Dan Minette wrote:
That's true, but the initial benefits are not based on COLA.
Wasn't the subject at hand the *increases* in benefits?
Are you guys talking about increases in initial benefits only, not COLAs? The "Primary Insurance Amounts?"
Then Erik is right, but in only one sense. Benefits have been increasing in line with the rising standard of living -- that's what the wage index does. It's not as if the current formula results in needy folks enjoying a standard of living that rises faster than anyone else's. Far from it, even ignoring the unfair basis of the COLAs.
Tell me, if you're a retiree and you can't afford to enjoy the same increases in standard of living as your neighbors, have your benefits really "increased?"
If you're supporting the switch from wage-based indexing to price-based indexing, then you're advocating freezing retiree's standard of living at the point they retire. It is a plan that says that once you retire, you no longer get to benefit from overall economic growth. Sounds *terribly* "fair" -- you're no longer contributing, so it's okay to leave you where you are.
To simplify this, imagine a society in which butter has been scarce for the entire working lives of those who are now elderly, disabled or otherwise unable to work. A technology breakthrough suddenly makes butter cheap. If butter benefits are tied to prices the way the Bush administration wants to, we'd tell those elderly people that their share of butter is based on the cost of butter *when they stopped working*, so they don't get any more than they did before. That's what it would mean to stop "increasing" the benefits we're talking about. Now we have a society in which the working people can afford lots of butter, but the neediest can't afford any more than they could when they were working. That won't do -- it is only "fair" in the greediest sense, and shows no compassion or mercy toward the neediest.
I will support a plan that recognizes that there is no such thing as a non-participant, that retirement or disability doesn't mean we forget you helped build the foundation of today's economy.
Nick
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