J. Exon: “more than a third of the savings from a CPI adjustment suggested here would come from families with annual incomes under…”

“more than a third of the savings from a CPI adjustment suggested here would come from families with annual incomes under $30,000 per year. Ratchet it up just a little bit and 56 percent of the burden falls on families with incomes under $50,000 per year. This proposed change in the CPI will hit most middle and lower income American families. I suggest, for this reason, this is not shared sacrifice, at least in this Senator's book. As I previously mentioned, the proposed change in the CPI exacts too much from another group of our citizens, the retirees. Under the Breaux-Chafee budget, two-thirds of the savings come from retirees regardless of income. Let us not forget that Social Security contributes 90 percent or more of the income for about a third of our beneficiaries. It is also the major source of income for two-thirds of all of our beneficiaries. When we come up with these easy charts that show how simple and really ``no hurt'' this proposition is, I think we need to look at where it is coming from and who is taking the hit. In addition, the very oldest American would be hit the hardest. COLA reductions accumulate, so that the biggest reductions are experienced by the retirees at the very end of their lives. It is simply not right to take the bread off the table of an elderly citizen--in many cases, a widow who is really now counting every penny.”