Social Security: New Sneak Attack, Chained CPI, Again
Last edited Fri May 24, 2019, 02:42 PM - Edit history (1)
"Donald Trump's Sneak Attack on Social Security," Nancy Altman, Indep. Media Inst., Truthdig, May 22, 2019. EXCERPTS:
Donald Trump’s recent budget proposal included billions of dollars in Social Security cuts. The proposed cuts were a huge betrayal of his campaign promise to protect our Social Security system. Fortunately for Social Security’s current and future beneficiaries, he has little chance of getting these cuts past the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats. So Trump and his budget director/chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has long been hostile to Social Security, are trying another tactic to cut our earned benefits. They are pursuing a long game to reach their goal. In a divide-and-conquer move, the focus is not Social Security. At least, not yet.
Last week, the Trump administration revealed that it is planning to employ the so-called chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) in a way that does not need congressional approval. “Chained CPI” might sound technical and boring, but anyone who has closely followed the Social Security debate knows better. It has long been proposed as a deceptive, hard-to-understand way to cut our earned Social Security benefits. Trump plans to switch to the chained CPI to index the federal definition of poverty. If he succeeds, the impact will be that over time, fewer people will meet the government’s definition of poverty—even though in reality, they will not be any less poor. The definition is crucial to qualify for a variety of federal benefits, including Medicaid, as well as food and housing assistance.
The announcement was written blandly about considering a variety of different measures, but anyone who knows the issue well can easily read the writing on the wall. Now, Trump wants to apply the chained CPI to the calculation of poverty rates. This will directly hurt many seniors and people with disabilities by making it more difficult to qualify for Medicaid and other programs many of them rely on, including food and housing assistance. It is also a long-term threat to Social Security itself..
Trump thinks that he can get away with executing this long-game attack on Social Security quietly, while the media and public are focused on his tweets, name calling, and scandals..If you want to forestall another fight over cutting Social Security through the chained CPI, call your members of Congress, write to your local paper, and tell your friends: No chained CPI! No chained CPI for our earned benefits! No chained CPI for the most vulnerable among us!...Read More,
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/donald-trumps-sneak-attack-on-social-security/
> Related: "Trump May Redefine Poverty, Cutting Americans From Welfare Rolls," May 6, 2019, Bloomberg
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-may-redefine-poverty-cutting-americans-from-welfare-rolls/ar-AAAYIiJ?li=BBnbfcN The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs housing, food, medical and more.
