Politico: Liberals want to save Social Security with the chained CPI

Did you know that the chained CPI was a liberal scheme? And that turning Social Security and Medicare into welfare programs by means testing them is, too? If that's news to you, you haven't been reading Politico. An article titled "The quite liberal plans for entitlement reform," (those sneaky liberals) argues that there's secret agreement among "liberals" for a raft of reform that "could allow President Barack Obama to get the discussion on entitlements going without infuriating his base."

Among the ideas Politico presents are some that most on the left do agree make sense, because they do make sense and if the debate wasn't totally dominated by making old, sick, and poor people pay the price of low taxes on the rich would make sense to everybody. Like lifting or even eliminating the payroll cap on taxable earnings so that income over the current limit of $113,000 is subject to Social Security taxes. That's in the Politico list for good reason. Another good idea in there, that's truly a progressive one, is drug rebates for Medicare, the same system that saves billions for Medicaid.

What Politico includes that are not liberal ideas that progressives champion and could very well infuriate the Democratic base are implementing a chained CPI for Social Security, making Social Security means tested and Medicare even more means tested. Here's how they say it plays out in the case of Social Security.

Another big item on the liberals' agenda would be to change the way Social Security is distributed ' giving more to low-income seniors and less to high-income seniors.

That's not on any liberal's agenda that I've ever seen, but it is popular with Third Way. Which tells you something about Politico if that's what passes as liberal as far as their editors are concerned. That's means-testing, which advocacy groups have been arguing against for decades because what it does is turn Social Security into a welfare program, eroding public support and changing the fundamental compact of the program made between the nation and its citizens. That's a stealth "reform" that comes not from the left, but from the corporate wing of the party.

Being "blessed" by Third Way doesn't make any of these proposals liberal or progressie. That Politico would try to pass them off as such, with clear evidence to the contrary, gives a pretty good idea of why they won this award.