Dear Editor,

I am a 71 year-old rural Coloradan politically registered as Unaffiliated. I’d like to ask my fellow seniors a simple question: Why vote against your own self-interest?

Republicans have vowed to cut Social Security and Medicare. Democrats have vowed to protect both.

The GOP 2025 budget proposal raises the age for collecting Social Security and ends Medicare as we know it by replacing it with a “premium support model,” changing it from its current efficient, successful form to something resembling the rest of our failed healthcare system.

The GOP budget would cut $1.5 trillion from Social Security, repeal Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices, and end the $35 out-of-pocket cap on insulin.

On March 11, Trump, responding to a question from Joe Kernen said, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting (Medicare and Social Security).”

By contrast, in Biden’s proposed 2025 Budget are the words, “The Budget upholds the President’s commitment to protecting Medicare and Social Security for this and future generations.”

He plans to pay for Social Security by raising the payroll taxes on the ultra-rich—those making over $400,000 per year.

Right now--Write out a note to yourself and put in on your refrigerator to remind you: In November 2024 I will vote for my own self-interest. I will vote Democratic.

Philip Riffe

Peak to Peak