Obama Administration Voter Payoff #1

I think every time Obama sits on the can, he tries to dream up another way to spend taxpayer's money.

From this time on, I will be observing and periodically cataloging attempts by this administration to pay off the voting public with targeted pork spending.

In the past few weeks a White House proposal to give every social security recipient a 250 dollar check next year, has received a lot of attention.

For the first time in decades, seniors will not be receiving a cost of living increase in their social security payments next year. According to the 1975 law, cost of living increases are tied to inflation, which ran negative falling from 2.5% to just 1.4%.

Citing isolated sectors like health care that have outpaced inflation (bandwagon much?), the senior lobby isn't buying into the idea that we've had a period of negative inflation. The federal reserve poured a trillion dollars into the system over the last year, how could we have fewer dollars out there chasing goods and services?

Other economic forces are holding inflation down. Energy prices have fallen, growth lending is down 1.8% as banks choose to grow their reserves over making more loans, job growth is down 4.2% and as a result consumers are spending less. All this results in dollars being pulled out of the economy.

You see many Americans have had a pay cut, resulting in seniors having less competition for the things they buy. Even a separate consumer price index that tracks seniors has shown a drop in prices.

The White House proposal would increase the deficit by 13 Billion dollars, for the purpose of currying favor with a block of voters. Call the White House at 202-456-1414, and tell them to obey the law.