Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the supercommittee we all talk about--and it meets mostly in secret--is putting out plans and ideas to deal with the deficit--some, I am sure, good; some a little less good. I am concerned about one thing the supercommittee has been talking about--the stories that have come out that I know about, and that is something called the chained Consumer Price Index. I know that many conservative politicians in this body and down the hall in the House of Representatives have advocated that we change the Consumer Price Index to something called the chained Consumer Price Index. The way the Consumer Price Index is calculated is especially important for senior citizens because their Social Security cost-of- living adjustment--called the COLA--is predicated on how the cost of living is calculated. Right now, the cost-of-living adjustment is based on the Consumer Price Index-W, which means it is determined by wages, the cost of living for people in the workplace. It is not determined by the cost of living for retirees even though it affects what retirees get in their cost-of-living adjustment. That sounds like a lot of words, but here is what that means. It means that when you figure the average increase in the cost of living for the American people--and you are only looking at those who are employed, so they are more likely to be in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, their fifties, maybe in their early sixties or a little older.…”