There's Nothing "Technical" About Changing the Cost-of-Living Index

By Matthew Yglesias  |  Posted Monday, July 30, 2012, at 11:58 AM ET

Bill Keller for various reasons wants to reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits, and one way to achieve the former is to stop pegging annual increases in nominal benefits to the Consumer Price Index and start pegging them to the slower-growing chained CPI. Another feature of using chained CPI is that since tax brackets are indexed to inflation, doing the switch comprehensively would constitute a de facto tax increase.

This is perhaps a good idea and perhaps a bad idea, but these certainly aren't what Keller says they are "technical fixes like aligning the automatic cost-of-living formula with reality."