"After the Great Depression, President Roosevelt knew that he had to come up with a way to protect Americans from financial ruin in retirement. Social Security is a sacred promise which we must keep. In 2005, the Bush-Kuhl Administration tried to gamble your retirement on Wall Street by privatizing Social Security. Fortunately, their plan failed and your retirement didn't go down the tubes with Bear Stearns. America won the first round against President Bush's plan to bet our seniors financial well being on the stock exchange, but they will surely try again. I stand with President Roosevelt and promise to protect Social Security when I am elected to Congress."
Retired Navy Commander Eric Massa

1. FIGHTING TO PREVENT THE PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECUIRTY
   
   1. Randy Kuhl Co-Sponsored George W. Bush's effort to privatize Social
      Security - had it passed, the effects would have been devastating. In the 2005 State of the Union Address, when Randy Kuhl first got to Washington, President Bush declared that his top priority was to risk Social Security on Wall Street. Eager to serve the President, Randy Kuhl signed up as a co-sponsor to Bush's Social Security privatization plan1. This would have hurt America's seniors had they been successful. In March of 2008, the government bailed out Bear Stearns to the tune of $30 billion. Imagine what would have happened to your Social Security payments or your parent's payments had the government invested them in Bear Stearns. We cannot risk the retirement benefits of 134,796 retirees in New York's 29th Congressional district or the millions of other Americans that rely on this sacred trust.²
   2. Privatization will dismantle social security, not stabilize it. Privatization is simply not a way to save Social Security. It is quite the opposite. Privatizing Social Security would, undoubtedly, dismantle the system. Hundreds of thousands of Americans would be put at risk as their benefits were cut. Privatization would put Social Security funds in the hands of the stock market. The stock markets returns are never guaranteed, an increase in inflation is all that it would take to destroy benefits. Americans need a system they can count on, not a fluctuating privatized account. Eric Massa believes in strengthening our current system so that it is reliable for each and every American.
2. ENSURING THAT THOSE THAT RECEIVE SOCIAL SECURITY CAN CONTINUE WITHOUT A FEAR OF LOSING BENEFITS
   1. Freezing the retirement age where it is. Right now the earliest age to receive Social Security benefits is 62; however, the retirement age with full benefits is 66. In another 10 years, the retirement age will start increasing by two months every year and eventually people born in 1960 will face a retirement age of 67.³ This is wrong and Eric Massa will fight to keep the retirement age exactly where it is.
   2. Keeping benefits where they are, without reductions. Social Security privatization would:
      • Slash benefits for middle-class retirees by more than 40 percent for future retirees
      • Replace guaranteed Social Security benefits with risky private accounts
      • Drain trillions of dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund, threatening seniors' benefits
      • Increase America's debt to foreign nations by about $5 trillion over 20 years.⁴.
   
   Eric Massa will protect the benefits America's seniors have spent a lifetime
   paying for.
3. CUTTING DOWN ON GOVERNMENT WASTE AND MAKING SURE THAT THE SYSTEM IS FULLY FUNDED BY REPAYING THE DEBT TO SOCIAL SECURITY
   1. Pork Spending
      Currently social security takes in more than it gives out in benefits. Rather than responsibly spending this money, or saving it for future beneficiaries, Congress has been wasting this money for years. For example, in 2007 Randy Kuhl voted to spend $200,000 on a Lobster Institute.⁵ In 2008 Kuhl voted to spend $25 million on protecting cats and dogs in other countries.6 These are funds that could have been used to protect the promise of Social Security for future generations. The most important step that Eric Massa will take as a member of Congress is to only vote for necessary spending, ensuring that we do not waste money from the Social Security Trust Fund.
   2. War Spending
      Every month we're spending as much as $12.5 billion a month to fund the war.⁷ This money could go towards covering social security costs for hundreds of thousands of America's seniors but instead is being spent on the war. What is even more galling is the fraud, waste and abuse of war funds. Yet Randy Kuhl voted in favor of giving further appropriations to companies that have had more than $100 million in unreasonable expenses billed to the taxpayers.⁸ Kuhl also voted against investigating this fraud.⁹
   3. Balancing the budget
      It is estimated that when President Bush and Randy Kuhl leave office, they will leave the American public with a record high budget deficit of $482 billion.¹⁰ This is the biggest underlying problem to America's financial woes. To strengthen Social Security, we need a responsible Congress that focuses on serving America, rather than giving more tax handouts to Big Oil.^11,12 Additionally, Eric Massa supports Congressional "Pay-Go" rules where every bill must have it's funding as part of the bill. Fiscal sanity means paying as you go rather than tacking more charges onto our nation's credit card.