Michael on Social Security

Since its creation in 1935, Social Security has been the single most successful domestic program that our government has ever run. By providing life-long benefits with low administrative and overhead costs, it has helped countless Americans avoid falling into poverty due to old age, disability, or the death of a family member. Currently, over 3 million New Yorkers benefit from Social Security, including 350,000 disabled workers, 280,000 widows, 250,000 children. For one out of every five New Yorkers over 65, Social Security provides their only source of income. These numbers also includes over 25% of people living in our district.

Replacing our current Social Security system with privatized investment accounts is simply unacceptable, and I strongly oppose it.. While I support plans to provide people with greater incentives to save money, such as through changing our tax policies, these must be in addition to our current Social Security system, not in lieu of it. It is too risky to make the lives of 3 million of our friends and neighbors dependent entirely on the whims of the stock market. Social Security has worked well for the past seventy years because it serves as a safety net, but a net tethered to the fluctuations of the stock market simply isn’t safe. Had we privatized Social Security in 2005, as advocated by George Bush, millions of Americans would have seen precipitous drops in their income due to our current economic troubles.

We have an obligation to protect Social Security. I will fight to ensure that not only is it there to protect us, our parents and our grandparents, but that decades from now, it will still be there to protect our children and grandchildren.