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A new study recently found that Social Security benefits have lost 34 percent of their purchasing power since 2000 due to rising costs and inadequate COLAs. Do you support the bipartisan CPI-E Act, which would make the COLA more fair and adequate?.The statement that "nearly two-thirds of undocumented immigrants affected by the president's executive action don't pay taxes today" doesn't appear to be supported by the government's own data, and is contradicted by statements from Social Security's own Chief Actuary Stephen Goss. Goss was quoted in The New York Times as saying that about "three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants" already pay payroll taxes. And the Social Security Administration receives on average about 9 million copies of suspicious wage and payroll tax reports a year in which the Social Security number and name don't match those on Social Security records. This situation frequently occurs when undocumented immigrants illegally work under invalid or fraudulent Social Security numbers. But if that's the case, awarding work authorization and Social Security numbers now would make up to 5 million individuals eligible to claim permanent Social Security and Medicare benefits based on earnings under those illegitimate wage reports..TSCL will keep a close eye on the fiscal 2016 budget resolution as it moves through the Senate in the coming days, and we will continue to voice our concerns about cuts to the Medicare program that would result in higher costs for beneficiaries. For updates on its movement, visit our new Facebook page..TSCL opposes these new provisions because we feel strongly that seniors should not be required to cover the cost of the poor policy-making decisions that were made by Congress nearly twenty years ago, when lawmakers first created the SGR. According to the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare beneficiaries will automatically contribute billion in Part B premiums over the next decade to repeal and replace the SGR. TSCL believes any additional cost-sharing including the two new provisions will be unduly harsh..TSCL also supports a second Notch Baby bill that Representative Emerson has introduced in the past - the Notch Baby Health Care Relief Act. That bill would provide a tax credit for the Part B premiums paid by Notch Babies born 1917 through 1926..Mr. Shiman said at Wednesday's hearing: "There is a special bond between grandparents and their grandchildren. The scammers knew this well and took full advantage of it with my wife and myself. They knew that when a grandchild is in trouble, grandparents go all out to help.".While a compromise was not reached, some consider the automatic budget cuts as a silver lining. "The good news, if there is no agreement, the nation is going to end up with what Republicans said, there will be a dollar spending reduction for every dollar increase in the debt ceiling" said Hensarling. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney echoed the same optimism: "It's important to remember, however, that because of the Budget Control Act, the 1.2 trillion dollars that the Super Committee was supposed to achieve in deficit reduction will happen regardless.".TSCL has been pushing members of Congress to include legislation to reduce the price of drugs and pass legislation to deal with the practice of surprise medical billing. We were hoping those issues would be addressed at the same time as the legislation to extend the federal health programs mentioned above..Early in the summer, I spent an afternoon at one of two critical access hospitals in my district in Southeastern Ohio. It's a hospital with just 25 beds and an Emergency Department no larger than many families' kitchens. Still, every year the doctors and nurses there care for more than 2,000 inpatients and treat an astonishing 50,000 outpatients.