Social Security benefits again won't go up - Washington Post

For the second year in a row, the nearly 54 million retirees and other Americans who receive Social Security benefits will not get any cost-of-living increase in 2011 in their monthly checks, government officials announced Friday, renewing debate over whether the system offers enough help in a weak economy.

The absence of any growth in Social Security checks for consecutive years is unprecedented in the 31/2 decades that payments have been adjusted automatically based on the nation's inflation rate.

The news that retirement benefits will remain static was part of a trio of developments on Friday that drew attention to lingering effects of the recession. Taken together, the new reminders of the country's economic fragility carry large political stakes, coming 21/2 weeks before a midterm election in which the deficit and jobs are paramount concerns among voters.

In the White House and on Capitol Hill, Democrats immediately responded with fresh calls to give extra money to older Americans, a potent voting bloc, and other people who depend on Social Security. Republicans disparaged the idea, contending that it would deepen the deficit and skirt a more fundamental need to put the retirement system on solid financial footing for the long term.

While the parties argued in Washington, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled during a speech in Boston that the Fed was prepared to undertake a new round of unconventional efforts to spur economic growth, with inflation persistently low and unemployment high.

Separately, the Obama administration reported that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended in September hit $1.29 trillion, in part because of lagging tax collections. The budget gap was lower than the record of $1.4 trillion for 2009 but, as a percentage of the overall economy, was the second-highest since World War II.

The static Social Security payments are a side effect of the nation's low inflation. The Social Security Administration made its announcement moments after the Labor Department released the latest figures for the consumer price index. They show that prices for the third quarter of this year rose by 1.5 percent compared with a year earlier, but fell by 0.6 percent compared with the same period in 2008.

Last year marked the first time consumer prices fell since the automatic adjustment formula has existed, and Social Security recipients did not get an increase in their checks.

This year, the picture is more complicated. Consumer prices have risen slightly from a year ago. But under the government rules, consumer prices must have risen past their level when the last Social Security increase was awarded - in this case, 2008 - for another boost in benefits to take effect. The Labor figures show they did not increase that much.

About 73,000 District residents receive Social Security benefits, while Maryland and Virginia have about 826,000 and 1.2 million beneficiaries, respectively.

Leaders of the AARP, the influential lobby of Americans age 50 and older, said the organization has been deluged lately with complaints from members who depend on Social Security.

"It's like being stuck in neutral," said John Walker, 62, of South Arlington, who was laid off in 2008 from his trucking job and now lives on veterans' benefits and the early Social Security payments he began to collect this year. "I have the same income, but . . . seems like the basic necessities we have from day-to-day living go up. I don't think it's fair."

In early 2009, as part of its efforts to stimulate the economy, Congress approved a one-time $250 payment for each person on Social Security, even though the size of monthly checks had gone up that January by nearly 6 percent.

In his 2011 budget, President Obama proposed another such payment, and many congressional Democrats, courting older voters before the elections, have called for the same thing. So far, Congress has not acted.

On Friday, the White House renewed its call for another payment. "Many seniors are struggling in the face of the economic downturn, having seen their savings fall," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "Today's news that the Social Security Administration will for a second year not provide a cost of living adjustment for social security benefits highlights these struggles."

In July, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's Social Security subcommittee, introduced legislation to provide a $250 payment to the program's recipients, at a cost of about $14 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she will schedule a vote on the measure when lawmakers return for a lame-duck session after the election. The legislation has 127 Democratic co-sponsors and none who are Republican.

In the Senate, which defeated a similar proposal in March, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that chamber would consider a $250 payment in its lame-duck session, as well.

GOP leaders oppose the idea. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said, "He has a real deficit concern about this," noting that the $14 billion price tag is greater than the entire Kentucky state budget.

House Republican leaders on Friday avoided direct comments on the $250 payments. Instead, they attacked Democrats for not passing a measure earlier, if it was a priority for that party.

And Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on Ways and Means, said: "It will be difficult for many seniors to deal with the lack of a COLA for a second year in a row, but that will pale in comparison to the actual hardships future Social Security recipients will experience if Congress continues to ignore the program's underlying financial problems."

In addition to the nation's 38 million retirees age 65 and older, the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment will affect several other groups of people. They include family members of workers who died prematurely who receive Social Security survivors' benefits, as well as people who qualify for Social Security disability payments.

The formula that determines whether Social Security payments go up also is applied to benefits paid to retired and disabled veterans and retired railroad workers.

The typical retiree receives a Social Security payment of nearly $1,200 per month, or roughly $14,400 a year. A $250 payment would amount to a 1.7 percent increase.

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Android This Week: Angry Birds, Opera Mobile Coming - GigaOm

Android phone owners got some game-loving news this week as the full version of Angry Birds was released. The release was unusual in that the app is free, as GetJar has a unique ad-supported distribution model in place. Rovio Mobile’s decision to give an exclusive deal for Angry Birds to GetJar was also out of the ordinary, as it means the hottest game in town will not be available from the Android Market. Google must be hoping this doesn’t start a trend, as it cuts out the 30 percent royalty Google normally takes from each app sale.

Opera Mobile will be coming to the Android platform in a few weeks, as announced by the company this week. Opera Mobile brings the desktop browsing experience to the smartphone better than previous versions of the browser. This new browser will take advantage of the hardware capabilities found in current smartphones, and implement a pinch/ zoom interface that rivals that in competing browsers.

The number of apps in the Android Market is growing rapidly, and the openness of the platform opens up the door for utility apps that improve the user experience. Keyboard apps fall in that category, and as many Android phones rely on onscreen keyboards developers have stepped up and produced quite a few of them. A keyboard app that may have more features than the others is Ultra Keyboard, as demonstrated in our video review. The app offers multiple keyboard layouts, multiple input methods and can translate text into a number of languages.

Kevin noted that handset makers are going to be offering Android-based smartphones in India soon, anticipating another half-billion new Android users as a result. In addition, some of the smartphones in India may be from brands unfamiliar to U.S. users; Indian companies Spice Mobility, Olive Telecom and Micromax are expected to be offering Android phones as well.

GigaOM had a cool infographic this week showing the steady progress of Android’s march toward market dominance that’s worth a look.

Gingerbread is next up on the Android dessert menu, and from the looks of it, most Android users have managed to upgrade to either Eclair or Froyo versions. Kevin took a look at Android Market data provided by Google’s dashboard service, and found that nearly three-quarters of Android users are using Android version 2.1 or above. Let’s hope more users are able to upgrade to Froyo before Gingerbread is out of the oven.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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Early next-gen MacBook Air may have surfaced in photo - Electronista

Images of what's claimed to be an early prototype of the next-generation MacBook Air have surfaced in a new leak. The design, purportedly dating back to April of this year, implied that there may still be a 13-inch version but also that Apple would have addressed some of the common complaints of the Air's 2008-era build. Engadget pointed out that it would eschew the drop-down expansion row and have two USB ports, one on either side, as well as an SD card reader and the requisite Mini DisplayPort output.

As hinted earlier, no room was shown for a fully-enclosed 1.8-inch hard drive. Apple would instead use a 'raw' SSD that could be just a circuit board with flash memory chips and a controller. Most of the space in the design would instead be devoted to the batteries, which were represented here by four separate packs. It's possible a finished design would change the layout.

The notebook was listed as new and identifed itself in System Profiler as "MacBook Air 3,1," but the parts shown are a direct holdover from the existing model and use a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo S (the SL9400) with 2GB of RAM. Its age may have been borne out by design touches, since the bottom and glass trackpad would be new but the top would still have the all-aluminum frame of the original.

As the system showed is at least half a year old, it's considered entirely probable that Apple will have upgraded the processor, RAM and other components now that they should be either available or at lower prices. Whether or not a 13-inch model ships might also be called into question; Apple has been known to alter or cancel plans late into development, and multiple sources have all made no mention of a 13-inch Air sequel while remaining confident that a 11.6-inch version exists. A possibility exists that Apple may carry both sizes.

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Bill Clinton at UCLA Rally for Brown and Newsom - NECN

(NECN/CNN: Los Angeles, Calif.) - What better way to secure votes than to bring in the big guns!

Democratic heavy-hitter former President Bill Clinton is in Southern California Friday hoping to reel in votes for his party.  
He's stumping for gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom-- who's running for Lieutenant Governor.  

They were at a campaign event at U-C-L-A.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave their introductions.  

All three made rock-star entrances in front of a screaming crowd of some 6,000 students.  

Clinton urged students to get out and vote during this critical election--- saying it's quote 'not enough to have voted for a new president if you will not let him govern.'

Brown is in a tight race with Republican Meg Whitman for the governor's seat.  

While Newsom is up against Republican Abel Maldonado-- who was appointed Lieutenant Governor when the spot was left vacant by U-S Representative John Garamendi.

Clinton was in Orange County earlier Friday-- and heads to Northern California to support other Democratic candidates though the weekend. 

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Five myths about Sarah Palin - Washington Post

Think you know Sarah Palin? The former Alaska governor has been in the spotlight ever since John McCain named her as his running mate on Aug. 29, 2008. Yet, while practically everybody has an opinion about Palin, not all of those opinions are grounded in reality. Many of them are based more on a "Saturday Night Live" caricature than on the living, breathing, 46-year-old mother of five. The real Sarah Palin is a complex woman who has risen in no time from obscurity to the stratosphere of American politics, fusing celebrity and populism in novel ways. Now that she's laying the foundation for a possible presidential run in 2012, it's worth taking a moment to separate the facts about Palin from the fables.

1. Palin cost McCain the 2008 election.

She didn't. CNN's 2008 national exit poll, for example, asked voters whether Palin was a factor when they stepped into the voting booth. Those who said yes broke for McCain 56 percent to 43 percent.

Before Palin's selection, remember, McCain suffered from an enthusiasm gap. Republicans were reluctant to vote for the senator from Arizona because of his reputation as a maverick who'd countered his party on taxes, immigration, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and "cap and trade" climate legislation. But Palin's conservative record in Alaska and antiabortion advocacy changed the Republican mood. With her by his side, McCain's fundraising and support from conservatives improved. It wasn't enough to beat Barack Obama -- but McCain probably would have lost the presidency by a greater margin if he had, say, selected independent Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, further alienating the GOP base.

Yes, it's possible that Palin's conservatism and uneven performance on the campaign trail shifted some voters to Obama's column. But even if Obama picked up some anti-Palin votes, he surely didn't need them: The economy was in recession, Wall Street was in meltdown, and the incumbent Republican president was incredibly unpopular. In the end, it's impossible to know how McCain would have performed if he hadn't selected Palin -- politics does not allow for control experiments.

2. Resigning as governor was rash.

No one expected Palin's resignation on July 3, 2009, just 2 1/2 years into her term. Her hastily composed and clumsily delivered farewell address left many observers confused about her motives. Some of her critics were only too eager to fill in the gaps with conjecture and hearsay (She's being investigated by the FBI! Sarah and Todd must be headed for divorce!). If there was one thing everybody knew for sure, it was that Palin's career in politics was over.

But none of the rumored scandals ever broke. The Palins remain married. And as for Sarah Palin's career, it's taken off. She plays a far greater role in American public life than she did before she left office.

When Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, she confronted three problems. The political coalition on which she had based her governorship -- a combination of Democrats and renegade "Palinista" Republicans -- had collapsed. Her critics were using Alaska's tough ethics laws to launch investigations into her behavior, sapping her finances and her energy. Finally, every time she traveled to the Lower 48, Alaskans criticized her for putting her political interests above the state's.

Palin's solution was to resign. Her agenda stood a better chance of passing if then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who shared Palin's goals, succeeded her as governor. As a private citizen, meanwhile, Palin could make enough money to pay her legal bills. And she would no longer be accused of neglecting her official duties.

Some might say that Palin's resignation was shortsighted and showed that she was not ready for the demands of executive office. But if Palin had remained governor, she would have been denied opportunities to rally the tea party and fight in the battle over the Obama agenda. She would have been stuck on a regional stage. Instead, she's back on the national one.

3. Palin and the tea party are destroying the GOP.

You've heard the spiel: The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war between moderate incumbents and far-right challengers backed by Palin and the tea party. Driving Charlie Crist from the GOP and defeating establishment figures such as Robert Bennett, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle spells electoral doom for the party. The only chance Republicans have for long-term success is to move to the center in a bid to win over millennials and Latinos.

But demographics aren't destiny, and no one knows what the future holds. The reality, right now, is that Palin and the tea party are saving the GOP by dragging it back to its roots and mobilizing conservative voters.

Remember, by the time Palin arrived on the national scene, the Republican Party was depleted, exhausted and held in disrepute. An unpopular war in Iraq, an economy in recession and GOP corruption had driven away independents. Meanwhile, massive government spending and a liberal immigration policy had dispirited conservatives.

This is where Palin came in. In the wake of Obama's historic victory, she and countless other grass-roots activists could have abandoned the GOP and turned the tea party into a conservative third party. They didn't. They decided instead to refashion the Republican Party from the ground up, pressuring it to live up to its limited-government ideals. Now, two years after Obama's win, Republicans are poised to reap major gains in the midterm elections. Palin and the tea party haven't hurt the GOP one bit.

4. Palin is extreme.

On many of the most important issues of the day, Palin holds positions that are squarely in the center-right of American political discourse. And many of those positions, not incidentally, are held by a large segment or even a majority of the public. For instance, neither the public nor Palin believes the stimulus worked. And while most Americans may not share Palin's views regarding "death panels," many join her in opposing Obama's health-care overhaul.

Over the past two years, Pew and Gallup surveys have tracked the public as it has moved to the right -- not on just one or two issues but on a whole constellation of them. Even on the controversial topics of abortion, guns and same-sex marriage, Palin is not as far away from the center as some suppose. A May 2009 Gallup poll, for example, found that a majority of Americans identified as "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice." In October 2009, Gallup measured record-low support for gun control. The public is divided on same-sex marriage, with about half the country joining Palin's (and Obama's) opposition.

5. Palin is unelectable.

Without question, a Palin 2012 campaign would be an uphill battle. Palin is unpopular -- massively so among Democrats, decisively so among independents. Even many Republicans don't believe she's ready to be president.

But opinions can change. Look at the political resuscitations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Palin works hard and runs an impressive campaign, wavering Republicans and skeptical independents may give her a second look.

To earn that second look, she may need to find a big idea. It's hard to become president without one. Reagan had supply-side economics and the end of detente with the Soviets. Bill Clinton had the third way. George W. Bush had compassionate conservatism and the freedom agenda. Obama had national unity and hope and change.

At the moment, however, Palin still expresses her agenda mainly in negative terms, focusing on her opposition to Obama and the Washington establishment. She hasn't defined her "common-sense conservatism" in positive language. And she hasn't found a unifying, exhilarating theme.

Then again, she just might get along without one. After all, a presidential contest is a choice. The public might not love Palin. But by 2012, Americans might absolutely despise Obama. Two more years of a bad economy and an unpopular Afghan war, and anything is possible. Yes, there's a ceiling to Palin's support. But in 2012, there also will be a ceiling to Obama's.

Whose will be higher?

Matthew Continetti is opinion editor of the Weekly Standard and the author of "The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star." He will be online Monday, Oct. 18, at 1 p.m. ET to chat. Submit your questions or comments before or during the discussion.

For more Outlook coverage on Sarah Palin and the tea party movement, see David Weigel's "Five myths about the tea party" and Steven Hayward's "Would Reagan vote for Sarah Palin?"

Want to challenge everything you think you know? Visit the "Five Myths" archive.

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