Happy Birthday, Social Security!

Social Security is one of our nation's most important programs -- and today, on the seventy-sixth anniversary of its enactment, we must renew our commitment to the protection of this vital program.

It's time we reaffirm that promise made decades ago that senior citizens and those with disabilities would be given an important sliver of financial security through any economic time. And it's time we reject the radical plans to destroy Social Security by tea party conservatives like Congressman Allen West.

His absurd efforts to cripple Social Security with massive cuts during the debt ceiling debate last month were shocking -- even for him. But it serves as another example of why I am running for Congress.

Remember, it was Allen West who said: "Social Security... is enslaving the American people."

Wrong.

Social Security -- along with programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants and more -- have helped to build a real middle class in this country. But every moment since he's been in Congress, Allen West has tried to undermine, attack and destroy these programs in the name of tax cuts to his wealthiest donors.

He just doesn't understand how important Social Security is to the very fabric of our country.

And there is only one way to remind him -- beat him next November.

We need to raise up an army of Floridians who will march to the polls on Election Day and reject West's radical plans for Social Security. But we can't do that without supporters like you getting involved. Get involved in my campaign with a contribution here.

Nearly eight decades ago, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, he said it was "...a cornerstone in a structure which is being -- but is by no means complete."

It's something to think about -- and something I wish Congressman West will come to understand.

-- Lois