The Election Is Over -- We Can Now Talk Social Security

     With the election over, Social Security is starting to come up more frequently in public discussions. Ironic, isn't it, that Social Security is discussed more after the election than before. Here are some items I've noticed:

• Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, has said emphatically since the election that "We are not going to mess with Social Security." 
• There was a rally featuring Democratic politicans and labor leaders yesterday in Philadelphia opposing Social Security cuts. 
• The AARP has sent a post-election letter to members of Congress and the President opposing the chained CPI concept. The chained CPI method is a sneaky way of cutting Social Security benefits by using a different less favorable method of computing the inflation adjustment in Social Security. Over time, this would amount to a significant reduction in Social Security benefits. 
• Peter Orszag, who was President Obama's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is talking up raising the normal retirement age even further and also cutting Social Securtiy benefits fairly dramatically -- but only years into the future. Easy for Orszag to propose. He's making millions of dollars a year on Wall Street.