Well, I never thought I'd be writing about this guy again, and I never thought it would be about this topic.
I have an eighty-something friend I'll call Gertrude. She's carried a resentment for quite a while that her Social Security benefits are not what they should be, and has explained to me on a few occasions that it's because she's a "notch baby." ("Notch babies" are seniors who were born between approximately 1917 and 1926.) She places the blame for this squarely on Jimmy Carter, whom she hates with a vengeance, and Rosa DeLauro, our House delegate here in Connecticut. She blames Ms. DeLauro for not getting legislation passed which would have given Gertrude the extra $200 in Social Security benefits she feels she deserves. "It never even got out of committee!" she lamented. I asked my friend if she had written Rosa a letter and she said why bother. The topic came up again while discussing President Ford's funeral, and after listening to Gertrude trash President Carter, whom I really admire, I finally decided to do my own research and surprise her, perhaps after writing a letter of my own to Ms. DeLauro. What I did find out astonished me.
It turns out that the "notch babies" are receiving the correctly-calculated benefits they deserve. The idea that these seniors are somehow being ripped off is a myth that many of them have bought into via mass mailings from unscrupulous hucksters looking for a donation to "fix" a non-existent problem.
Here's what really happened:
In the early 1970s, Congress did tinker with Social Security's cost-of-living increase with disastrous results. Benefits rose too quickly and the Social Security system was sinking pell-mell toward bankruptcy. In 1977, Congress revamped the benefit formula again - this time to a lower, more sustainable level.
People who already had reached retirement age - those born in 1916 or earlier - were allowed to keep the generous benefits inadvertently bestowed upon them. In other words, they got a windfall.
People who hadn't yet reached retirement age - those born in 1917 and beyond - receive benefits according to the new, lower formula. To ease the transition, Congress gave an extra boost to people born from 1917 through 1921. Those born in 1917 made out particularly well, compared with most retiree groups that followed. For example, the average benefit in 2004 for someone born in 1917 is $1,065 a month. That's higher than for six birth years that came after the notch.
http://www.sptimes.com/...
This particular article later quotes John Rother, the AARP's policy director, as saying, "Suppose you are standing in line at the ATM and the two people in front of you got $20 bills when they were supposed to get $10. When you come to your turn, you get the correct amount. Is that an injustice? That's what notch babies are saying. They are saying they should get more than Congress intended because Congress made an error and paid too much to the people in front of them."
In the Washington Post, Jane Bryant Quinn pulls no punches regarding the mailings targeting notch baby seniors: "...no wrong was done, so don't send money. The only victims are those who believe the mailings, and contribute to a "cause" that benefits only the fund-raisers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
I found several articles with the same message and, with a sigh, decided I should just print a few of them out and present them to Gertrude, trying to come up with some tactful way of telling her I hoped she hadn't given any of her money to these "committees." (I know she aleady has.) I figured I'd need just one more article so I kept going with my Google search, and the next article I saw made even my cynical jaw drop.
From the November 1, 2006, New Haven Independent:
The Notch Baby Pledge
"The notch babies will not be forgotten!" cried Emma Piscitelli, jumping up quickly in a Q & A session with (Senator Lieberman.) Piscitelli was one of the Americans who were born between 1917 and 1921 and feel shortchanged by a social security benefits formula that left them with fewer benefits than those just a bit older. They’ve clamored for restitution, but haven’t gotten it yet. "They’re waiting for us to die," said Piscitelli, her forefinger in the air.
Lieberman said he’d supported failed legislation that would give each "notch baby" a one-time payment $5,000 to even the playing field. At Piscitelli’s prompting, he raised his right hand and pledged to get legislation passed. "Take a picture!" said the woman, looking towards this news photographer to record the pledge. (See the photo at the top of this story.)
"I’m going to put it in again next session, I promise you, in front of all these people," said the senator. Piscatelli approached him for his autograph after the speech.
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/...
Huh? Am I reading this correctly? A vote for Joe Lieberman is a vote for a $5,000 check?! How long will these poor people be waiting for this promise to be kept? As I pointed out earlier, the whole notch baby inequality myth is just that--a myth. Perpetuated by hucksters looking for a payback. Many of these trusting seniors have been hoping for the past thirty-five years that they would receive the same mistaken windfall that they had seen some of their older friends and siblings receive. Now it turns out that in the week before a tight election, Joe Lieberman was out there fanning the flames of their dimming hopes just to get their votes. It's sick, really.
Look, I don't know what this guy's gonna do in the next six years. I know many of you will write comments saying let it go. I just want to put the word out to those of you who say he's our swing vote and we should appreciate him: watch him. Watch him very carefully. There's an old fable about a scorpion who asks a dog to give him a ride across the river. The dog says, "Are you kidding? You'll bite me for sure!" The scorpion says, "Of course I won't--we'd both drown if I did that." The dog is finally talked into letting the scorpion onto his back and he begins to swim into the current. As he gets halfway across, however, he feels a terrible sting--he has been given a fatal sting by the scorpion. As he begins to sink into the water, his last words are, "I trusted you! You said you wouldn't sting me!" The scorpion replies, "You knew I was a scorpion when we took off together."