Strengthen Social Security, Medicare

To the editor:

During a recent speech in New Hampshire, potential Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie proposed pushing back the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare for future retirees as part of a plan to cut deficits by $1 trillion over a decade, an approach he said would confront the nation's 'biggest challenges in an honest way.”

Once again, our Republican friends have either deliberately or ignorantly failed to remember Social Security and Medicare are not part of the federal budget; they are funded by payroll taxes on both employer and employee and are completely separate.

The real sadness of all of this talk of raising ages and/or cutting benefits is being made by people who don't or won't ever need Social Security or Medicare, yet are determined to take it away from those who do need it.

Congress should be finding ways to strengthen Social Security/Medicare, such as 'Scrap the Cap,” rather than trying to destroy it in a failed plan to reduce deficits about which they seem so worried.

Want to reduce the federal deficits? Cut the defense departments budget by half.

Kenn Bowen

Iowa City