Democrats Buying Seniors' Midterm Vote

Washington bureaucrats make a habit of winning elections by taking the productivity of hardworking Americans, and awarding it to unproductive special interest groups.

In this case, seniors.

Friday's announcement by the Social Security Administration that recipients would not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2011 sparked immediate outcry from the White House, and speaker Nancy Pelosi. Now the top Democrats are asking for another "one time" $250 payment to seniors. Besides the obvious contradiction in language, there is just one problem with that.

The cost of living has not increased.

The COLA on Social Security benefits is legally tied to inflation. This rule was created specifically to ensure elected officials could not engender electoral support by arbitrarily raising benefits in an election year. The rate of inflation year to date is 1.1 percent, well below the level accounted for in the 2009 COLA. What Democrats are proposing is a clear violation of the spirit of the COLA restriction, at a cost of $14 billion dollars that seniors' children and grandchildren will be forced to pay back with interest.

Entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are growing to consume an ever larger portion of the federal budget, adding to the deficit, and creating a debt crisis in America. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of Obamacare, and these entitlements will drive the public debt to $123 trillion over the next 40 years. As young workers are increasingly forced to subsidize older workers and retirees, their own ability to plan and save for their retirement is being destroyed.

Is this the legacy that seniors want to leave behind them?