More than 100 seniors from Prince William County attended Congressman Gerry Connolly's Senior Issues Forum on May 29 at Westminster at Lake Ridge in Woodbridge. 

Representatives from the AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association joined Connolly in a panel discussion on Social Security, federal retirement issues, and Medicare funding.  These organizations, the U.S. Social Security Administration, and the Prince William Area Agency on Aging also had booths at the forum and representatives who answered questions and provided attendees with information about federal programs for retirees.

Particpating in the panel discussion at Connolly’s senior issues forum were: former Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly, President and CEO of NCPSSM; Charles Delaplane of NARFE; Bill Kallio, AARP Virginia State Director.

Here is a news report on the forum from the Potomac News and Messenger:

Panel: Social Security will survive

By JONATHAN HUNLEY, News & Messenger
May 31, 2009

Retirement security used to be thought of as a three-legged stool, the trio of supports being Social Security, an employer pension, and personal savings and assets.

Many businesses, however, no longer offer workers a defined retirement benefit, and the recession has hammered personal savings.

So what does that make retirement?

"It's a barstool," Barbara B. Kennelly said Friday, holding up an index finger. "Just one leg."

Or, as Bill Kallio put it, the stool has the legs—but it's wobbly.

However, that main leg—Social Security—can be fixed, said Kennelly and Kallio, who appeared at a senior issues forum Rep. Gerald E. "Gerry" Connolly held at Westminster at Lake Ridge.

Kennelly is the president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

She said the problem isn't with Social Security itself but with the federal government's fiscal decisions.

The entitlement program is a must for a civilized society, she said.

"Any country worth its salt has a social security program," said Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut.

Kallio, AARP's Virginia state director, seemed to agree as he spoke to a crowd of more than 100 people in Westminster's Potomac Room, many of them residents at the retirement community.

Social Security needs "reasonable and fair adjustments," he said, but it's the reason America has a reduced poverty rate among seniors, so it can't be scrapped, as some claim.

"We don't need to get rid of it," Kallio said. "We don't need to get rid of some-thing that's working quite fine."

The topic is one that's important to Prince William County, said Connolly, a Democrat who represents much of eastern Prince William.

More than 55,000 people in the county, 15 percent of the population, are aged 55 or older, said the 11th District congressman.

His forum also touched on federal retiree issues and on Medicare.

The latter will be crucial to a national health care overhaul, Kennelly said, because it and Medicaid are the govern-ment's only current universal health care plans.

Connolly told the audience that he comes to the issue of health care reform with an open mind. And he's confident that changes will happen soon.

"We will get comprehensive health care reform," he said, "and I believe we will do it this year."

www.insidenova.com/isn/news/politics/article/panel_social_security_will_survive/36651/