For the second year in a row, there will be no COLA increase for Social Security recipients in 2011. This effects over 58 million retired and disabled Americans, and you would think that such information coming out so close to an election would be difficult news for the party in power. However, House Democrats are making lemonade out of it, vowing to vote in November on a $250, one-time benefit for Social Security recipients.

The class of workers aged 55-64 who were pushed out of their jobs in the recession and have almost no hope of getting a new one are basically having a disability imposed on them, and the impact on retirement is grave. Add in the fact that the elderly are at the front lines of the foreclosure crisis, because so many of them have major equity in their homes, and so many homeowners are massively underwater, and you have the makings of a generational disaster.

It’s in this context that members of the cat food commission are talking about raising the retirement age.

Each time the Catfood Commission holds its secret meetings Alex Lawson of Social Security Works has been outside with his camera, shooting video of the closed front door as FDL runs a live stream on our front page. The Washington Post wrote it up recently. As committee members go in and out of the room Alex asks them questions when he can and yesterday he had an exchange with Alan Simpson that was…well, extraordinary.

Such a simple story, so moving. Senior citizens meet departing and arriving troops at the airport, giving them handshakes and hugs, passing out cell phones and cookies. As The Way We Get By, winner of the SXSW Special Jury Award, unfolds we see the painful challenges faced by three of the volunteers and the ways they get by, one of which is their volunteer work as troop greeters.