On August 14, 1935 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. Today this program is widely considered to be the most successful government program in the United States, lifting literally millions of seniors out of poverty and providing needed benefits to minors that lose one or both of their parents, the disabled, and many others.

Unfortunately, this valuable program is not something we can take for granted. Many on the right are eager to start us down the road to privatization, dismantling perhaps the only major government program that currently brings in more than it pays out in the process. The impact to Utah’s senior citizens will be significant if they succeed.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities nearly half our seniors would be living at or below the poverty line if it weren’t for their monthly Social Security check. With the program fewer than 9% actually live below the poverty line. In Utah alone, 51,000 senior citizens are lifted out of poverty by Social Security.

Allowing people to pay less into a program that is projected to run a surplus until past the middle of the next decade will not “save” Social Security. Instead it will quickly bankrupt it while those that have already retired continue to draw out at the same rate and those putting their money into private accounts put less in. The best birthday present we can offer Social Security and the millions of citizens that rely on it is protecting it against those that are actively working to dismantle it.