Combined with years of wasteful spending by decades of career politicians in Washington, the Social Security trust fund has been left in a fragile condition.
Millions of Americans depend on Social Security and if we are to keep our promises to them, we can no longer ignore the fiscal state of this undoubtedly important program. Continuing to push Social Security reforms into the future will only make solving the problem harder and will require more painful changes for seniors.
During my time in the Senate, I have worked on proposals that would fix the shortfalls in the Social Security program through a gradual increase in the age of full retirement and by means testing yearly earnings, while preserving those benefits for near and current retirees. These changes would only apply to younger Americans who have time to plan for the future.
As President, I will remain committed to fixing the Social Security program, while preserving the system for seniors who have planned their lives around the program and implementing reforms to save the program for younger generations.