Why Democrats Must Break With Obama on Social Security Cuts

thenation.com — There are a lot of complicated ways in which to describe the schemes being floated by President Obama and congressional Republicans to abandon the traditional Consumer Price Index in favor of the so-called “chained-CPI” scheme. But there is nothing complicated about the reality that changing the calculations on which cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients are based has the potential to dramatically reduce the buying power of Americans who rely on this successful and stable federal program. So the word for what is being proposed is “cut”—as in: President Obama and congressional Republicans are proposing to cut Social Security. This is what Democrats—and most Republicans—said during the recently finished campaign that they would never do. The question is whether the president’s backers will back the betrayal. The only responsible response is to say “No!”

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