I don't like to see people so locked into rigid party positions that they are willing to have the net effect hurt the country. I support Obama bending over backward to breakthrough the logjam in Congress and get his nominees and programs passed.
There comes a point where you have to just let the Republicans go, let their last whimper fade, and then rebuild. If it takes CPI on Social Security to get them to cave on raising revenues by removing the loopholes millionaires and billionaires, rich corporations and special interests have made swiss cheese of the tax code with, thats OK with me, we can work around it later.
I can understand the CPAC tea bagger's last ditch, burn the bridges, go down fighting, suicidal "Top of the World Ma", out in a blaze of glory, desperation. The let them die by the sword so their Valkaries can swoop down and carry them off to Valhalla desire for a moment of redemption after they are finished going bezerk. I would be happy to wave them goodby as they depart us for some better place.
The way to deal with chained CPI is to pass it conditioned on an initial raise to the social security benefits people are getting now so people getting social security now are no longer on a "Ramen Noodle every night" budget and can afford the "Fancy Feast" cat food.
Social Security should not pay less than the minimum wage for a forty hour week.
The present poverty guidelines are $11,490. Many people receive benefits up to 200% of poverty but SNAP households which are in many cases elderly people who are too sick and tired to work are expected to spend about 30 percent of their resources on food.
If the Minimum wage were $9/hr as Obama has proposed then a forty hour week would pay $360 and four paychecks a month would be $1440. That's an annual $17,280 per person; $34,560 for a retired married couple. That's where chained CPI should start. For people who choose to get on Social Security at age 62, $1440 a minimum of month would be reasonable and for people who are well enough off to wait to get on later at a higher payout means testing might be appropriate.
I would go farther to link chained CPI to passing a higher minimum wage people can actually live on, somewhere around five times the cost of a gallon of gas, and tie it also to a maximum wage for Congress so that when Congress votes itself a raise seniors and minimum wage workers get one as well.
The money to pay the poor more can come from paying the rich less with an end to subsidies to oil companies and agra business. Take the cap off Social Security taxes.
Let's end the foreign wars we are are wasting hundreds of billions on, cut our role as the worlds cop on the beat making the world safe for American corporations to put into power regimes favorable to their unregulated exploitation of third world nations resources and spend the peace dividend on finally winning Johnson's war on poverty and recognizing the mediation of climate change is a national security issue for that part of the Nation east and south of the Appalachians that is about to go down to join Atlantis.