Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security!
	Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line.
	Call 1-866-529-7630 today!

Can women and their families afford deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

We don’t think so. But as the President’s Fiscal Commission meets this week, deep cuts to these and other vital programs for women and their families are on the table.

We need your help to make sure these proposals don’t stay on the table — starting with joining the National Call-In Day on Social Security.

Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security! Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

• After providing your zip code, you’ll be given a choice of which of your state’s Senators to be connected with first. Call both if you possibly can!
• Tell the person who answers the phone: I am a constituent living in [your state]. I am calling to tell the Senator to say “NO!” to cuts in Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits are especially important to women — and women’s average benefits are just $12,000 per year. Women can’t afford Social Security benefit cuts.

Why are we so concerned? Commission Co-Chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have proposed:

• Cutting Social Security benefits for the vast majority of beneficiaries by raising the retirement age, lowering the cost of living adjustment, and changing the basic benefit formula.
• Shifting more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to pay higher co-pays.
• Cutting overall federal funding for domestic discretionary programs by about 20 percent, jeopardizing funding for child care, education, training, and other crucial investments.
• Relying on spending cuts, far more than revenue increases, to reduce the deficit. While some tax expenditures would be curtailed, much of that revenue would be used to cut tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and corporations rather than to protect vital services or reduce the deficit.

Bottom line — these proposals would hurt women and their families. The reductions to Social Security would disproportionately hurt women, who depend more on income from Social Security than men do. And the changes to Medicare and Medicaid would place an extra burden on women, who are the majority of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and who already spend a higher percentage of their (already-lower) incomes on health care than men.

Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line. Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

This will be a long, hard fight and we are counting on you to stand up for women and their families.

Sincerely,

Joan Entmacher Vice President, Family Economic Security National Women’s Law Center

P.S. To find out more about the co-chairs’ Social Security benefit cuts, check out our blog.