“Young People Be Damned!”(Reactionary AARP)

If any more confirmation were needed, we've just received it: The AARP's most fundamental principle is "Get all you can, while you can — young people be damned."

The nation's largest seniors organization has just sent its 36 million members a scorching message opposing private Social Security accounts, raising the prospect of benefit cuts, Wall Street profiteering and mayhem just short of the apocalypse. The blast is prompted by Bush's endorsement of Social Security reform and proposals to allow younger workers to voluntarily divert some of their payroll taxes into a private retirement account.

You prove your ignorance by stating your disbelief at the notion that parents are ignored because of SS and Medicaid. Then you go on to make the inane statement that people on SS aren't spending my money. Of course they are. You want to continue pretending Social Security is some sort of savings plan government oversees and hope that you can suck at the teat when your turn comes. It's a tax, and your elected representatives spent it already, so you'll just cry cause the milk dried up. You think that the reason Social Security is due for insolvency is too many druggies, drunks and disabilities sucked it dry? Nope. Too many congressmen spent that money on their pet projects--projects you and other boomers thought more important at the time.

You act like it's a sin to work until you die; you act like I fear being broke or sick. I've been both and I dealt with it and--here's a surprise--my FAMILY helped out, not government. Government didn't write me a check. Government didn't offer me free food or welfare. Government didn't even send me a get well card.

And as to my traveling, what do you know of the future? You're living in the past, pal. You think government helps the poor. You think government helps seniors. You think that people WON'T work themselves to death, when it's patently obvious they WILL have to, given the coming bankruptcy of the American welfare state.

You basically list every private saving vehicle and say, they're screwed, so we better rely on government. Here's ANOTHER news flash for you: who do you think will primarily do the screwing of those private saving vehicles? The market? No--GOVERNMENT will. Just as it did the S&L market in the past, it will rape 401Ks in the future. It's a certainty.

Better to stay out of government's way as best you can if you're Gen X or Y, and make sure that your liabilities are in the U.S and your assets aren't. Instead you counsel everyone to rely on the government. That paid off--if you were a boomer--back when the college grants were rolling in, but it won't when you boomers retire. Enjoy the pipe dreams now. Later, I'll be smiling because I prepared for the roof to fall in, while you beg on streetcorners and wonder what happened to your government handout.

Do you really think they will just not retire and government won't be called on to provide basics regardless? There are myriad reasons why your proposal won't work the way you think, but let's start with health care.

First, you let seniors work. AARP will never let them work without guaranteeing Medicaid coverage regardless of your proposal. That will cost a fortune and we won't have the tax coming in for their income any more to cover it. Nor will we have the NEW income tax that would be made by Gen X or Gen Y workers who would otherwise be filling those positions. Your solution to this is essentially to tell Gen X and Y to 'get a job.' That's fine--but they won't be making Boomer money starting over. And the government won't be making Boomer income tax off them to cover your Boomer subsidy.

What about Social Security? Well, the AARP has worked to raise the income limits of those receiving SS, without ending SS, every time this kind of crap comes up. Your proposal would be no different. The SS checks would continue to roll in REGARDLESS of the proposal, because AARP would make sure that Boomers got the no-tax subsidy without taking the bite of the SS payments being withdrawn.

We aren't arguing that Gen X and Gen Y will need to work and pay taxes. What we're arguing about is reality--there is no way we can just let Boomers NOT pay taxes, now or later, and the only way out of the mess is to tax them MORE now or give them LESS later. Your proposal says we can tax them less later, and everything will be okay!

And as long as you're dreaming, I want a pony.

You know you can rant on til hell freezes over. I believe in a SS plan for all American citizens that contributed. One that is self-sufficient (as this was suppose to be).
By the way, I have never received from the government either. I am a taxpayer who has always supported myself. I resent welfare stealing from my pocket (the real redistribution of wealth). I have always believed the churches and the community should handle these problems. Why do you blame the elderly who are on SS or are expecting to draw SS for a problem our government created by raiding the fund and changing the rules. A program they were led to believe was a good program. Did these people have a choice in what ocurred? How can you begrudge them their dues at this late date or do you begrudge them because you do not believe you will receive what you have contributed?

The boomers are the generation when a huge number of both spouses worked. How many are aware that if married and the male dies that generally the woman opts for the husband's SS because it pays more. Thus the woman's contribution is gravy to the pot. Wonder how many women are glad they worked all their lives?

You and I are in agreement as to who is responsible for the mess it is in. I will not change your thinking and you will not change mine but be aware that the generations after you will be yet another whole new ball game and you may be on the receiving end. With term limits the changing of the guard is even more often and you might meet that snot nose know-it-all kid earlier than you expect. What goes around comes around and I dare you to prove me wrong.

Too bad we all can't be business owners and have the opportunity to skim before reporting the profits to guarantee our future.

Your attitude appears that you have no value for the elderly's past contributions to society; they are only 'sucking a teat.'

How many from your generation are sucking the SS teat and stealing from the fund? Do you blame yourself?

You are correct in that we will not agree on this. I don't think boomers contributed any more to the SS pot than prior generations, and their parents benefitted and their parents' parents benefitted. The result is that at some point, those folks whose families retired without saving never had to put up the money for the care of their own families--the taxpayers did--and they pocketed it themselves instead. Most of this benefit accrued to the boomers. The ultimate detriment should fall to them as well.

I am not about to say that the people who came before me did not contribute to society. However, you cannot tell me that my motives are selfish when I want the system ended during MY time. You can bet your butt that my generation will be taking a bigger hit than the next as a result. I just don't want those elders who got us and kept us in this mess--though you imply I should somehow revere them for it--I don't want them getting away unscathed. You call it changing the rules. I call it justice, that the people who garnered the most benefit from this pyramid scheme suffer themselves to pay at least something for it.

What goes around comes around? Really? Let me know when it's gonna come Gen X's way, so we can all get a suck at the teat! I don't know anyone on SS in my generation, and I know ONE person on welfare--and they are married, have kids, and the dad lost his job because a Mexican trucking firm took over his company's routes!

Almost everyone I know is working their butts off. Of course, I don't live in a poor neighborhood, but even when I did, I didn't have GenX neighbors who sat home all day.

I know there are anecdotal issues with my comments, but I know this, too: there have been a lot of years for boomers and seniors to squeeze all they can from the government. I'm asking that it stop, and that my opportunity to never come. You want it to keep on keepin' on. Which is just? I guess you're right--we won't agree.

While everyone complains on this or that about AARP, all seem to be missing the point. The point being that AARP should not be fighting to keep the status quo of Social Security, it should be fighting to make SS three times richer, and triple the benefits paid to recipients. Instead of signing off on the latest ‘drug benefits’ package, that makes the old folks responsible for the first five thousand dollars worth of drugs, AARP should have screamed for socialized medical care paid for by the polluting corporations including the oil, plastics, automobile, and tobacco industries.
The main problem with AARP is that it does not represent the people; it is a shill for the insurance and drug interest. The reason that it is fighting for Social Security to remain unchanged, is to try and salvage its credibility after the complete sellout on the Drug bill of 2003, in which the drug companies got everything they wanted, which included barring government agencies from negotiating a fair price.

I am a Baby Boomer & I (many of us) agree with you guys about the AARP. I posted the following all over CraigsList includeing Washington D.C.

The AARP OmLine Community advertised as a networking and blogging site for seniors 50 & over is nothing short of a scam by the AARP to push the democratic agenda. Groups like the AARP scam seniors out of millions every year with dues & insurance scams. The new AARP.org bata site lures seniors in thinking they are there to enjoy an online experience with other seniors (& some do) but the minute someone makes an anti democrat party statement or a pro republican statement they are booted from the site. If you do not totally agree with the limited number of members in the AARPs good graces you are harassed or booted off the site. AARP YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOU SELVES FOR THE WAY THIS SITE IS RUN & FOR SCAMMING SENIORS WITH YOUR DUES YOU DO NOTHING WITH TO BENEFIT SENIORS & THE MANY INSURANCE SCAMS YOU ARE RUINING!

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