No Social Security increase + Medicare cuts = 58.7 million angry voters

Another year without an increase in Social Security retirement and disability benefits is creating a political backlash that has President Barack Obama and Democrats pushing to give a $250 bonus to each of the program's 58 million recipients.

The Social Security Administration said Friday inflation has been too low since the last increase in 2009 to warrant a raise for 2011. The announcement marks only the second year without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation were adopted in 1975. This year was the first.

. . . A little more than 58.7 million retirees, disabled Americans and surviving spouses and minor children of enrollees receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Social Security was the primary source of income for 64 percent of retirees who got benefits in 2008.

. . . The absence of inflation will be of small comfort to many older Americans whose savings and home values haven't recovered from the recession.

. . . "I think seniors are going to be upset because gas has gone up, food has gone up, things in the store are expensive to buy," Dizik said. "Let's face it, prices are rising and I don't know how they do the cost of living."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/14/1873895/house-to-vote-on-bonus-payment.html

This two year social security freeze follows the decision to partially fund Obamacare by cutting Medicare. In other words, under Obama, funds are being shifted from 58.7 million Social Security recipients to 30 million people currently without health insurance, in order to pay for their "free" Obamacare sometime in the next 4 years.

Generational theft?