In the political race for the 1st District representative for Minnesota, Tim Walz has criticized Randy Demmer for making a comment that Social Security funding possibly could be subjected to partial privatization. Rep. Walz took issue with this and stated that money would simply wind up in Wall Street where it would be gambled away and lost.

Randy Demmer did not state in his comment where the funds would be invested; Walz implied that Wall Street would be the funding source. His implication is unfair. Randy Demmer did not mention any investment source.

Perhaps Rep. Walz is so ingrained with his government connections that he fails to see what is going on outside of Washington. Rep. Walz, have your ever heard of retirement annuities and retirement endowments? They are available through life insurance companies. There are many top-notch life insurance companies in the United States that have been in business, some for more than 150 years. They have survived a number of wars and many recessions and depressions and grew stronger as a result of it. They would be a good fit for a retirement account.

Social Security has trillions of dollars of future promised benefits and has nothing to back them up except IOUs. The government has spent all of our contributions and gave us back hopes they can replace them. Along with this another very serious problem is now developing. Millions of baby boomers are now starting to retire and are coming under the Social Security system just at the time of high unemployment. The Social Security system is receiving much less money each month than it was receiving when the economy was doing better.

I would suggest to Rep. Walz that he stop parading all of these elderly senior citizens on TV hoping he can scare them into thinking they are going to lose their Social Security. The elderly of which I am one of them are not going to be hurt. It is the younger group that will have to face the possibility that the system will collapse. Rep. Walz, bring on TV people who are in the system and are in the age range of 25 to 50 years. Ask them how much confidence they have in the existing Social Security plan. They are the ones who will tell you whether or not they would like the opportunity of investing some of their earnings in a separate source away from the politicians control.

However, since you apparently have your mind set so firmly in that the existing system is perfect, I encourage the voting public to vote for Randy Demmer. He has shown he knows there are problems that we face in the Social Security system and he has an open mind toward addressing them.

Russell O. Anderson

Albert Lea