Next year people on Social Security with see a cost of living increase of 1.7%. This means that if your benefits are $1000/month, they will increase to $1017/month. Your actual check will be less because the Medicare Part B premium is taken out before your check is cut. This means that this year you got a check for $900. Next year the check will be for $912 because the Part B premium went up 5%, not 1.7%.

The same increase is used for almost all Federal pension programs, so veterans will see the same 1.7% increase.

When Zero talks about changing the method used to calculate the cost of living to the ‘chained consumer price index’ rather than the standard index, he is talking about cutting benefits for all those programs. Social Security, by law, has nothing to do with the deficit, other than loaning the government $2½ trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund. There is no reason for the Social Security System to be ‘on the table’ in deficit talks. Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.

Any Congresscritter or Senator who votes to cut benefits that recipients have been paying for, in order to appease the delusional, should start looking for a new line of work. The chained CPI doesn’t make Social Security stronger, is steals money from people who have been paying into the system for decades. If they want to make the system stronger, get people back at work and paying their taxes.

Once again John Boehner can’t convince his own caucus to vote for his own bill. This leads to the obvious question as to why Zero is negotiating with him, as he obviously doesn’t have the support of his own side.

Zero will be in a much stronger position in the new Congress, and there will be fewer total whackoes to deal with, so it is time to wish everyone a Happy Nodwish, and wait for the New Year to start again.

[Title is one of the many quotes from Yogi Berra, who was almost as famous for malapropisms as being a baseball player.]