Congressional Liberals Mobilize to Keep Social Insurance Out of Shutdown Talks:
This has left some progressives a little nervousa debt ceiling increase with the promise of a grand bargain and a grand bargain that includes a debt ceiling increase is a distinction without much difference, except the notable removal of some leverage from the GOP side. And President Obama has repeatedly proposed Chained CPI in the past, and it would clearly be in play once during any broad discussions of a deficit reduction package.
Thursday morning, more than twenty liberal members of the House gathered outside the U.S. Capitol, along with a large group of retirees and other activists. The message was simple: they will not support cuts to Social Security or other safety net programs.
..............//snip
There is a basic, basic attack going on in this country against so-called entitlements. Thats what this fight is all about. Thats what the budget fight is all about, said Representative Jerrold Nadler. This has got to be fought, and its shameful if any Democrats, no matter where he or she may be, buys into any of this.
Their efforts are being bolstered by renewed pushes from outside advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare released a study examining how much money Chained-CPI might take away from seniors and people with disabilitiesand also suck out of the economy. The study uses the Obama administrations most recent proposal on Chained CPI, and found that it would reduce benefits nationwide by $23 billion by 2023. That translates to a loss of over $31 billion in economic output by that time.