Thaindian News

November 11, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): President Barack Obama had engendered a bipartisan deficit commission some time back, the bosses of which initiated an audacious attack on burgeoning federal deficits on Wednesday. This commission has recommended the diminishment of yearly cost-of-living intensifications for Social Security. Its recommendation calls for progressively increasing the retirement age to 69. It also zooms in on well-liked tax breaks such as the mortgage interest subtraction. These are recommendations that have the potential to magnetize a political tornado for an already beleaguered American President, who is reeling under an electoral slaughter by the resurgent Republicans. One of the intentions of the commission is to grapple with the $1-trillion-plus deficits in order to get it under control, for which the growth of Medicare could be curtailed.

These contentious recommendations of the commission have emerged a week subsequent to the American electorate placing the rightist Republicans in command of the American House. The communication of the electorate to Washington D.C. was unequivocal that the Obama government is too big and intrusive.

The chairperson of the deficit commission happens to be Erskine Bowles, who is a Democrat. Former Republican Senator, Alan Simpson, is the occupant of the post of co-chairman. Their recommendations don’t seem to have the endorsement of the 14 commission members that is required to trigger a discussion in the Congress. Simpson and Bowles have confessed that their suggestions are not much-admired.

The Social Security recommendation would alter the inflation measurement utilized to gauge the cost-of-living fine-tuning for program benefits. This would decrease the yearly increases. The suggestion will most likely attract antagonism from advocates for seniors. These supporters of senior citizens are already distressed that there will be no enlargement for 2011. This would mean the second straight year without an augmentation. The recommendation would also elevate the standard Social Security retirement age to 68 by 2050 and to 69 in 2075. The full retirement age for those giving up work now is 66. More affluent beneficiaries would obtain not so sizable Social Security remunerations than those in lower earning brackets under this contentious recommendation.

The American House Speaker happens to be the Democratic Nancy Pelosi, who has uttered that this proposal is just not worthy of acceptance. Pelosi will, in the near future, quit her post of Speaker since the Democrats were beaten by the Republicans in the Congressional elections on November 2. She demanded that the commission’s (panel’s) ultimate report be reasonable to senior citizens, whose welfare depends on Social Security. Pelosi also remarked that the report must be just to middle-class families, who are incapable of enduring additional infringement on their monetary security.