Issue Position: Social Security

Issue Position

Issue Position: Social Security

Social Security is one of the most important and most successful programs ever created by the federal government. So many retirees - both current and future - are depending on Social Security for a significant part of their income that our goal should be to save, strengthen and secure the program, not cut the benefits they've earned during years of hard work or expose them to the risks of financial markets.

Yet that is exactly what would happen if Social Security was privatized. We'd be gambling away the economic security of the nation's senior citizens at the time of their lives when most of them can least afford it. We'd be taking the "security" out of Social Security.

At the same time, we'd be increasing an already-record deficit every year through 2048 because of privatization's expected cost of $1.4 trillion to $2 trillion over 10 years. Privatization would just be too costly for our country to bear, and younger Americans would bear the burden of repaying this huge debt.

Social Security is not in a crisis. We can find reasonable, financially viable, long-term solutions that allow us to keep the promise of retirement security that FDR made to the American people in 1935. Privatization would not solve Social Security's long-term challenge, it would on the contrary make problems worse by taking money away from the Social Security Trust Fund, forcing it to tap into its reserves earlier.

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