Cheating The Elderly

Attention Senior citizens and those who care about them.
Every year the government decide how much of a raise to give senior citizens in their social security checks, based on the rise in consumer prices. That's fair right? Sure if its done fairly; but this IS the U.S. government after all, so the answer is, not really, not when their doing the calculations. It seems that the government bean counters have seen fit to NOT include, read that again, NOT, NOT include the increase in prices of gasoline, medical costs, the housing price boom..
Gasoline won't figure into social security increases because of the unique mathematical calculations (new math again?) used. When all is said and done the governments geniuses say gasoline has only risen 0.5% in the past 3 months! Anyone who drives knows better even if they never went to school. To make matters more confusing, these statistics clash with a different set of government stats that AREN'T used in S.S. calculations that says gas sales rose almost 1.5 billion dollars during the same period , while number of gallons didn't rise appreciably. That translates to a 4.5% INCREASE in gas prices! What gives? I don't know for sure but I'd venture a guess that these are probably the same geniuses that "SAW" WMD"s in Iraq!!