Here are the writings of a Typical Hard Working American....He's like most Americans in that he's just fed up with the crap that has been happening to this country...he makes a lot of sense and I certainly can identify with him. These are reasons that Americans will be going to the polls to vote for a Real Change this time....and it's why I voted on the first day of early voting to make certain my voice is heard...
I especially like his last two sentences!
Some folks are really good at articulating Americanism.
I like this guy!
I Am the Democratic Liberal-Progressive's Worst Nightmare...
I am a White, Conservative, Tax-Paying, American Veteran, Gun Owning Biker. I am a Master leatherworker. I work hard and long hours with my hands to earn a living.
I believe in God and the freedom of religion, but I don't push it on others.
I ride Harley Davidson Motorcycles, and drive American-made cars, and I believe in American products and buy them whenever I can.
I believe the money I make belongs to me and not some liberal governmental functionary, Democratic or Republican, that wants to share it with others who don't work!
I'm in touch with my feelings and I like it that way!
I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer; it makes you a smart American.
I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized, and does not entitle you to anything. Get over it!
I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac or any other item, you should do it in English. I believe there should be no other language option.
My heroes are Bill Gates, John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and Willie G. Davidson, who makes the awesome Harley Davidson Motorcycles.
I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor.
I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time watching or arguing about it.
I've never owned a slave, nor was a slave. I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks, and neither
have you!
I believe if you don't like the way things are here, go back to where you came from and change your own country!
This is AMERICA ...We like it the way it is and more so the way it was ...so stop trying to change it to look like Russia, China , Iran, or other socialist country!
If you were born here and don't like it you are free to move to any Socialist country that will have you..
I believe it is time to really clean house. We need term limits for congress and line item veto power for the President!
I want to know which church is it, exactly, where the Reverend Jesse Jackson preaches, where he gets his money, and why he is always part of the problem and not the solution.
Can I get an AMEN on that one?
I also think the cops have the right to pull you over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what color you are, but not just because you happen to ride a bike.
And, no, I don't mind having my face shown on my driver's license.
I think it's good.... And I'm proud that 'God' is written on my money..
I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.
I dislike those people standing in the intersections trying to sell me stuff or trying to guilt me into making 'donations' to their cause.... Get a job and do your part to support yourself and your family!
I believe that it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents...
I believe 'illegal' is illegal no matter what the lawyers think.
I believe the American flag should be the only one allowed in AMERICA !
If this makes me a BAD American, then yes, I'm a BAD American.
If you are a BAD American too, please forward this to everyone you know....
We want our country back! Keep this one going!!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Left Doesn't Get Poverty....All they Get is a Welfare State!
From today's Heritage Foundation....it makes a lot of sense....the poor will never gain position if all that happens is they are given money, food, etc.....the welfare state that Obama is trying to put in place will be the demise of America if it is allowed to continue....rather we need to support initiative, education, personal accountability, family values and help the poor develop an environment where they and their children can succeed....
The Left Still Doesn't Get Poverty
'Culture of Poverty' Makes a Comeback reads the headline from this past Sunday's New York Times. Patricia Cohen goes on to report: "[I]n the overwhelmingly liberal ranks of academic sociology and anthropology the word 'culture' became a live grenade, and the idea that attitudes and behavior patterns kept people poor was shunned. Now, after decades of silence, these scholars are speaking openly about you-know-what, conceding that culture and persistent poverty are enmeshed."
At first, this may seem like the left is finally ready to make a major concession to reality about their decades-long War on Poverty. But a closer reading of Cohen's source materials, a recent symposium on poverty in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, shows the opposite is true. The left is just as clueless about poverty as it has ever been. Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies Robert Rector writes at National Review Online:
One might imagine that experts researching the “culture of poverty” would examine how marital collapse, eroded work ethic, and indifference to academic study contribute to financial poverty. Guess again.
Instead, editors of The Annals firmly declare that the main cause of poverty is “material deprivation itself.” In other words, the cause of poverty is poverty: The cure for poverty is to artificially boost the incomes of the poor through welfare payments, free food, housing, medical care, and so on.
This is nothing new. Liberals always have insisted that poverty causes dysfunctional behaviors rather than vice versa. But, if having a low income caused problem behaviors (such as illegitimate births and eroded work ethic), then most Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries (whose incomes were far lower than those of today’s poor) should have been drowning in dysfunctional behaviors. Of course, they were not.
As Rector has amply documented before, the left's continued blindness to the cultural underpinnings of poverty have undermined civil society and bloated our federal budget. Since 1964, the U.S. has spent $15.9 trillion on means-tested welfare programs. After adjusting for inflation, welfare spending is 13 times higher today than it was in 1965. Welfare spending has grown more rapidly than Social Security, Medicare, education, and defense. And what do we have to show for these efforts? According to the Census Bureau, a record high 3.7 million Americans fell into poverty in 2009. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is now 40% and the African American out-of-wedlock birthrate is 72%. When the War on Poverty began the out-of-wedlock birthrate was just 7%.
The collapse of marriage is the root cause of child poverty in the U.S. today. It is far past time to reboot our poverty programs to promote work and encourage marriage in order to control costs and promote greater self-reliance. Among Rector's recommendations:
Slowing the growth of the welfare state: Congress needs to establish reasonable fiscal constraints within the welfare system. Once the current recession ends, aggregate welfare spending should be rolled back to pre-recession levels. After this rollback has been completed, the growth of welfare spending should be capped at the rate of inflation.
Promoting personal responsibility and work: Able-bodied welfare recipients should be required to work or to prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. Food stamps and housing assistance, two of the largest programs for the needy, should be aligned with the TANF program to require able-bodied adults to work or to prepare for work for a minimum of 30 hours per week.
Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities: Current means-tested welfare programs penalize low-income recipients who get married; these anti-marriage penalties should be reduced or eliminated.
During the administration of President Bill Clinton, conservatives successfully reformed one welfare program in the 1990s: replacing the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). But President Barack Obama's failed economic stimulus gutted those reforms. And his budget proposal would spend $10.3 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade. Before the current rise in poverty, that was enough to give $250,000 to each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four. Our nation can’t afford another 10 years of failed War on Poverty thinking.
The Left Still Doesn't Get Poverty
'Culture of Poverty' Makes a Comeback reads the headline from this past Sunday's New York Times. Patricia Cohen goes on to report: "[I]n the overwhelmingly liberal ranks of academic sociology and anthropology the word 'culture' became a live grenade, and the idea that attitudes and behavior patterns kept people poor was shunned. Now, after decades of silence, these scholars are speaking openly about you-know-what, conceding that culture and persistent poverty are enmeshed."
At first, this may seem like the left is finally ready to make a major concession to reality about their decades-long War on Poverty. But a closer reading of Cohen's source materials, a recent symposium on poverty in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, shows the opposite is true. The left is just as clueless about poverty as it has ever been. Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies Robert Rector writes at National Review Online:
One might imagine that experts researching the “culture of poverty” would examine how marital collapse, eroded work ethic, and indifference to academic study contribute to financial poverty. Guess again.
Instead, editors of The Annals firmly declare that the main cause of poverty is “material deprivation itself.” In other words, the cause of poverty is poverty: The cure for poverty is to artificially boost the incomes of the poor through welfare payments, free food, housing, medical care, and so on.
This is nothing new. Liberals always have insisted that poverty causes dysfunctional behaviors rather than vice versa. But, if having a low income caused problem behaviors (such as illegitimate births and eroded work ethic), then most Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries (whose incomes were far lower than those of today’s poor) should have been drowning in dysfunctional behaviors. Of course, they were not.
As Rector has amply documented before, the left's continued blindness to the cultural underpinnings of poverty have undermined civil society and bloated our federal budget. Since 1964, the U.S. has spent $15.9 trillion on means-tested welfare programs. After adjusting for inflation, welfare spending is 13 times higher today than it was in 1965. Welfare spending has grown more rapidly than Social Security, Medicare, education, and defense. And what do we have to show for these efforts? According to the Census Bureau, a record high 3.7 million Americans fell into poverty in 2009. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is now 40% and the African American out-of-wedlock birthrate is 72%. When the War on Poverty began the out-of-wedlock birthrate was just 7%.
The collapse of marriage is the root cause of child poverty in the U.S. today. It is far past time to reboot our poverty programs to promote work and encourage marriage in order to control costs and promote greater self-reliance. Among Rector's recommendations:
Slowing the growth of the welfare state: Congress needs to establish reasonable fiscal constraints within the welfare system. Once the current recession ends, aggregate welfare spending should be rolled back to pre-recession levels. After this rollback has been completed, the growth of welfare spending should be capped at the rate of inflation.
Promoting personal responsibility and work: Able-bodied welfare recipients should be required to work or to prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. Food stamps and housing assistance, two of the largest programs for the needy, should be aligned with the TANF program to require able-bodied adults to work or to prepare for work for a minimum of 30 hours per week.
Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities: Current means-tested welfare programs penalize low-income recipients who get married; these anti-marriage penalties should be reduced or eliminated.
During the administration of President Bill Clinton, conservatives successfully reformed one welfare program in the 1990s: replacing the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). But President Barack Obama's failed economic stimulus gutted those reforms. And his budget proposal would spend $10.3 trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade. Before the current rise in poverty, that was enough to give $250,000 to each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four. Our nation can’t afford another 10 years of failed War on Poverty thinking.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Whoopi and Behar See Nothing Wrong With Walking Off Set With O’Reilly
These women are ridiculous!!!!....If this wasn't about ratings WHY would they spend 9 minutes and 40 some seconds on this days after the incident IF they weren't playing for ratings....AND Joy Behar says she's NOT a Bigot????? Who is she kidding! Barbara needs to get rid of Joy and Whoopi!
Breitbart.tv » Whoopi and Behar See Nothing Wrong With Walking Off Set With O’Reilly
Breitbart.tv » Whoopi and Behar See Nothing Wrong With Walking Off Set With O’Reilly
Obama On GOP: "The Empire Is Striking Back"...No Kidding...Barack you messed it up...We'll Vote Your Party Out!
And Barack the ONLY threat to America, our Democracy and our way of life is YOU and YOUR Agenda!!!!...Why do you think American is revolting to your liberal socialistic welfare state agenda? We can't take you out of office YET, but the next best thing we can do is give considerable control of Congress to Conservative Republicans.....We'll take the House completely and hopefully the Senate as well!
RealClearPolitics - Video - Obama On GOP: "The Empire Is Striking Back"
RealClearPolitics - Video - Obama On GOP: "The Empire Is Striking Back"
The Next Big Struggle....Take Down the Government Unions....
This needs to be the next big struggle we go through...we have GOT TO do something about the unions that have settled in our Government Jobs and have driven costs out of sight. The Article below from the Heritage Foundation does a good job explaining why and how this has happened BUT it is a situation that we cannot allow to continue....With Government not in competition with anyone/anything these union demands get out of control.....If the government did compete then they would simply go out of business!....We need our Congress and our President (although Obama will never challenge the Unions) to address this head on....first inform the public about what is happening and then take swift, decisive action!....If not we will be like Europe with government strikes everywhere....It will help bankrupt us and those in Europe Leadership know well that they have got to get government jobs back into non union status....
Big Government's Government Union Firewall
Indications are that the Progressive Movement is headed for a crushing defeat two weeks from now. Political analysts Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook both peg the number of competitive House races at around 100. Separately, both analysts are also predicting Democrats will lose between 45 and 60 seats (39 are needed to switch control of the House). Striking back against the electorate's small government fervor, AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman penned a strategy memo last week claiming "Union Voters are the firewall for candidates that support working families."
And sure enough Big Labor is pouring millions of dollars into this fall's elections. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has spent $1.3 million on ads since September alone, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has spent another $5.2 million. Ackerman comforts Beltway liberals: "The AFL-CIO’s grassroots political program has an incredible reach, with union families talking to 17 million of their co-workers; comprised of union members, their families, retirees and members of Working America. Outside the political party committees themselves, we have the largest political mobilization operation in the country."
What Ackerman doesn't mention is that the majority of these "union members" don't get their paychecks from private employers; they are paid by you, the taxpayers. The AFL-CIO may have once represented the interests of steelworkers, auto workers and teamsters, but now the largest union in the AFL-CIO is AFSCME. In fact, 2009 was a historic year for Big Labor: for the first time in American history the majority of union members now work for the government, not the private sector.
It was not supposed to be this way. Big Labor's biggest champion, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in 1937: "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress." Collective bargaining, the anti-trust exemption at the heart the labor movement’s power, was created to help workers seize their "fair share" of business profits. If a union ends up extracting a contract from a private firm that eats up too much profits, that firm will lose out to competitors. But while private firms face competition, governments don’t. So when a union extracts a generous contract from government, there is no check on that spending. Instead of being disciplined by more efficient competitors, the government just pays for higher spending with higher taxes.
And generous contracts paid for by your tax dollars have become the main source of union growth. While private-sector unions lost 834,000 members in 2009, public-sector unions actually gained 64,000 members. Not only has the federal government been adding new union members, but the government is also paying them more than their services are worth in the private sector. Depending on the methodology employed, the average federal employee receives as much as 40% more in total compensation than an equally skilled private sector worker would receive. Including both wages and benefits, overpaying federal workers costs taxpayers approximately $40–50 billion per year. Government unions then take your tax dollars, turn right around, and use them to lobby for even bigger government. From Maine, to Florida, to Illinois, to California, your tax dollars are being used to lobby for higher taxes and higher spending.
The American people are beginning to catch on to the government union game. A new poll released today by The Washington Post finds that 52% of Americans believe that federal workers are overpaid for the work that they do. And three-quarters of those surveyed say they think federal workers are paid more and get better benefits than their counterparts in the private sector.
Not all federal employees are overpaid. Some highly skilled federal workers took pay cuts to serve their country, no doubt. But that is all the more reason Congress should reform how federal employees should be compensated. Congress should expand outsourcing to the private sector and replace the General Schedule with a performance-based pay system tied to market compensation. That would be one giant step toward ending the government union big government machine.
Big Government's Government Union Firewall
Indications are that the Progressive Movement is headed for a crushing defeat two weeks from now. Political analysts Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook both peg the number of competitive House races at around 100. Separately, both analysts are also predicting Democrats will lose between 45 and 60 seats (39 are needed to switch control of the House). Striking back against the electorate's small government fervor, AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman penned a strategy memo last week claiming "Union Voters are the firewall for candidates that support working families."
And sure enough Big Labor is pouring millions of dollars into this fall's elections. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has spent $1.3 million on ads since September alone, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has spent another $5.2 million. Ackerman comforts Beltway liberals: "The AFL-CIO’s grassroots political program has an incredible reach, with union families talking to 17 million of their co-workers; comprised of union members, their families, retirees and members of Working America. Outside the political party committees themselves, we have the largest political mobilization operation in the country."
What Ackerman doesn't mention is that the majority of these "union members" don't get their paychecks from private employers; they are paid by you, the taxpayers. The AFL-CIO may have once represented the interests of steelworkers, auto workers and teamsters, but now the largest union in the AFL-CIO is AFSCME. In fact, 2009 was a historic year for Big Labor: for the first time in American history the majority of union members now work for the government, not the private sector.
It was not supposed to be this way. Big Labor's biggest champion, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in 1937: "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress." Collective bargaining, the anti-trust exemption at the heart the labor movement’s power, was created to help workers seize their "fair share" of business profits. If a union ends up extracting a contract from a private firm that eats up too much profits, that firm will lose out to competitors. But while private firms face competition, governments don’t. So when a union extracts a generous contract from government, there is no check on that spending. Instead of being disciplined by more efficient competitors, the government just pays for higher spending with higher taxes.
And generous contracts paid for by your tax dollars have become the main source of union growth. While private-sector unions lost 834,000 members in 2009, public-sector unions actually gained 64,000 members. Not only has the federal government been adding new union members, but the government is also paying them more than their services are worth in the private sector. Depending on the methodology employed, the average federal employee receives as much as 40% more in total compensation than an equally skilled private sector worker would receive. Including both wages and benefits, overpaying federal workers costs taxpayers approximately $40–50 billion per year. Government unions then take your tax dollars, turn right around, and use them to lobby for even bigger government. From Maine, to Florida, to Illinois, to California, your tax dollars are being used to lobby for higher taxes and higher spending.
The American people are beginning to catch on to the government union game. A new poll released today by The Washington Post finds that 52% of Americans believe that federal workers are overpaid for the work that they do. And three-quarters of those surveyed say they think federal workers are paid more and get better benefits than their counterparts in the private sector.
Not all federal employees are overpaid. Some highly skilled federal workers took pay cuts to serve their country, no doubt. But that is all the more reason Congress should reform how federal employees should be compensated. Congress should expand outsourcing to the private sector and replace the General Schedule with a performance-based pay system tied to market compensation. That would be one giant step toward ending the government union big government machine.
Friday, October 15, 2010
If Obama wants to help seniors keep the Bush Tax Cuts and keep Taxes on dividents the same....$250 is NOTHING!
Obama Proposes Rebate for Seniors Deprived of Social Security Benefit Hike
Published October 15, 2010 | FoxNews.com
)
President Obama is calling for a $250 rebate for seniors after the Social Security Administration announced Friday that interest rates in 2010 haven't risen enough to justify an increase in benefits next year to the 58 million retirees and disabled Americans who receive the entitlement.
Congressional Democrats, already in a precarious position headed into Election Day, are heeding the president's call.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced that in light of the economic downturn and the fact that Social Security will not provide a cost-of-living adjustment for a second year, the president will ask Congress to approve a $250 "economic recovery payment" to seniors, veterans and people with disabilities.
"Last year, under the Recovery Act, 56 million people benefited from the first economic recovery payment -- including about 50 million Social Security beneficiaries. We're grateful that Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi has indicated she will bring the new economic recovery payment to a vote and we urge members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to support our seniors, veterans and others with disabilities who depend on these benefits," Gibbs said in a statement.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Nevada Democrat would re-introduce legislation, first sponsored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this year, during the lame-duck session following the Nov. 2 midterm vote.
The House did not vote earlier this year on a rebate proposed in July by Rep. Earl Pomeroy. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said if Pelosi wanted to offer an additional giveaway, why didn't she hold a vote before adjournment.
"If this is really a priority for the president and Washington Democrats, why didn't the speaker bring it up for a vote before she adjourned the House?" asked Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
Sanders argued that the estimated $13 billion to help seniors pay for "rising health care and prescription drug costs" is a fraction of the $70 billion wealthy Americans would be allowed to keep if Bush-era tax cuts are extended.
"They need help. It makes a lot more sense to me to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our country with the equivalent of a COLA than it does to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. I very much hope that the Republicans will not filibuster this proposal," said Sanders, an Independent.
But opponents of the rebate say it's impossible for the government to save money when Congress spends cash it doesn't have. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget issued a statement saying support for an unnecessary cost of living allowance will be a fiscal responsibility "litmus test."
"This is an issue ripe for political pandering -- and there is sure to be plenty of that -- but the truth is, seniors don't need a raise based on inflation this year because inflation has been so low. They actually got an artificially high raise last time around so they are faring better than many others in this economy who haven't benefited from generous raises," said CRFB President Maya MacGuineas.
COLAs are meant as an increase in benefits designed to keep pace with inflation, but the last adjustment -- 5.8 percent -- was well above the 3.8 percent inflation rate for 2008. Since then, prices used to measure the annual COLA dropped. The economy is now recovering, but prices have not reached the level they were at when the last COLA was set.
"Because of that high adjustment, seniors are still receiving more in benefits than actual inflation increases have warranted," CRFB said.
COLAs were first adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. The average monthly Social Security benefit this year is $1,072. Annualized, a 3.8 percent increase, for instance, would be $488 on average.
Social Security is supported by a 6.2 percent payroll tax -- paid by both workers and employers -- on wages up to $106,800. Because there is no COLA, that amount will remain unchanged for 2011.
By law, the next increase won't come until consumer prices rise above the level measured in 2008. The trustees who oversee Social Security project that will happen next year, resulting in an estimated 1.2 percent COLA for 2012.
Published October 15, 2010 | FoxNews.com
)
President Obama is calling for a $250 rebate for seniors after the Social Security Administration announced Friday that interest rates in 2010 haven't risen enough to justify an increase in benefits next year to the 58 million retirees and disabled Americans who receive the entitlement.
Congressional Democrats, already in a precarious position headed into Election Day, are heeding the president's call.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced that in light of the economic downturn and the fact that Social Security will not provide a cost-of-living adjustment for a second year, the president will ask Congress to approve a $250 "economic recovery payment" to seniors, veterans and people with disabilities.
"Last year, under the Recovery Act, 56 million people benefited from the first economic recovery payment -- including about 50 million Social Security beneficiaries. We're grateful that Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi has indicated she will bring the new economic recovery payment to a vote and we urge members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to support our seniors, veterans and others with disabilities who depend on these benefits," Gibbs said in a statement.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Nevada Democrat would re-introduce legislation, first sponsored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders earlier this year, during the lame-duck session following the Nov. 2 midterm vote.
The House did not vote earlier this year on a rebate proposed in July by Rep. Earl Pomeroy. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said if Pelosi wanted to offer an additional giveaway, why didn't she hold a vote before adjournment.
"If this is really a priority for the president and Washington Democrats, why didn't the speaker bring it up for a vote before she adjourned the House?" asked Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
Sanders argued that the estimated $13 billion to help seniors pay for "rising health care and prescription drug costs" is a fraction of the $70 billion wealthy Americans would be allowed to keep if Bush-era tax cuts are extended.
"They need help. It makes a lot more sense to me to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our country with the equivalent of a COLA than it does to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. I very much hope that the Republicans will not filibuster this proposal," said Sanders, an Independent.
But opponents of the rebate say it's impossible for the government to save money when Congress spends cash it doesn't have. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget issued a statement saying support for an unnecessary cost of living allowance will be a fiscal responsibility "litmus test."
"This is an issue ripe for political pandering -- and there is sure to be plenty of that -- but the truth is, seniors don't need a raise based on inflation this year because inflation has been so low. They actually got an artificially high raise last time around so they are faring better than many others in this economy who haven't benefited from generous raises," said CRFB President Maya MacGuineas.
COLAs are meant as an increase in benefits designed to keep pace with inflation, but the last adjustment -- 5.8 percent -- was well above the 3.8 percent inflation rate for 2008. Since then, prices used to measure the annual COLA dropped. The economy is now recovering, but prices have not reached the level they were at when the last COLA was set.
"Because of that high adjustment, seniors are still receiving more in benefits than actual inflation increases have warranted," CRFB said.
COLAs were first adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. The average monthly Social Security benefit this year is $1,072. Annualized, a 3.8 percent increase, for instance, would be $488 on average.
Social Security is supported by a 6.2 percent payroll tax -- paid by both workers and employers -- on wages up to $106,800. Because there is no COLA, that amount will remain unchanged for 2011.
By law, the next increase won't come until consumer prices rise above the level measured in 2008. The trustees who oversee Social Security project that will happen next year, resulting in an estimated 1.2 percent COLA for 2012.
Pelosi is an Idiot and she certainly doesn't deserve to be reelected!
If I were the Republicans I would put millions of dollars in ad running against Pelosi just to get her pissed off.....even if the left wing liberal in San Fran are stupid enought to reelect her!!!
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