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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced that the standard Medicare Part B premium will be 8.50 in 2021, an increase of .90 per month from 4.60 in 2020. That increase, which I earlier feared would be considerably more, was restricted by legislation enacted last fall. But even with legislation to keep the Medicare Part B flat, the Part B premium still went up 2.6% over 2020, twice as much as the annual cost-of-living adjustment. This trend of Medicare costs increasing several times faster than Social Security benefits creates chronic headaches for retirees, as the Medicare Part B premium consumes a growing share of Social Security benefits..This week, lawmakers in the House and Senate continued their work on an omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year. Lawmakers set a .07 trillion cap in the sweeping budget deal that they passed at the end of October, and now they have until December 11th just three weeks to outline how those funds will be spent..Although the bill applies to children, TSCL is concerned that the DREAM Act is a back-door approach to a much wider amnesty that would have an enormous impact on the financial solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Under current policy, immigrants who become U. S. citizens, as young people under the DREAM Act would, may file a petition for green cards to allow their immediate relatives to legally immigrate to the U.S. Relatives who qualify immediately for a visa are spouses, unmarried children under the age of 21, and parents. Once the parents receive the green cards they can legally apply for work authorization, and renew it annually..The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security of 2020, however, suspended the automatic Medicare cuts from taking effect between May 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. "But the legislation extended cuts for an additional year beyond the current expiration date," Johnson notes. "That will mean that Medicare and Medicaid will continue to be subject to automatic cuts until 2030, 10 more years.".The Senior Citizens League understands that Social Security beneficiaries today cannot afford any cuts to their benefits. Since 2000 alone, their benefits have lost 23% of their purchasing power. Instead, to improve the financing of the Social Security trust fund, TSCL is urging lawmakers to strengthen the program responsibly without benefit cuts..Non-citizens who are assigned a Social Security number on or after January 1, 2004, must receive legal work authorization at some point in order to file a claim for Social Security benefits. If they never get legal work authorization, then they can't legally file a claim. If at some point they do receive work authorization, as they would under immigration amnesty proposals, then all of their earnings would be used to determine entitlement for Social Security, even for jobs worked while illegal. If the worker kept records and could prove the earnings were theirs, the earnings would be re-instated to their authorized Social Security number and used to determine entitlement to benefits..Fifty-six percent of participants in a national survey by The Senior Citizens League say they pay taxes on their Social Security benefits. "The tax on Social Security income takes new retirees by surprise," says TSCL Chairman Ed Cates. "This is one retirement expense that must be carefully planned for. The government today taxes the Social Security benefits of a majority of older adults, even people with very modest middle incomes," he notes..The Social Security trustees now anticipate that when the old age and survivor fund runs out of money in 2034, it will be able to pay only 76% of the retirement and survivor benefits otherwise due to recipients..This week, action on Capitol Hill was slow as Members of Congress remained in their home states and districts to prepare for the upcoming election. Lawmakers are expected to return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, November 13th, to begin the lame-duck session.