 Government Statistics and Lies
Rep. Ron Paul
Texas Straight Talk
Nov 3, 2009
There has been a lot of talk
in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how
various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But
there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors
financially over the last few decades. It concerns how the cost
of living is calculated. How does the administration justify
not giving a cost of living increase to Social Security recipients
this year?
According to the official Consumer
Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first
time in decades. If the government can show statistically that
the cost of living has gone down, not up, then they can make
the case for not giving a cost of living increase to social security
recipients. But does this match reality? Using older calculations
of CPI, the cost of living has actually increased - by roughly
5 percent!
The CPI (Consumer Price Index)
is a calculation based on the average price of a fixed basket
of goods that was initially designed to help businesses adjust
for inflation. The government eventually started using it to
determine cost of living adjustments for entitlement programs.
Couple that with politicians' discovery that they could raid
the social security trust fund to pay for new spending programs,
and you have a perfect storm to deny seniors what they were promised,
while hiding the true size of the deficit. For politicians, it
is a win-win.
For seniors, it is a different
story. Economist John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics
has estimated that if the original methodology of CPI had not
changed, Social Security checks would be nearly double what they
are today. This represents a lot of money that politicians have
been able to literally steal from seniors, to spend on their
own wasteful programs. One example of how they do this is to
substitute hamburger for steak, which lowers the average price
of that basket of goods. But living on hamburger, or maybe dog
food, instead of steak does not represent a constant standard
of living. This renders the measurement virtually meaningless,
even though politically it comes in very handy.
I have introduced legislation
to keep politicians in Washington from ever raiding the Social
Security trust fund again. HR 219 The Social Security Preservation
Act would assure that all monies collected by the Social Security
Trust Fund would only be used in payments to beneficiaries, or
be placed in interest bearing certificates of deposit. This would
at least stop the bleeding of the fund, and take away some incentive
to tease and torture the numbers in order to give seniors the
minimal amount. This would also cut off a source of funding for
government growth, so it is not likely to get easy support from
many politicians.
It is bad enough that
Washington imposes high payroll taxes on American workers. The
least Congress could do is use the tax dollars for their stated
purpose. [Editor's note: highlighting
is mine] Instead, seniors
will have a harder and harder time trying to survive on a fixed
income in an economy based on variables and deception. For them,
it is too late to start over. Today's young people will be forced
to pay into the system for years to come. The first step towards
solving the impending crisis facing Social Security is to stop
politicians from raiding the trust fund and to significantly
cut federal government spending.
Nov 2, 2009
Rep. Ron Paul
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