Social Security and Medicare Public Trustees Recommend Raising Eligibility Age and Benefit Formula Changes .A powerful Congressional deficit reduction "super committee" is working on a plan, due by Thanksgiving, to lower the federal deficit by at least .2 trillion. "TSCL is deeply concerned that a change to a more slowly-growing 'chained' consumer price index (CPI) which is used to calculate the annual COLA boost may be part of the plan," says Larry Hyland, Chairman of TSCL. The proposal to switch to the chained CPI was given serious consideration in the closed-door debt limit meetings by Congressional leaders and President Obama earlier this summer. Switching to the chained COLA was proposed by two prominent deficit reduction commissions and has received support from both Republicans and Democrats. .What would locality pay adjustments mean for your Social Security benefits? It's unclear, and likely difficult to estimate. Studies would have to be performed to compare locality - based pay adjustments to what future annual COLAs might be. Locality pay adjustments would be higher in areas where private sector pay scales are higher than those of federal workers, and lower in areas where pay scales are lower. The percentage of the annual locality pay increase would vary depending on where you live. Some retirees would receive a lower percentage of increase, or even no increase, while others a higher percentage. .Given the above story about how Medicare users pay so much more for drugs than Medicaid users, could this be the year we finally win? ."The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry." That was authored by 18th century poet Robert Burns, and served as the inspiration for the title of John Steinbeck's book, Of Mice and Men, but aptly describes the economic situation facing today's seniors. .Expanded tax credits — Social Security numbers would pave the way for applicants to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Additional Child Tax credit. In a recent Senate hearing, Eileen O'Connor, who ran the Justice Department's Tax Division under George W. Bush, explained that these refundable tax credits, "can create a ‘refund' of an amount you never paid as income taxes. So you can have a liability before the credit of 0, have paid in nothing, and with a refundable earned income tax credit of ,000, get a check from Uncle Sam for 0." She went on to say that immigrants who acquire Social Security numbers would be able to amend three years of previous tax returns to claim the earned income credit. The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently reported that an estimated 24% of all refunds due to the Earned Income Tax Credit are paid improperly. .This week, one new cosponsor – Rep. John Sarbanes (MD-3) – signed on to the Protecting and Preserving Social Security Act (H.R. 1811), bringing the total up to eleven. If signed into law, H.R. 1811 would base Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) and it would gradually phase out the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. It would extend the program's solvency for decades into the future responsibly, without cutting benefits for seniors. ."We've always known that vaccines are very important to our overall health," reported Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the Alzheimer's Association. "And maybe they even contribute to protecting our memory, our cognition, our brain." .Pressure is on Congress and President Obama to reach a deficit reduction agreement to address rising federal debt. Many analysts expect that cutting annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) will be a central part to any agreement. That would not only cut the benefits of more than 53 million Social Security recipients, but those of Railroad Retirement recipients, military and federal worker retirees as well.