Generations United's Response to The President’s Deficit-Reduction Speech

As the President made clear in his speech yesterday, “we are all connected…some things we can only do together.” Generations United applauds the President for recognizing that fiscal policy affects all generations and for advocating for a balanced deficit reduction plan focused on shared sacrifice. As the President stated, programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid not only protect aging seniors, poor children, and those with disabilities, but they provide each of us with “some basic measure of security…in hard times or bad luck, [in the event of] a crippling illness, or a layoff [which] may strike any one of us.”

Generations United supports the President’s pledge to invest in and protect our nation’s most vulnerable citizens by strengthening Social Security. Social Security provides vital support for children, in addition to older adults, covering 98 percent of all children in the event of the death or disability of a caregiver.

We also support the President’s effort to reform the tax code to promote balanced economic growth and provide adequate revenues to address the needs of our citizens and to preserve Medicare and Medicaid for future generations. Proposals which would change Medicaid to a block grant would leave states with inadequate funding and ultimately shift the burden of medical costs onto the backs of seniors and poor families.

Generations United strongly opposes proposals which deny low-income individuals, young and old, access to programs vital to their economic security while giving tax breaks to the wealthy, protecting corporate tax subsidies, and shifting the burden to the middle class.

We urge our members and supporters to reject extreme proposals which would weaken these critical federal protections, prolong our economic recession, and endanger the welfare of the young, old, and disabled.

Generations United Statement on FY2012 Budget Proposal

Yesterday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced his budget proposal for FY2012. Though Generations United supports the need to reduce the country’s deficit based on a principle of shared sacrifice, we strongly oppose Congressman Ryan’s proposal.

If enacted, it would have the effect in the long term of harming millions of our nation’s children, older adults, and other vulnerable groups. This plan would have devastating effects on our education and health systems, shift financial burdens to states, eliminate crucial safety net programs that help struggling families, and further weaken our economy.

The White House aptly summarized the effects of this proposal in a statement released yesterday. “It cuts taxes for millionaires and special interests while placing a greater burden on seniors who depend on Medicare or live in nursing homes, families struggling with a child who has serious disabilities, workers who have lost their health care coverage and students and their families who rely on Pell grants.”

Generations United opposes these harmful cuts and urges Congress to balance the budget in a responsible way that doesn't do so on the backs of our nation's most vulnerable groups.