Obviously, eliminating SS for those who are currently receiving it or soon to receive it is an almost impossible sell, and the GOP would risk losing the vote of its most loyal constituency: the elderly and aging.
However, a gradual phase-out of SS could be sold, i.e. exempt all those currently on it or to be on it within the next 5-10 years, while benefits for future recipients would be diminished in inverse proportion with how long they've been paying (i.e. so that someone just entering the workforce pays nothing and will eventually receive nothing).
I'm not sure eliminating Federal minimum wage would be so hard a sell - many states have their own minimum wage laws that wouldn't change, while conservative states that don't have their own minimum wage laws would probably support candidates who oppose one at the federal level.
Oh I absolutely agree we cannot simply end it all at once for SS.
People are OWED the money that was stolen from them over the years.
Basically, ensure people who have paid into SS get their money back, over time, and stop making people pay into ASAP. It is also, unfortunately, necessary to do a graduated elimination because we cannot simply pull all those SS workers out at once. Cut them down gradually, too, laying off so many per year or so.
Interesting point about the MW for feds vs. states. I hope that would be true - except that LIV don’t think of state-level issues, only whether it’s “universal” or not.