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Social Security petitions delivered to WH

WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) -- Advocates Tuesday delivered more than 2 million petition signatures to the White House, protesting a planned switch in calculating Social Security benefits.

The budget President Obama plans to unveil Wednesday is expected to recommend a switch in calculating cost of living adjustments to Social Security to a method known as chained CPI, which is projected to reduce increases in the cost of living by 0.3 percentage point a year, reducing Social Security spending by an estimated $112 billion in the next decade.

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"Contrary to the political spin, America's seniors know this chained CPI proposal isn't a 'tweak' or an 'adjustment,'" Max Richtman, president and chief executive officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare, said in a press release.

"It's not more accurate for seniors but it is designed to cut benefits and raise taxes, largely on the poor and middle class. Any politician in Washington who thinks they can slip these benefit cuts by millions of seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and their families unnoticed is in for the shock of their careers."

Richtman urged Obama to rethink the proposal.

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"We are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, disabled vets, the sick, women or children," Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., told those delivering the petition. "When one out of four major profitable corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes we know how we can deal with deficit reduction in a way that is fair. The White House tells us they want to defend the middle class. Well if you really want to defend the middle class you don't cut Social Security, and you don't cut Medicare and you don't cut benefits."

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