Blogito, Ergo Sum
by Gregg Calkins
3 May 2009, a Sunday
Oh, oh, here’s bad news for the Democrats with a reverse twist:
The forecasts, by the Obama administration and the Congressional Budget Office, indicate that Social Security beneficiaries will not receive any cost-of-living increase in 2010 or in 2011.
The reverse twist is the lack of increase is caused by the fact that inflation has at least theoretically declined, even if a lot of people can’t tell. I can’t, for instance...my prices still seem to be going up on everything I eat and drink.
But Obama and the Dems are going to take a hit when this news becomes widely known this fall, just as election year 2010 gets underway. Democrats will try to spin it as a good thing, Republicans as a bad thing, and the people whose checks don’t increase will agree with the Republicans. Another wild card is Medicare, and some of those premiums could actually go up, making the resulting social security check SMALLER than the previous year. I wouldn’t look for the Dems to get many of those votes no matter how they explained things.
Short day today as family life intervened. We wound up at a Costa Rican equivalent of a cross between a bullfight and the running of the bulls at Pamplona. Everyone had a good time and nobody got hurt and it was still going on at 9 on a school night when we left. My companion was a neighbor lady from up the street who is a school teacher who had to teach the next morning but the event was a school-sponsored thing and now what?
Interesting, and Tony had a ball and they sold beer and I found some American tourists to talk to so all was not completely lost save for my blogging hours.