over elimination at all, no ability to write, 24 hour care by paid attendants, because her husband died last year, and their only child died at 16 in a car wreck without issue. Now give us both the "average" amount required.
OR
48 people in a room who make zero dollars a year, the poorest of the poor. Bill Gates walks in, now we are all billionaires on average. Truth is, there's just one rich guy in the room, the rest still have nothing.
"Average" is one of the mean statistics.
that classmate....some people are dealt the worst cards
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)the public option during the health care debate. Something he and Nancy and many others in Congress promised was part of the deal and poof it was suddenly wiped off the table as all those same politicians then tried to convince us that there were so many other good things we didn't need the public option. Yes, we do need it. We need a choice. In this debate, we have a trust agreement from years ago about our Social Security. It's not to be changed to make a deal about a budget that has nothing to do with Social Security. I call foul.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Have been promoted.
Rahm Emanuel and the woman who helped him contrive the legal language are off to "Bigger and better things." He is now mayor of Chicago, and Liz Fowler is now a top executive at Wellpoint.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)forestpath
(3,102 posts)And hurting the poor and elderly - well, it doesn't get much more immoral than that.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Both times I voted for him, it was with a sense of resignation that he might not do much to help seniors and the poor, but he'd do more than any Republican. Never imagined that he would actively crusade to harm seniors and the poor, and that the media pundits would unanimously applaud him for it while jeering and laughing at the least among us.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)February '13: it's not happening, you fucking commies
April '13: you did this, you fucking commies
it reminds me of 80s Honduran far right trying to whip the people into a frenzy because 1) Libya was about to invade Honduras and 2) Reagan was a commie plant
no catracho was fooled by this
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)This is just true to form.
& R
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... ever had a moral compass. What he has done, repeatedly since in office, says he doesn't. I wish it weren't so, I had so much hope that he would be as advertised, that illusion has been destroyed.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)This country is in the middle of a wrenching awakening.
It's like waking up to a nightmare, isn't it? That day when the realization dawns, and you see what is really being done to us by those who pretend to work on our behalf. It's hard to accept that we have lived in a sea of corporate propaganda from birth, and that the government we were always told represents us and has our best interests at heart is actually exploiting us in a terrible way. And the party we always thought worked for us is, in reality, aggressively complicit in the betrayal.
We all live in the corporate Matrix, and waking up from it is painful as hell.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)"Wag the dog" incident out from under their buttholes.
No Korea, Iran, it doesn't even take a lot of imagination on their parts.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Triana
(22,666 posts)I agree. Even if the hideous thing never got implemented, it's abusive to use people's lives and their savings and futures as pawns in some political game.
Blue Owl
(49,934 posts)Break those chains of hate...