Walz's timely reminder of Social Security's true purpose

By Kathryn Anne Edwards / Bloomberg Opinion

In a speech at the Democratic National Convention accepting the party’s nomination as vice president last week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz talked about his life before politics.

He mentioned how is father died of lung cancer. “Thank God for Social Security Survivor benefits,” Walz said. In fact, Walz has often talked about how the program helped stabilize his family in those days, allowing them to “live with dignity” rather than poverty. He talked about it when he ran for governor in 2018 and on the campaign trail with current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Walz is the exact kind of politician Social Security needs at the moment. Although Social Security, which along with Medicare is one of the country’s two largest entitlement programs, isn’t an issue in the 2024 elections, it’s likely to become so as lawmakers turn their attention from the race for the White House back to debt and deficits.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group spearheading an extensive plan to reshape the U.S. government called Project 2025, has long proposed making Social Security a voluntary savings program that workers can opt out of, in effect privatizing the program. Critics such as Heritage claim the program has long been a bad deal, arguing that workers would be better off in the long run investing the 6.2 percent of their earnings that go into Social Security on their own.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-walzs-timely-reminder-of-social-securitys-true-purpose/