Jul 8, 2011

Report From House Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

From Dow Jones:
Lawmakers and witnesses diverged over the implications of switching how the Consumer Price Index is calculated at a Friday hearing of the House Ways and Means Social Security panel. Some experts argued that changing to a different indexing method could be seen as a technical fix that more accurately reflects the true rate of inflation, while others stressed that such a move could disproportionately burden women and those who depend the most on Social Security.
Switching to a "chained CPI," which takes into account consumers' changes in behavior when prices rise, and translates into a slower rate of inflation, has been floated as a potential way to help close the federal deficit in the negotiations over increasing the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they think Chained CPI is so great, let's take the salaries of those in Congress and tie their increases to Chained CPI. Better yet, let's reverse the raises they've given themselves over the last 20 years and switch those raises to Chained CPI. I don't think they would be so hot on Chained CPI afterwords.

Anonymous said...

Your point is well taken except that most career Congressmen don't become wealthy from their salaries. They acquire influential and wealthy "friends" or donors who help them ease their burdens in mysterious ways. Taxpayers would get a bargain if they paid Congress twice what they are paid now if we could eliminate the influence buyers

Anonymous said...

Buying influence is just a fancy name for bribery, and as such they should all be serving time on a CHAIN gang doing hard labor. At least that way, we might get some potholes in the streets fixed.