Issue Position: Social Security

Issue Position

Since 1936, the US government has had a contract called Social Security with the workers and their dependents of our country. In 2014, approximately 58 million of our fellow citizens are recipients of the funds they and their employers have contributed to the fund.

As a member of the baby-boomer generation, and a member of AARP, my generation has each month contributed to this retirement program. Our employers have matched our contributions. It is a wonderful program that provides cost of living expenses and supplemental income to nine out of ten seniors over the age of 65.

In its simplest form, social security is a shared investment program where the individual and the employer each contribute funds each month to the government. The government's role is to be the caretaker of the fund, to invest the funds so that they can increase, and then to disburse the funds each month to those eligible to withdraw them.

This contract has been understood and held firm by every president since Franklin Roosevelt. But now Washington, in its ever-searching ways to balance the federal deficit, has pondered the idea of reducing the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for social security. To a millionaire in Congress, a hundred dollars a year is mere pocket change. But to a senior, that hundred dollars a month can be a month's worth of medicine, or half a month's utility bill.

As one who is recently retired, social security is not a theoretical economic tool. It is not a fund to be manipulated. It is not an account to be tampered with in any way. It is the money that my employer and I have pooled to assist me and everyone who receives it so that we can use the money to pay our bills, buy products, take vacations, or share with our families. In short, to continue to use the postponed wages to benefit the nation's economy.

I will stand firm against any attempts to reduce the COLA for social security, or to use the fund as a way to assist other federal needs. The social security contract has been solid for seventy-eight years. It must continue to be.

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