Is your grandmother’s money safe for the future, or is Sen. Ted Cruz’s vision of entitlement reform going to throw a wrench in the spokes of her wheel chair and toss her into the abyss? 

That's the question Americans faced at Tuesday’s GOP debate in Milwaukee. When asking Cruz about his desire to raise the retirement age and reduce benefits for future retirees, Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker noted similar initiatives have been non-starters and have faced harsh criticism: For example, when Sen. Paul Ryan proposed replacing traditional Medicare a few years ago, a liberal group responded with a commercial that featured a granny being pushed off a cliff. 

“Well, my mom is here, so I don’t think we should be pushing any grannies off cliffs,” Cruz quipped. He probably saw the ad. 

But the laughing stopped there, because Cruz noted that though he doesn’t want to change any policies for the elderly currently in retirement, he wants to enforce his reforms for future generations.

“For younger workers, we should gradually raise the retirement age, we should have benefits grow more slowly and we should allow them to keep a portion of their taxes in a personal account that they control and can pass on to their kids, ” Cruz said.

Of course, retirement legislation and entitlement programs are not just issues for the geriatric; we’re all putting money into the Social Security system, but Cruz could shape when we’re able to receive that money.

Currently, the standard retirement age for Americans, as dictated by when full Social Security benefits are offered, is 65 for those born in 1937 or before. It rises incrementally to 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

And though not concerned with pushing granny, Cruz is particularly concerned with pushing back retirement. For starters, there’s no doubt that reforms have to be made given Social Security's long-term solvency issue. In 20 years, with no change, only 80% of benefits will be paid after 2033. What's more, Cruz is obsessed with whittling down the national debt. He supports passing a Constitutional amendment for Congress to balance the budget and views getting entitlement growth under control as a key component of that. 

Of course, he's not alone in addressing the need to raise the national retirement age. Jeb Bush has also said Social Security benefits need to be delayed to age 68 or 70.

“So people that already have the supplemental retirement system, which is a contract, I don't think we violate that," he said on CBS's Face the Nation in June. "For people that are about ready to be beneficiaries of their supplemental retirement, I don't think we change that. But we need to look over the horizon and begin to phase in, over an extended period of time, going from [age] 65 to 68 or 70. And that by itself will help sustain the retirement system for anybody under the age of 40.”

So, don't worry; your grandmother and her wheelchair are safe. It's your wheels the candidates may be greasing.