Last Wednesday, the White House finally and officially released its budget plan that was said to reduce the federal deficit by $3.77 trillion by reducing the growth of social security and other pool of federal programs like Healthcare services while adding more taxes on wealthy Americans.
Subsequently, the said offer gained different reactions. Obviously, seniors and veterans were quite disappointed and the democrats also sympathize with them while the republicans had their split reactions. However, recent news reports claimed that the republican leaders are now totally embracing the budget proposal and in fact, the GOPs are currently rushing to begin a debate tackling the deeper aspect of the sensitive topic of federal spending of the seniors.
Recent reports confirmed that two House subcommittees plan to hold a series of hearings this week. The hearing will talk about the “reforms to protect and preserve” programs for retirees, beginning from Obama’s budget offer to apply a less generous formula of inflation to annual increase in Social Security disability benefits. Higher Medicare premiums, lesser amount on pay checks for seniors and higher Medicare eligibility are also on the table.
The said developments shows an important signal in the shift of budget battle as party leaders to push the federal debt limit. Finally, after more than a couple of years talking about taxes and government spending, policymakers seems ready to move toward a more serious and sensitive field of entitlement programs.
At least the republican leaders now have made reducing the cost of federal entitlements their top priority. In fact, in a statement released by a budget analyst, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security account for approximately 40 percent of federal spending and continuously growing rapidly, as the government must provide benefits to all who qualify under the entitlement, regardless of cost. In addition, although the new formula known as the chained CPI would reduce the benefits by 0.3 percent annually, in the long run, it would save the program from the projected exhaustion of funds.
Meanwhile, a Los Angeles permanent disability lawyer herein remains neutral, and not providing his stance regarding the matter. He understands where the democrats and republicans are coming from and knows that both parties simply want the best for the entire nation. Nevertheless, he is still hoping for the best for everyone, particularly the seniors and veterans who needed the most that the government can provide.
