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WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opens a lame-duck session today with plans to send a $250 gift check to every single Social Security recipient — a $14 billion last hurrah for Democrats before they surrender control to Republicans.
The payout is supposed to make up for two years without a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, which is tied to inflation — and inflation has been flat.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) has called it “a one-time payment that will help millions make ends meet during these difficult economic times.”
Proponents also argue the expenditure will provide economic stimulus because the old folks would quickly spend the money.
The legislation, dubbed the Seniors Protection Act, was written by nine-term North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy, one of many veteran Democrats who lost re-election and won’t be returning to Congress next year.
It’s just one item on Democrats’ long wish list for the session. They also want to extend unemployment benefits, end the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy for gays in the service, and ratify a nuclear-weapons reduction treaty with Russia.
Most, if not all, of these wishes will go unfulfilled during the lame-duck session.
A more pressing issue is whether Democrats and Republicans can strike a deal on Bush-era tax cuts that expire at year’s end and trigger large rate hikes for all Americans.
The White House, which only wants to extend cuts for the middle class, yesterday retreated from a compromise that would have also temporarily extended tax cuts for people earning more than $250,000 a year.
“The president’s position has not changed at all,” said President Obama’s senior political adviser, David Axelrod, who last week signaled that a deal was in the offing.
“Let me repeat what the president’s position is. We have to extend these middle-class tax cuts. Absolutely have to do that,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“We cannot afford to go the additional step and permanently cut taxes primarily for millionaires and billionaires at a cost of $700 billion for the next 10 years alone.”