Bloomberg reports that Obama is open to cutting Social Security by adopting the chained consumer price index to adjust the entitlement programs' payments each year.
Unelss you follow the details of entitlement reform, you probably haven't heard about this. The main argument is that the increase in Social Security checks each year is based on a faulty calculation that overstates the rate of annual inflation.
Adopting the new CPI measure would bring annual increases more in line with reality.
Democrats are largely against it because it reduces overall benefits levels.
Republicans are largely for it - Coburn, Thune, and Crapo are all quoted in the article as supporters. Grover Norquist smells a tax increase (Thune flat out disagrees with him) and is therefore against it.
The change is definitely not a tax increase. Norquist's definition of tax increases is getting so broad that it seems anything that makes one pay more in taxes is a tax hike. By that logic, earning enough money to bounce into a higher tax bracket is a tax increase.
The bigger issue is what changing this part of Social Security will do in the negotiations. Clearly this change needs to happen to address the program's solvency. But my guess is that Obama's only considering it as a negotiating tactic to get Republicans to agree to some revenue raisers.
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