This Gen-X'er says it sure is.
Posted on 04/10/2007 7:21:00 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Cassandra Devine knows how to solve the coming "entitlements" crisis, preordained when the 77 million baby boomers begin hitting 65 in 2011: Pay retirees to kill themselves, a program she calls "transitioning."
Volunteers could receive a lavish vacation beforehand ("a farewell honeymoon"), courtesy of the government, and their heirs would be spared the estate tax. If only 20% of boomers select suicide before the age of 70, she says, "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid will be solvent. End of crisis."
OK, Devine is a 29-year-old fictional blogger in Christopher Buckley's satirical novel "Boomsday." Infuriated at the injustices awaiting her generation, she becomes an instant media celebrity with a gift for incendiary rhetoric. "Someone my age will have to spend their entire life paying unfair taxes, just so the Boomers can hit the golf course at 62 and drink gin and tonics until they're 90," she tells one TV reporter.
Her plan, once in cyberspace, incites spontaneous uprisings. In Florida, "several hundred people in their twenties stormed the gates of a retirement community. . . . Residents were assaulted as they played golf."
Buckley, born in 1952, is a boomer himself, and his novel is in the best tradition of Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745 (the writer who once suggested that the Irish relieve a famine by eating their young), of using the absurd to discuss moral outrages. Buckley's comic tale revolves around two truths usually buried in our dreary budget debates.
First, a generational backlash is inevitable. It may not come as attacks on sunbathing retirees, but the idea that younger workers will meekly bear the huge tax increases needed to pay all boomers' promised benefits is delusional. The increases are too steep, and too many boomers — fairly wealthy and healthy — will seem undeserving.
Consider: In 2007, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid constitute 44% of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. To pay all future benefits could (depending on assumptions) easily require tax increases of 30% to 50% by 2030. Many retirees are quite comfortable. About 42% of Americans 65 to 75 have assets (homes, stocks, cash) worth $250,000 or more; 23% have annual incomes exceeding $69,000, says the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Second, boomers will want even more benefits. Buckley imagines them clamoring for subsidies for Botox, grandparent day care and "giant flat-screen plasma TVs (for boomers with deteriorating eyesight)." Their actual demands may be less exotic and more expensive: closing the "doughnut hole" — a gap of coverage — in Medicare's drug benefit; more lenient tax treatment for retirement accounts; more payments for nursing homes.
Out in front will be the 38 million-member AARP, the nation's most powerful interest group. In the past four years, notes National Journal, it's spent $88 million on lobbying. AARP says that in the last election half the voters were older than 50 and a quarter were its members.
AARP's new public-relations campaign (slogan: "Divided We Fail") misleadingly aims to project an unselfish and high-minded image. In practice, it means AARP will support higher government spending for all age groups, which (of course) will increase taxes further for tomorrow's workers.
For example, AARP urges the expansion of SCHIP, a program of health insurance for poor children that, ironically, illustrates the nation's twisted priorities. In 2007, SCHIP will cost $5.7 billion; Social Security and Medicare, $1 trillion. Well, maybe SCHIP should be expanded, but only if — a test of AARP's real commitment — cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits pay for the expansion. A doubling of SCHIP would require cuts of about one half of 1%.
Social Security and Medicare are an essential part of the social fabric. Millions depend on them. But the vast benefits — paid too early and too indiscriminately — have become disconnected from genuine need. Unless the two are reconnected, these successful programs will tear at the social fabric.
It is unfair to blame only baby boomers for not acting pre-emptively to curb the known costs of their retirement. The "greatest generation" bears equal responsibility. Politicians have done nothing, because voters — present and prospective retirees — have wanted them to do nothing.
Still, boomers deserve special disapproval. "Baby Boomers," says Buckley's Devine, "made self-indulgence a virtue." Sure, that's a stereotype, but for opinion leaders and politicians, it is uncomfortably accurate.
Consider Newsweek. It has a regular feature, "The Boomer Files," that celebrates boomer musicians, comedians, sports heroes and TV series. It discusses how boomers are "redefining the 'golden years' " — but not a peep about the costs for their children.
I was born in late 1945 and count myself a part of this failure. In our careless self-absorption, we are committing a political and economic crime against our children and perhaps — when they awaken to their victimization — even ourselves.
Ship the poor and infirm to china or vietnam where the can receive decent care at a very low price.
I was born in 1953. My kids were born in 1979, 1984, 1987 and 1990. They are all super conservative or even libertarian. They are against taxes and euthanasia and Social Security, but I wonder how many gen-y-ers will be so sanguine. I’ve always believe Terri Schiavo (and Hugh Finn, Nancy Cruzan and other poor souls) were test cases for the tough times ahead. Gulp!
The better alternative would be to actually fund retirees costs, like a pension fund does, rather than run a ponzi scheme.
We need to start personal accounts and transition SS from a government Ponzi scheme to a private pension system. countries have already done so including the UK and Chile. What we have been witnessing is a massive wealth transfer from the young to the old.
Bah. In my time, a million dollars (or a billion dollars) wouldn't even buy an iPod Nano. Now you can get 10,000 songs on a device you can carry in your pocket.
Only if you are making more than $85K per year (I think that is the current limit). You can live pretty well for even $24K per year in some countries.
Then nobody will get promoted as the oldsters continue to hog the top positions causing depressed wages in the prime earning years of Gen X and less opportunity for Gen Y causing the need for even more labor to be imported.
It's not that simple....
Besides, they already upped the retirement age for Gen X.
Just another communist. The idiocy of people is that they believed if they gave the Feds their money, the Feds would look after them. Remember when Hillary gave that speech and said she could take Exxon's 42 billion dollar profit and do great things with it? She could run the Federal government for one and a half days. If the fifteen percent of income boomers paid into SS had been put in interest bearing accounts, or invested prudently in the stock market, there'd be an even bigger labor shortage than there is now. The Federal government is a bottomless pit of promises and taxes.
SS is a giant Ponzi scheme and anybody who can’t see that is a dunce. The govt. has stolen from me the last 40 years to fund it, so I’m taking early benefits and bleeding SS for all I can get. I am not going to be fool enough to put myself in a position where I depend on SS for my basic needs. If the kids want to riot over taxes, have at it. Hopefully they will lynch the scumbag politicians.
But lots of entrepeneurs make a lot more than $85K per year.
There’s no need for anything that drastic.
Raise the retirement age (including eliminating early retirement) continuously over the next several years and double the earnings limit. That will keep it solvent. Then once that’s done, do some restructuring, like no longer linking the inflation index to the rate increases.
but whatever.....
we are volunteers and we know lots of people our age who volunteer, so I have the expectation that that will be a huge part of our retirement if we ever get there.....
we will not get civil servant type benefits, we already pay huge SS taxes and Medicare and Property and gasoline and every other tax imagined AND income taxes.....
so we pay, we volunteer, we help our kids pretty generously IMO....paying college costs and a wedding and getting first cars, etc....
what the H do people want from us....
you better believe we will take whatever SS benefit there is....we deserve it.
so easy for people on easy street to tell the rest of us to keep working til were 70....
“Still, boomers deserve special disapproval.”
I and the rest of my family, certainly disagree to the utmost with the above quote.
Yes, my last name is Boomers and it is amazing how much we have made the news the last few years. :-)
believe=believed. Sheesh!
This Gen-X'er says it sure is.
I'll never get that chance to spoil my kids like baby boomers, I'll be paying for you instead of my kids.
what the H do people want from us....
It's not my fault your husband sank the nest egg into the company he worked for instead of diversifying it. Why should I have to pay for it? I've been laid off 4 times. It's a different world now.....
you better believe we will take whatever SS benefit there is....we deserve it.
There it is, the entitlement mentality: "We deserve it." No, you deserve to suffer for being improvident dopes.
Oh, no, I’m many, many years from being retired. Chances are, I won’t be able to retire until I’m in my 70’s.
The unfortunate fact is, there are no easy answers to this problem. This is simply making the best of a bad situation. If you think there’s a better way, by all means inform me.
Better thank Congress.
Just think how different the USA would be if the
Founding Fathers had included term limits in the
Constitution.
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