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.
A broader question is can the Second Amendment and Socialism co-exist? History says no.
boomers? give ‘em foodstamps and gov’ment cheese. give ‘em a trailer in Mojave and inventory them near the 747 grave yard.
Easy - just a short hike across the southern border.
The BP may not care if you're a poor Mexican crossing to get goodies from Uncle Sam, but I guarantee you they'll enforce the borders to arrest former citizens who "owe" taxes.
Work on your tan, dye your hair black, and “No habla inglis”.
So Generation Y won’t pay the exhorbitant tax burden? Ha! Who needs them.
We will have PLENTY of illegal immigrants paying taxes on their minimum wage under-the-table earnings to cover the gap, er, uh... Nevermind.
lol
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
.
More on this book see Thank you for dying
as far as that not "diversifying" thingy....it wasn't that...the company was taken over several years ago, its assets sold and then a "bankruptcy" appeared...which took away all pensions and medical retirement....but don't you worry your sweet little head over that....
and yes, we do deserve it....we've both been paying in for a combined 75 yrs...don't you think we should get SOME of our money back?
tru dat....
completely agree. It's only been in the last twenty years or so that common people have been able to take advantage of tsps and iras. Today's younger generations have at their command the ability to make a lot more retirement money for themselves through the markets. But even so my wife and I are also trying to make as much money through our tsps as we can before retirement. And we are doing alright. Why people are blaming boomers for today's and tomorrow's ss crisis is beyond me. We didn't create the ss system, but a boomer (President Bush) did try to solve it. But the fact is the younger generation will be a lot better off if they invest now in the iras and the other plans like it.
Yes, foreign earnings are taxed. Less well known is if you don’t file and are working overseas your passport may be pulled and you either register a citizen elsewhere or return home.
Knowing how to do math and how to apply it are two very different skills. As you probably know, our nation's fiscal problems have little to do with lack of math skills and everything to do with the lack of political courage to stand up to the gimme hordes of tax consumers.
we deserve it.
That’s the problem. You didn’t plan for retirement. If it was YOUR money I’d agree but since it is MY money you feel you deserve, I hope the boomers die very early and very often. Not because I hate them but because I don’t want to see them complete the destruction of America in a generation.
They gave us the sexual revolution which evolved into the AIDS crisis and teen pregnancy epidemics, mainstreamed Marxism, narcicism unrivaled throughout history, single mother homes, the drug problem and the statist policies to follow, postmodern relativism, Political Correctness, economic ignorance, outsourcing, and to top it all off they’ll bankrupt the country so that they can sail off into the sunset to enjoy the leisure years at my expense.
Nah I’m just kidding, I didn’t mean it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.