Peas for old folks: Three months of meals, disappeared each year. Hunger.

[MannyGoldstein]

For an 80-year-old woman, the "chained CPI" will reduce her earned benefits by one week's food per month, for someone already living on the edge. Three months of meals gone each year.

All because the Predator Class wants more planes, yachts, houses, and other shit.

That's sick, the stuff of sociopathy.

So tell Obama and his two good friends (pictured frolicking in my sig) to go take a flying fuck at the Moon. We cannot let the elderly starve so Romney can buy more car elevators.

[tblue]

1. Mr. President, how could you?

You will rue the day you made this choice.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

18. He'll be fine. Just like Clinton's fine.

It's all a club of which you and I are not members.

[SammyWinstonJack]

31. No he won't. He'll be rewarded for this choice. Bank on it, he certainly is.

His MIL won't be that 80 y/o woman losing 3 months of food per yr.


Shame.

[msongs]

2. obama's got his so leave him alone ok? nt

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Having his is fine.

Stealing mine is not.

[Mnemosyne]

4. I will certainly never be bullied into voting against my better judgement again, ever.

Carter was the last vote I cast without holding my nose, at all. Strangely, he was also my first vote. My nose has gotten more painful each cycle since.

Manny!

[kiva]

5. But starving seniors make poor photo ops.

And they still have those peas to eat...

[eridani]

30. Not only poor photo ops, but really shitty soldiers--

--what with the osteoporosis and such. We can still clean motel toilets, but way too slow for the 1%. Wondering when they're going to recommend concentration camps.

[Oilwellian]

6. Manny, there are generic peas out there...

Am I right? We'll just have to learn how to squeeze those peas.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. And when peas become too dear,

we switch to pebbles. They're reusable with a little cleaning, too, which helps make ends meet.

[dawg]

48. And that's a substitution (pebbles for peas), so it doesn't indicate a rise in the CPI anymore.

[caseymoz]

8. Substitutes aren't equal to the original.

Suppose those substitute peas have half the nutritional value? There's a reason why something's cheaper.

[TheMadMonk]

12. Whole peas already have next to no nutritional value. /nt

[Oilwellian]

17. I know, I was being facetious

And people wonder why we nicknamed it the Catfood Commission.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Food insecurity in this country?

Really? I remember writing a story on this subject recently, just poverty and food insecurity.

Here, I know, it is ONLY San Diego COUNTY... but try to extrapolate...

By Nadin Abbott

April 7, 2013 (San Diego)— ECM spoke with County Board of Education Board Member Greg Robinson today. He shared details on how extensive the face of poverty has become in the County and how this affects our children. He also spoke of sequestration cuts and why living wages matter.

“El Cajon has the highest rate of poverty in San Diego County,” Robinson observed, adding that poverty leads to serious problems of food insecurity as more people are going hungry.

Robinson spoke with ECM at a rally in support of workers on a hunger strike at the Mission Valley Hilton. The workers are seeking to unionize for better pay to support their families.

Earlier in the week ECM talked with Richard Barrera, of San Diego Unified District. Barrera said that two thirds of the District’s 130,000 students are on the enhanced school lunch program. This means that they get both breakfast and lunch at School. When Friday comes, that lunch is the last good food for the weekend.

http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/12944

Yeah, yeah, writing policy articles here and there, between covering forest fires.

Oy.

[dtom67]

10. glad to see that not everyone here...

Glad not every one at DU wants us to blindly follow the President whereever he leads.
Blind loyalty is no more a patriotic duty for Dems than it is Repubs. Many here that decry any dissent as " playing into the hands of the gop" or outright accusations of being a troll would be foaming at the mouth if President Romney were making the same proposals.
I'm sorry, but in my world, the economic welfare of the People trumps all other issues. If we address the income inequality gap first, then most of the other stuff would be easier to handle.

I don't believe in "My Country, right or wrong". Believe that we should take care of all, not just those who already have more than they need.

This isn't a game; these are people's lives we ar talking about. It should be obvious what needs to be done, but corruption rules these days.....

[HangOnKids]

11. Ahh Shit Who Cares About Food For Old Folks?

Isn't everyone retiring to Hawaii?

[SammyWinstonJack]

32. heh.

With big $$$$ no less.



Money made from the suffering of those most vulnerable.





Shame.

[BuelahWitch]

13. Better get stocked up on this stuff...

[durablend]

27. Yeah right

That's foo-foo gourmet cat food. It'll be STORE BRAND for you and YOU'LL LIKE IT, DAMMIT!

[MannyGoldstein]

46. Oh sure, that's funny now. But when cat food gets expensive,

what will we substitute for it? Shards of glass? Beetles?

[alterfurz]

50. Fancy Feast too pricey? Time to try Meow Mix...

[ReRe]

14. "Our society fails...

...if we don't look out for each other."

[AndyTiedye]

15. The Predator Class Has a Lock on the House of Representatives

I don't like chained CPI either (and I'm due to start collecting SS at the end of the year myself) but what can Obama do? The House of Teabaggers is holding us all hostage again. He has no choice but to negotiate with them.

Obama has no leverage whatsoever over them because they don't care what happens to the people who actually live in their districts, they don't have to. They only answer to ALEC. Gerrymandering and voter suppression keeps them in office, even in the face of a Democratic landslide in the popular vote, as was demonstrated last year.

If we abandon the Democratic party next year, we will certainly lose the Senate as well, and then in 2015 Obama will have to make even worse compromises as he will be in an even weaker bargaining position than he is now.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

19. Why, exactly, does he have "no choice but to negotiate with" Teabaggers?

What is your logic?

If he doesn't push for reducing Social Security with a chained-CPI, the Teaparty folk will destroy it? They'll demand even greater cuts?

Exactly why does he have to negotiate with Teabaggers? Do you have an answer?

[bvar22]

23. Because tghat makes him look like the sensible adult! DUH!

Read that right here on the DU!

[SammyWinstonJack]

34. Oh Gawd!

[world wide wally]

16. Truth is.... they can already afford to buy all the planes and yachts and houses they want...

they just want more for the sake of having more.

[carolinayellowdog]

52. worse-- they want to pauperize the middle class to have more people to look down on

from a greater distance

[Comrade_McKenzie]

20. Hmm...

Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/us/social-programs-face-cutback-in-obama-budget.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

No one will be starving.

[bvar22]

24. Vague, capricious, arbitrary and unspecified promises of "protections" are unacceptable.

We've heard those promises before.



[font size=1]As you can see I am not happy. I am angry because you pledged not to touch Social Security and I voted for you feeling secure that you would do so. Now you are making the people who can least afford it pay for something that shouldn’t even be part of the deficit discussion. The Republicans are trying to dismantle anything having to do with the New Deal. We earned our Social Security. Raising the cap on income taxed for Social Security is the correct way to solve the issue.

I hope you will see how many of us are upset with your giving away the store and that you will change direction. Otherwise you will have damaged your reputation and your party irrevocably.

Shola Friedensohn[/font]


many more here:
http://savesocialsecurity.tumblr.com/

[durablend]

28. In other words

If you already close to dead or flat broke, no problem, otherwise, bend over.

Sorry...don't think so.

[eridani]

33. The pissy trivial amount of extra income for the lowest quintile of beneficiaries--

--comes nowhere near lifting them out of abject poverty. The supplement for the oldest comes nowhere near compensating for chained CPI lifetime hit. The point of the chained CPI is

It would be really great if the shills for the 1% would quit insulting our intelligence by pretending that a calculation based on a bare minimal food budget multiplied by three has something to do with actual poverty. The rest of us don't live in your fantasy world where there is no such thing as rent, utilities or medical expenses, and where the unicorns never bite.

[Bluenorthwest]

42. The people who will be 'protected' are already going without proper food and medicines because

the income they have is subsistence level at best. Some are starving now. Your posts are so misinformed and calloused that each of them makes a strong case for opposition not just to the particular policy, but the entire mindset you promote.

[Katashi_itto]

44. Never been poor have you. Never wondered am I going to eat today?

So damn smug.

[tokenlib]

49. Sorry, no time to discuss MEANS TESTING..have a nice day!

"Financial protections" is not real reassuring when so many people DEPEND on Social Security as the pillar of their retirement. Yeah, it was never supposed to be that way...BUT IT IS NOW..AND WILL BE MORE IN THE FUTURE thanks to the service economy, etc...

[QC]

51. Goodbye, comrade.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=284540&sub=trans

[AnotherMcIntosh]

21. One of the nice things about Senator Durbin is that if you are a constituent, he'll write back.

True, the response may be a form letter. But at least his office will respond.

In response to my efforts to urge him to oppose the proposed reduction of Social Security with a chained CPI index, he said that the current method of calculating the CPI "does not always accurately predict the impact of the price increase on the consumer’s budget."

So, the Obama Administration is not proposing a chained CPI because they want to screw ordinary Americans but because they want to have a methodology that is "more accurate".

The CPI tends to overstate inflation due in part to substitution bias. Given the widespread use of the CPI, especially when it comes to adjusting payments to inflation, its accuracy can have a significant impact on the economy. Currently, the CPI is a fixed-weight price index and does not always accurately predict the impact of the price increase on the consumer’s budget. Some deficit reduction plans have called for a shift to a chained-CPI calculation to produce a measure of change in consumer prices that is free of substitution bias.

[ljm2002]

22. But the so-called "substitution bias"...

...assumes that the people affected by the calculation have not already made any substitutions.

I'll wager that a very high percentage of Social Security recipients already substitute less-expensive cuts of meat for what they would have bought when working. I'll wager that a very high percentage of them already use generic brand foods and generic drugs, wherever possible.

If you're already choosing 30% fat ground beef when you buy meat, what exactly are you supposed to substitute?

If the only intent was for it to be "more accurate", then why is it being proposed as a negotiating chip, with the assumption being that it's something the GOP wants? The GOP wants it because it reduces benefits, period.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

38. It wasn't too long ago when Pelosi was saying the planned chained-CPI wasn't a cut.

I wonder how many more arguments that they have?

All convincing, of course.

[eomer]

25. That's some of the fanciest lying that money can buy; well done Senator!

In no way is chained CPI a more accurate measure of inflation. The cheaper substitutes that a person must resort to when their budget is cut were there all along. An accurate measure of inflation is about changes in prices, not about the things a person will do out of necessity to survive.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

39. Watching creative lying can be entertaining. Or not.

[MannyGoldstein]

29. On the Catfood Commission, Durbin voted to eventually reduce the average SS benefit by 22%

22%! So you can see where Durbin's coming from.

He is right in that the CPI used for SS today is wrong: but it actually UNDERSTATES inflation for the elderly. The government has constructed a CPI formula that's specifically for seniors, and it shows HIGHER inflation than the model used today.


But accuracy ain't what Durbin, Obama and the rest of the Predator Class are trying for here. The chained-CPI that Durbin and the rest of these nogoodniks are plying is not designed for seniors, it was picked of many possible CPIs because it's smaller than the others.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

37. His more-accurate argument is, for me, a new one. Of course, he's not running for re-election.

[eridani]

35. Presumably you've already asked the sonofabitch what the insulin substitute is supposed to be? n/t

[AnotherMcIntosh]

36. No, but that's a good question. I wonder. If a person eats less, do they require less insulin?

Maybe that's their solution.

[eridani]

47. It does, up to a point

Your system keeps readjusting to need less, so eventually insulin resistance kicks in even if you are eating nothing.

[Jakes Progress]

26. Yep. Our elected president and congress

acting as predator drones on the elderly, children, the poor, and the middle class. The wealthy deploy them at will. Our democracy is the collateral damage.

[Autumn]

40. But Manny, it's rope a dope!!! He's got us right where

he wants us. Rec

[forestpath]

41. Sociopaths of a feather flock together.

[indepat]

43. Those two gentlemen pictured with our president can go take a flying fuck at the

moon and themselves as lagniappe and shame on our president for buying into their right-wing load of smelly shitty dung dressed as balanced when it's pure depraved right-wing hockey.

[just1voice]

45. What, you mean she doesn't want to "offer the republicans something", LOL

"The Predator Class" is well said.

[woo me with science]

53. kick