I need to pay more attention
By George Starks 
December 12,  2011 

I received a letter in the mail recently stating my food stamps was being reduced and my medicade was going up in connection with my spindown. 

My first thought was, “what’s this about?” 

Then as I read on it mentioned something about the money I was receiving on my disability, that I was getting a raise at the beginning of the year. 

At that point, I got on the computer and went to socialsecurity.gov. WOW, it was true, I was getting a raise...so to speak. Yes, I was going to get more money but was I really getting a raise? 

The answer is not really. My food stamps is dropping by a whopping six dollars. No real loss there but the spindown goes up by a substantial amount. 

Now, it doesn’t take a person with a masters from Texas A&M (Sorry Bob, couldn’t resist) in finance to figure out that this really doesn’t work. According the website, we are getting a 3.4 percent, cost of living raise. 

I laugh at this one. 

I’ve been on disability now for just over two years and this is the first COL raise I’ve seen and I have no clue how long it has been since people on social security have received a raise on their (BENEFIT?) checks. 

So here it is, in my case. My COL raise is a mere $45 a month. I lost $6 in food stamps and the spindown went up by $30. So I gained nine dollars. 

WOW! Now I can afford to pay for that vacation to Romania I’ve been wanting to take...
 

Not! (I do have a friend there I’ve been wanting to see though for a very long time). Actually, I really have nothing to complain about right now only because I have no need for Medicade because of my military service and VA health. 

My concern comes in the form of people like my neighbor lady who gets a lot less than I do every month on her check. I know her F/S went down also and her Medicare/Medicade probably went up like it did with many others. 

The government calls this a benefit check. But who is really benefiting? 

Dear Barrack, 

Can you afford to give ‘The People’ a real raise without raising everything else? ‘We The People’ are having a bit of a rough time out here. 

By the way, elections are right around the corner. Go GOP! 

Your not so loyal subject, 

George 

I guess I need to pay more attention to the nightly news. If I did, I would have known about this government raise. Oh wait, it is a government raise. 

The government is getting the actual raise here, not us.