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January 19, 2014
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Congress has a nasty habit that’s not going away. It has been
stealing a few billion here and a few billion there from earned
retirement and safety net payments, overlooking whether those benefits
have been promised or are even sufficient.
As the House and Senate passed its $1.012 trillion 2014 budget
last week,
veterans were blindsided when they learned that Congress had cut
cost-of-living increases for retiree pensions by 1 percent. A master
sergeant who served 20 years could lose $80,000 in his lifetime, said
Col. Mike Barron of the Military Officers Association of America.
The
cuts will affect 1.1 million retirees, 400,000 of whom retired after
9/11, and save an estimated $6 billion. “It’s deferred compensation,”
Barron said. “You are changing the rules of the game in the middle of
the game. It’s very unfair. It’s a clear breach of faith with us.”
But
it’s not just military retirees who are prey to Congress’s petty
thievery. In the Senate, there are competing Democratic and Republican
proposals to extend unemployment insurance (UI) for
1.3 million
longterm jobless people.
Unemployment is another earned benefit that
people pay into from years of work. The UI extension would be funded by
taking money that now goes to Social Security disability recipients, so
someone could not receive both unemployment and disability.
The
GOP plan, proposed by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, cuts off all disability
benefits—so there is no so-called double-dipping. The Democratic plan,
from Majority Leader Harry Reid, cuts back disability payments dollar
for dollar, deducting whatever amount is received in unemployment.
Eleven million Americans
received disability benefits in December.
This
Hunger Games mentality of playing off groups of deserving people
against each other for earned social insurance is part of Congress’
nasty habit. The other nasty piece is what Congress has been doing since
the 1980s with Social Security cost-of-living formulas: chipping away
at yearly increases.
Going after promised pensions, or shaving
back retirement benefits, or tinkering with cost-of-living formulas is
hardly confined to Congress. It’s become a budget-balancing tactic that
shadows government employees nationwide, and has equivalents in the
private sector as workers pay more for their benefits.
In terms of
magnitude, the several billion dollars involved in the military
pensions and disability cuts pale compared to what’s at stake when
tinkering with Social Security’s inflation formula.
When President
Obama presents his 2015 federal budget next month, one of the biggest
questions is will he again propose using a stingy cost-of-living
increase formula for future Social Security payments, known as the
chained CPI (consumer price index). That tool would shave off about a
third of a percent a year from annual cost-of-living increases. Like the
military pensions cuts, it adds up over time—think of it as the magic
of compounded interest in reverse.
The National Women’s Law Center
analyzed
the impact of chained CPI and found that it would result in a 6.5
percent cut in Social Security benefits paid over 20 years, and a 9.2
percent cut over 30 years. For an 85-year-old single woman receiving a
$1,100 monthly check, NWLC estimated that would translate to 16 weeks of
“food lost."
Senate Democrats seem to be taking different stances
when different benefit cuts are on the table. On Social Security and
the chained CPI, there’s a
campaign to push Obama to drop the idea in his 2015 budget. But all the Democrats
voted yes
for the 2014 budget that cut military retiree pensions. Since that
vote, more than a dozen new bills have been introduced to reverse the
pension cut.
Pragmatists will say this is the
untidy way Congress works. But as progressive economist Dean Baker has
pointed out, Social Security has been pared back by more than 20 percent
since the 1980s by using intentionally stingy cost-of-living formulas.
Similarly, Social Security disability benefits have also been cut back
recently, due to the federal budget sequester, making it harder for
eligible people to qualify and then to get annual increases.
“They’re
always looking to hit at vulnerable groups,” said Baker, who is
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He said
current House GOP inquiries into disability benefit fraud are having the
result of creating
bad press for the program instead of focusing on rooting out a few bad actors—which any big system serving millions will generate.
“The big picture is we are making cuts,” he said. “We don’t need to make these cuts.”
When
senators and congressman take the floor and start making speeches in
coming days about treating military retirees fairly, just stop and
substitute public employees, teachers and everyone else who has spent a
lifetime paying into Social Security and Medicare. And then ask
yourself, what aren’t they discussing America’s retirement security
crisis this way?
These are the individuals who have contributed to AlterNet's Retirement Crisis Reporting Fund:
Nancy
Adams | Maria Alvarez | Dolores Amato | Sara Baker | Jerry Banks |
Catherine Barnes | Patti Batchelder | Maryann Bayne | William Bell |
Hugo Benoit | Werner Bergman | Lisa Beutler | Patricia Bewley | Gary
Billey | Gary Binderimz | Rosemarie Blake | Bhikkhu Bodhi | Robert
Bottman | Christopher Boutelle | Angus Bowen | B. Bowers | Charles
Brainard | Kern Braswell | Catherine Brave | Jody Breslaw | Kim Brown |
Marilyn Bruning | Bonnie Burkart | John Burke | Jeffrey Cancilla | Alice
Canty | Dorothy Cinquemani | Kenneth Clark | Suzan Clausen | Robert
Cohen | Harriet Cohen | Sandra Colombo | Michael Conley | Casey Conner |
| Eugene Constant | Rachel Cooke | Peter Costello | Sydney Crawford |
Iris Culter | Kathleen Daugherty | Gary Davis | Michael Davis | Richard
Dawson | Jorge De Cecco | Kenneth Deed | Nandi Devam | Kim Dexter | J.A.
Dingman | Elizabeth DiPalma | Patricia Dodds | John Doheny, Jr. |
Gloria Donohue | Don Dougherty | Albert Driscoll | Stu Duckman | Ronald
Dumont | Kim Ecclesine | Nancy Eckel | Cynthia Ellsmore | Edwin
Engelmann | Judith Espovich | Virginia Eyman | Matthew Farrell | Karen
Fedorov | Perrin Ferris | Thomas Firpo | Carolyn Fletcher | Christopher
Flores | Terry Fontenot | Barbara Ford | Thomas Friel | Linda Fulton |
Larry Gaylord | Marion Gehlker | David Glater | Nancy Goldberg | Donald
Goldmacher | Alison Gomez | Florence Granowitter | Emily Greene | David
Griscom | Terrence Grywinski | Shawn Hansen | Debra Harpole | Louise
Harris | George Hart | Stuart Hartley | Bill Healey | Geoffrey Hendricks
| Robert Henning | Marion Hirseman | Martin Hittelman | Cathy Hoot |
James Hopkins | David Huhn | Will Husa| Ayed Hyder | Linda Irenegreen |
Aaron Jacobs | Bobie Johnson | Wynn Kapit | Elizabeth Kelley | Jae
Kenworthy | Ronald Kestler | Anita Kichefski | Jeremy Kilborn | W.
Kimzey | Kerry Kleiber | Denise Kobylarz | Sandra Korn | Nancy Kranich |
John Kyper | Bruce Lee | Marilyn Lee | Theodore Leibowitz | Carol
Lemieux | Henry Lesnick | Betty Leyerle | Ellen Linnemanstons | Robert
Lipsyte | Joan and Wallace MacDonald | Susan MacMillan | Charlene Maker |
Barry Maloney | Josepha Maly | Tommy Mandel | Lawrence Mar | Louis
Mariani | Joseph Mastalski | Annie Masters | Chris Matthews| George
Matkovits| Kay Matthews| Frank McEvoy| Gail McMullen| Kevin Meismer|
Elizabeth Mewhinney| Mary Micek| Rosemary Migas | Claire Mills |
Jonathan Morris | Nina Murano | Christine Murphy | John Murrill |
Deborah Mytels | Jean Naples| Peter Nasatir| Aileen Nelson| Terrance
Newton| Deborah Nitasaka| D. Ocker| Janet Ohlhausen| Clifford Olin|
Judith Pearson| Charles Percival | Jeanne-Marie Peterson | Mary Peterson
| Cynthia Peterson | Ted Pfeiff | Brian Porter | Rudolph Radau | Joseph
Rainho | Richard Rayford | Lisa Reswick | Debbie Richards | Sharon
Richey | Leonard Rifas | Marvin Ritzenhaler | Nancy Roca | Edwin Rogers |
Sue Rosen | Richard Ross | Nancy Ryan | Susan Salazar | Joseph Sanchez |
Terry Sanders | Elizabeth Sands | Carole Sauriol | Carol Scher | Scott
Scherman | Wanda Schertz | Gerda Seaman | Carolyn Semiglasow | Marlene
Shaner | Elaine Simon | Crystal Sloa | Sara Sogut| Helen Sohne|
Priscilla Solomon| Wayne Stinson| Patricia Stroud| Francis Sullivan,
Jr.| Jyun Takagi| Tasmin Taylor| Diane Thatcher | C. Thompson | Keith
Thornton | Lisa Tomchesson | Priscilla Toth | Catherine Twohill | Eric
Weis | Teresa Welborn | Wilma A. Wheeler | Joel White | Dolores Whitman |
Terry and Barbara Williams | Hugh Wilson | Liddy Wilson | Carroll M.
Wilson | Eric Wilson | Jack Wilson | Charles Witt | William Woodward |
James Woolsey | Eleanor Wynn | Christine Wynne | David Yamada | Leroy
York, II | James Young | Marian Zaouk | Susan Zencka
Steven Rosenfeld covers
democracy issues for AlterNet and is the author of "Count My Vote: A
Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).
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