Growing up, my family struggled to make ends meet. My grandmother relied on Social Security survivors' benefits to care for my siblings and me. I know first-hand the importance of maintaining this promise of retirement security and wanted to update you on the work I am doing to protect Social Security. As the President begins to craft his budget proposal for 2015, I am urging him to keep a move to what's known as "chained CPI" out of his plan. This move, used to calculate annual Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs), would have a negative effect on Iowa's seniors. This is particularly unacceptable after several years of historically low COLAs.
No Iowan should ever retire into poverty or have to make the choice between putting food on the table and paying their bills. That's why I have long worked to strengthen and improve Social Security to ensure that Iowans who played by the rules, paid into the system, and worked hard get their earned benefits.
I am leading the fight against a move to a "chained CPI" to calculate the yearly COLA for seniors. This change, as you know, would cause a permanent, across the board cut to both current and future seniors and I will continue to fight against it. Seniors did not get us into the financial situation we are in now and should not be punished for it. We must not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable, and that's why I am fighting so hard to keep the "chained CPI" out of the budget for 2015.
Sincerely,
Dave Loebsack
Iowa's Second District
