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TSCL believes that the Medicare prescription drug benefit law is flawed, and will be carefully monitoring the effects of both the short-term Medicare drug cards, and the Medicare Drug Benefit plan in Medicare Part D as it traverses through the donut hole for many seniors. TSCL considers it necessary to compile feedback on the measure of success or failure of the program and its donut hole phase..In a letter that was sent to the twenty-nine conferees on Monday, members of the House Appropriations Committee wrote: "We call on the Budget conference to reach an agreement on the FY2014 and FY2015 spending caps as soon as possible to allow the appropriations process to move forward … If a timely agreement is not reached, the likely alternatives could have extremely damaging repercussions." According to the appropriators, the alternatives include: a government shutdown on January 15th, continued governance by continuing resolution, and a second round of across-the-board spending cuts via the "sequester," which is scheduled to hit in January..Natural disasters can affect the consumer price index by showing up as higher costs, particularly when gasoline supplies are disrupted, and large numbers of people are forced to evacuate needing shelter and food away from home. But Joe thinks that our government economists may be cooking the books in their methods of measuring price increases..If adopted, the Ways and Means Committee's bill would increase the federal deficit by .5 trillion over ten years and according to budget experts, the projected economic growth due to its passage would not come close to offsetting the cost. TSCL is concerned that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act if signed into law would open the door for major cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid..On Monday, the White House held its Conference on Aging, which occurs once every decade with the purpose of discussing and advancing initiatives that will improve the lives of older Americans. Several members of the Obama Administration were present at Monday's event, and President Obama himself gave remarks on the challenges facing seniors today..If adopted, H.R. 2787 would mandate the monthly formulation and publication of a consumer price index specifically for senior citizens for the purpose of establishing an accurate Social Security COLA for beneficiaries..According to Congressional Quarterly, appropriators will begin conference negotiations to reconcile their fiscal 2015 bills this summer, leaving plenty of time before the mid-term elections and the October 1st start of the fiscal year. In the meantime, TSCL will continue to keep a close eye on the Labor-HHS-Education measure, since significant funding decreases could negatively impact the Social Security and Medicare programs..The program is projected to have enough tax income to pay about 23% less than currently scheduled, according to the Congressional Research Service. But economists warn that without changes to reduce the deficit, the Social Security Trust Fund will get into trouble long before the program is scheduled to become insolvent. Indeed, beneficiaries got a glimpse of what may lay ahead during last summer's battle over the debt limit. According to estimates from the Bi-partisan Policy Center, the federal government did not have sufficient revenues to cover Social Security benefits last August. Congress came within hours of a default on what it owed to the Trust Fund, and thus falling short on money needed to pay benefits before enacting legislation..Congress Still Working to Avoid Government Shutdown