Last week, the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released their draft proposal for closing the budget deficit. The proposal, which took direct aim at Social Security recipients, included another increase in the retirement age and reductions to annual cost-of-living adjustments. According to the Social Security Chief Actuary, these changes will result in significant benefit cuts for future retirees.

We encourage you to contact your congressional representatives about these proposed cuts, and to write letters to the editor of your local paper. Your voice must be heard! Below are a few taking points you can use for your own letter or email:

• Social Security is a promise made by our government to the American people: if you work hard and pay into the system, you will receive a check in retirement. It has kept millions of retirees out of poverty, to say nothing of the millions of widows, children and disabled Americans it has helped.

• Raising the retirement age to 69 is a 13 percent benefit cut on top of the 13 percent cut already made when the retirement age was increased from 65 to 67.

• It is insulting and impractical to ask working people, including many who do physically-demanding labor, to work until they are 69 years old under the guise of reducing the federal deficit.

• Despite the rhetoric, Social Security is not going bankrupt and it does not contribute a dime to the federal deficit.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security can pay every nickel owed to every eligible American for the next 29 years and after that about 80 percent of benefits.

• Not only has Social Security not contributed a dime to the deficit, it has a $2.6 trillion surplus.

• Eliminating the cap on taxable income, which now is set at $106,800, would make Social Security benefits available and able to keep up with the cost of living for the next 100 years without raising the retirement age.

Your letter will be more effective if you use your own words instead of cutting and paste these talking points. Be sure to include your full name, address and phone number, and type “Letter to the editor” in the subject line – don’t worry, your personal information will not be printed.

Use the links below to submit your letter via email.

Major daily newspapers:

The Bellingham Herald: 200 words or less
The Columbian: 200 words or less
The Everett Herald: 200 words or less
The Olympian: 250 words or less
The Seattle PI: 600 words or less
The Seattle Times: 200 words or less
The Spokane Spokesman Review: 200 words or less
The Tacoma News Tribune: 250 word or less
The Tri-City Herald: 200 words or less
The Yakima Herald: 200 words or less

Local area papers:

Aberdeen Daily World: 200 words or less
Auburn Reporter: 200 words or less
Bainbridge Island Review: 250 words or less
Bellevue Reporter: 200 words or less
Bothell Reporter; Kenmore Reporter: 250 words or less
Bremerton Patriot; Central Kitsap Reporter: 200 words or less
Issaquah/Sammamish Reporter: 200 words or less
Kent Reporter: 200 words or less
Kirkland Reporter: 200 words or less
Mercer Island Reporter: 200 words or less
Peninsula Daily News: 250 words or less
Redmond Reporter: 200 words or less
Renton Reporter: 200 words or less
Snoqualmie Valley Reporter;Valley Record: 250 words or less
The Kitsap Sun: 200 words or less
Walla Walla Union Bulletin: 400 words or less
Wenatchee World: 300 words or less