That is what this administration has been good at. The latest comes in the form of Social Security:

Come January, the nation’s nearly 50 million Social Security recipients will see the smallest cost-of-living increases in their monthly checks in four years, even though they are paying significantly more for such items as food, energy and medical care.

Many private economists are looking for an increase of around 2 percent when the government announces the number Wednesday following release of the Consumer Price Index for September.

The increase compares with a jump last January of 3.3 percent and an increase in 2006 of 4.1 percent. The 2006 cost-of-living adjustment had been the largest in 15 years.

So they get about a 2% increase. I know I am paying an increased price in milk and bread and that is by far more than 2%. It gets even worse though as the article goes on to say:

Part of the Social Security increase will be eaten up by a rise in the cost of Medicare, the giant health care program that covers the elderly and disabled. The government announced earlier this month that Medicare premiums will rise 3.1 percent next year, or $2.50, to $96.40 per month.

So a large chunk of their 2% raise now gets eaten up by Medicare. On top of that there is a dirty trick that is played by a lot of section 8 housing. They know what the amount of a raise will be each year, so they jack up the rent accordingly. After that occurs, people relying on Social Security will be worse off next year than they are this year.

It is time to fix Social Security, but it must be fixed responsibly. The burden of this fix must also fall fully on the shoulders of the party that is responsible for it’s problem – the Government. They have used Social Security like their own little bank for years – borrowing money and not paying it back. The people who need Social Security are expected to pay for this? No – the people who raped the bank should be – and since those people generally live in the upper 1% of our economy, they are the ones who should be paying higher taxes to make up for it.