West Virginians know, better than most, the absolute necessity of Social Security. It oftentimes is the difference between living with dignity and living in poverty. One in four West Virginians -- more than 400,000 retirees, disabled workers, widows and widowers, spouses and children -- receives a monthly benefit check. The arrival of their benefit check is essential, and for more than 70 years it's been guaranteed regardless of hard economic times.

Unfortunately, the previous Administration diverted more than $1 trillion from the Social Security trust funds and endangered future benefits.  In addition, reckless proposals have been advanced – but, fortunately, never enacted -- to privatize Social Security, subjecting benefits from this critical program to the volatile movements of the financial markets.  Some do better than others with stock market gains, but many West Virginia families could lose a lifetime of their savings in a single day.  As we have seen, when the market falls into a tailspin, it is the privileged few at the top -- not the ordinary workers -- who usually get the golden parachutes.

Social Security has always been a safety net for West Virginians, and not a slush fund for unrelated spending. It is an opportunity to share in a dignified and respectable living, and gambling with that opportunity is as unseemly as gambling with your weekly grocery money.  Social Security is a gift from the World War II generation to this and every generation.  It was forged from their suffering and resiliency during the Great Depression, and the task now falls to us to preserve that gift for our children and grandchildren.  Let us not be lured into trading away our safety net without adequate thought as to who the winners and losers would be.

I will continue to fight in the Senate -- as I have always fought -- to protect workers, and to retain the integrity and stability of their Social Security system.