To the editor:

It’s no news that middle-income seniors depend on Social Security and Medicare. It’s also no news that Republicans seem to want to privatize both Social Security and Medicare in the guise of giving seniors better choices and cutting the federal budget and the deficit. Since when does profit-taking in the health care industry save the customer money? How has competition cut costs? Private health care has never cost more than it does now for pre-retirement folks.

Furthermore, a more recent tactic is to attempt to vote into law spending caps that will, in the future, require more and more federal and state cuts resulting in the elimination of important programs that seniors and the uninsured depend on.

We are not all millionaires! We are, however, taxpayers who live frugally, who have saved for our retirement pretty vigorously but are now being told it will not be enough for us to survive without Social Security and Medicare. I worry that our safety nets may not be available to our children and grandchildren.

Legislators, pay attention! Don’t let your ideologies stand in the way of considering the needs of all of us today and in the future.