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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (10836)	2/3/2006 8:02:28 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541785

But it will not surprise you to know that I consider any failure of a safety net program to keep pace with the cost of living a "cut." No, no surprise. Perhaps that's the case, too, with many of the reporters causing them to not differentiate in their reports. But it will not surprise you to know that I consider any failure of a safety net program to keep pace with the cost of living a "cut." Because services have to be cut, living expenses have to be cut, etc. I asked in an earlier post if anyone had seen the details of how this would be applied and no one responded. We don't know what if any effect this legislation will have on anyone's welfare check. It's possible that there will be none. The cuts could be in other parts of the program.

To: JohnM who wrote (10836)	2/3/2006 8:06:46 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541785

But it will not surprise you to know that I consider any failure of a safety net program to keep pace with the cost of living a "cut." Because services have to be cut, living expenses have to be cut, etc. I'm not sure that I totally agree with that definition but I can accept it. I won't argue against it and I don't think it is unreasonable. Would you also apply the term cut to non-safety-net programs where spending has increased less than costs? It would seem consistent? In any case many times you have cases where the spending increasing faster then inflation (either in general or specifically in the goods and services which would reasonable make up the "cost of living") where a reduction in a planned increase is called a cut. If general inflation is 3% and the cost of living goes up 4% and the program was scheduled or even just projected to increase by 15% but not only increases 10% many people will call the increase a cut or even a "slash". Spending on particular social programs might not keep up with inflation but spending on social programs as a whole almost always does. In fact I'm not sure that there has been any cuts in aggregate social spending year on year in my lifetime (I was born in 1968) even after adjusting for inflation. New programs keep getting created and many of the large existing programs have automatic increases equal to the estimated increase in cost of living and/or wages. ssa.gov ssa.gov ssa.gov ssa.gov ssa.gov Tim