I am committed to addressing the challenges facing Social Security, sustaining and protecting the program for current beneficiaries and future retirees. No program does more to ensure that every American can have a decent retirement.

Many seniors live on a fixed income, and I know how important their Social Security checks are for their medicines and day-to-day living expenses. Based on current forecasts, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2030, after which it will only be able to pay 75 percent of its promised benefits. In 2011, Social Security saw its expenditures exceed its revenues for the first time in decades.

While the system is not facing a crisis tomorrow, it will face some substantial structural problems in the not-too-distant future. And every year we delay addressing the issue, the solutions become more expensive and more painful.

Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act

The government must honor the promises it has made to those who have retired or are reaching retirement soon. I support legislation that would make changes to Social Security for the next generation of recipients, those under 55, while leaving the current system in place for those who have planned their retirements around it.

I believe a good place to start would be passage of legislation I introduced again this Congress, the Bipartisan Social Security Commission Act. The bill calls for a bipartisan and bicameral commission tasked with recommending reforms to ensure Social Security is solvent for at least 75 years. Congress would then be required to vote up or down on the commission’s recommendations within 60 legislative days.