Even old-time Dem Bob Shrum tells the left to get real

The lefties who are calling President Obama’s willingness to discuss trimming entitlements in the fiscal cliff talks may want to consider the position taken by old-time Democrat pol Bob Shrum.

Shrum, a longtime Democratic political consultant and a regular guest on MSNBC, has written a column for The Daily Beast that slaps down those left-wingers who are claiming Obama’s proposal to revise annual inflationary increase in Social Security is “a betrayal.”

Shrum essentially lectures the left about engaging in hyperbole regarding plans to change the way the consumer price index, or CPI, is calculated for retirees. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, speaking on the House floor, brought out that old cliché about old folks being forced to eat cat food.

Shrum, who was a top adviser for the Al Gore and John 

Kerry presidential campaigns, tries to set the lefties straight:

“What would a ‘chained CPI’ mean in concrete terms? Not much initially—about $2 less a month for the average recipient. But the difference compounds over time. What would it mean, say, in 20 years? According to David Cay Johnston, who opposes the idea, $126 less—approximately $2,100 instead of $2,200 a month. It would be callous to say this doesn’t matter at all, but it’s a far stretch to see it as a fundamental threat to Social Security.”

The liberal hysteria over this revised cost-of-living increase ignore the fact that if the chained CPI had been in place since December 1999, for example, it would have grown on average by about 0.3 percentage points per year more slowly than the official CPI.

Many economists believe the official CPI is biased toward exaggerated inflationary increases and the regard the chained CPI as a more accurate measure of inflation, A key factor here is the goods monitored to devise the CPI. For example, a young couple with two children spend a lot of money each month on gasoline, far more than the average retiree.

Shrum asks those on the fringe left to take a reasonable approach toward the fiscal cliff:

 “What the president has offered may not be ideal, but it is entirely defensible in terms of the real, the possible, and the fair.

 “… I’m for the deal, imperfect as it necessarily is and will be, in part because it also includes other essential steps; it not only saves unemployment benefits, but protects the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. Without that, working families at the lower end of the income scale would lose $1,000 next year. And all of us will be the losers if on the way to economic recovery, we plunge or are pushed off the fiscal cliff. Afterward, if Republicans finally come to whatever senses they have left in the recesses of their House caucus, the answer will be very close to what the president has put on the table.”

The Dem consultant also points out that Republicans who want a “hands off” approach toward Social Security  are out of step with the GOP’s bipartisan heritage on this issue. It was Richard Nixon who signed the legislation providing for an automatic annual increase in benefits, with an initial jump of 20 percent. And Ronald Reagan signed the bill to tax some Social Security benefits -- with the support of Democrats like House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Ted Kennedy.