While it was established a long time ago that Donald Trump is a complete and utter asshole who only cares about himself and will screw over anyone to get his way, a new plan from the current president is perhaps the lowest he’s sunk so far.
Trump is about to cut Social Security benefits to millions of Americans, and he might be able to do so without getting the approval of Congress.
Salon reports that Trump will make his raid on Social Security via what’s known as the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI):
“Last week, the Trump administration revealed that it is planning to employ the so-called chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) in a way that does not need congressional approval. ‘Chained CPI’ might sound technical and boring, but anyone who has closely followed the Social Security debate knows better. It has long been proposed as a deceptive, hard-to-understand way to cut our earned Social Security benefits.”
Without getting too far into the weeds, here’s how using Chained CPI works:
“Social Security’s modest benefits are automatically adjusted to keep pace with inflation. If not adjusted, those benefits will erode, slowly but inexorably losing their purchasing power over time. These annual adjustments are already too low, but they are better than no adjustment at all. The chained CPI would make these adjustments even less adequate.”
However, while Trump thinks he can get away with this clear cutback to Social Security and other social welfare programs (the CPI change would also impact Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance), his end run around Congress may not be accomplished if all of us let our representatives know we won’t stand for this kind of blatant stealing from both retirees and those who are most in need of assistance to afford the basics of food and shelter. That might cause such a ruckus that Trump will back down, especially with an election just months away.
If we don’t act, millions of Americans are about to see a drastic cut in their benefits. And then Trump and his GOP allies can use your money to help pay for the tax cut they gave to themselves and their rich friends.