Our nation’s deficit is a long-term threat to our economy and the financial security of future generations, and it needs to be reduced. Congress must cut wasteful spending, but we need to make sure that any proposed solutions look at the impact on real people, not just budget numbers.

Unfortunately, the president’s bipartisan fiscal commission and others in Washington are considering cutting Social Security benefits to reduce the federal budget deficit. Social Security is a self-financed program that hasn’t contributed to the deficit and shouldn’t be targeted to reduce a deficit it did not cause. Social Security is paid for by money that workers and their employers contribute, and workers deserve to get the benefits they have earned. For decades, Congress has been borrowing from Social Security's trust funds to pay its bills. Instead of cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit, Congress needs to crack down on waste and inefficient spending in the rest of the budget, and make the tough decisions to fairly balance revenue and spending.

AARP believes that we need to reduce the deficit to protect the financial security of future generations, but that we shouldn’t do it by raiding their retirement funds. In these uncertain times, cutting Social Security benefits for our children and grandchildren will only increase their economic insecurity. AARP would strongly oppose any proposal that would unfairly target Social Security benefits to fix our nation’s deficit problem.