Posted on 08/13/2011 1:13:31 PM PDT by Publius804
Generation Xers and Gen-Yers like me have a hard time showing interest in what goes on in Washington. But we had better end our apathy -- and soon -- or we'll spend the rest of our lives paying for it. Members of the generation that came before us -- the Baby Boomers -- are trying to pull a scam under the guise of "protecting" Social Security. If they succeed, we -- and our children -- will be the poorer for it.
Everyone knows Social Security is in trouble (and President Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security released its report on reform yesterday). But few people understand what that trouble is and whom it will affect. Understanding that is the key to understanding the scam.
Right now, Social Security is in great health. This year, like so many before, hundreds of billions of dollars will pour into it from FICA and payroll taxes, and only some will go back out as benefits to retirees. The rest will be exchanged for government bonds, which the federal government will pay back -- with interest -- to Social Security in the coming years.
But things will change in the next decade, when the Boomers will retire and start collecting benefits. By 2016, so many people will be drawing Social Security that the money needed to cover benefits will be more than what we Gen-X/Y workers will be paying in taxes. Fortunately, the program will be able to cash in the bonds that it's now buying, and will use the repaid principle and interest to keep up the benefits
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
No Boomer voted for LBJ and his overwhelming liberal majority in ‘64. Johnson started Medicare, created SS Disability benefits, funded a war and massive new social programs by “creative” bookkeeping and thereby set up the oil shocks of the early ‘70s. Nixon signed off on creation of the EPA, but with a Dem congress, all he could really do was to force some minor concessions inadequate to stop the abuses it portended.
The Gen Y hacks just don’t want to blame the really old folks and put the blame where it mostly lies - the generation that won WWII also placed unprecendented faith in the central government. We are all paying the price for it now.
As a bonus, the lie that FDR helped mitigate suffering from the Depression (instead of seeing that his villifying business actually extended and worsened it) was the media’s first major statist victory - and it is paying dividends to this very day.
Obama’s scapegoating of business should be laughed at by all but a fringe, but at least half of the population agrees with him - at least to some extent. Credit for this failure (or strategy) goes to both the media and the public education lobby.
But the Catholic vote went solidly Democrat, as it has for over forty years. The Catholic laity are very liberal leaning. You can make the case that the majority aren't following what the Church teaches, and that would be right, but the fact remains the Catholic vote has been solidly Dem for years and shows no sign of changing.
An author I read once suggested it was because of anti Catholic persecution in the 1900’s that cemented the link, but I don't know.
Well, the republican party has never historically been friendly towards Catholics until the last 20 years or so. However, I don’t see why the animosity needs to continue, not when they have appointed so many Catholic supreme court justices.
I’m not the only young Catholic I know who rejects the Democrats as the party of death.
And boomers like you are exactly why we’re in the situation that we are in.
If a baby is conceived at a bad time, abort it. If a parent is dying to slowly, euthanize them. What, did they blow through your inheritance which is why you are bitter now?
Boomers have been in power for the last 20 years. What have they done to cut back spending? Cut back the power of government? As posted, the Government back in 1992 only had 7 million people and now has around 39 million people on it’s payroll. That’s all boomers.
Sorry, that was a viable excuse back in the 90s, but that was close to 20 years ago now. Time to start asking why the boomers are addicted to increasing the size of government on their watch.
Then Obama’s a boomer, and you wonder why people are bitter about boomers?
I agree. But such things take time. It may need another generation or so.
That is correct, Obama is a boomer, Catholics preferred him, and your generation voted for him by 66%, numbers that we have never seen anything like from the under 30 voter.
That isn't accurate, the Catholic vote was always democrat since they started arriving in the 1840s. The KKK was the anti-Catholic group, and just like the Catholics, they were Democrats.
Look up the Blaine Amendment. It’s the reason why America is the disaster that it is and why the Catholics have harbored such animosity for the Republican party for so long.
If a baby is conceived at a bad time, abort it. If a parent is dying to slowly, euthanize them. What, did they blow through your inheritance which is why you are bitter now?
OK, you can judge me if you want, but someday, when one of your parents is dying slowly and in pain, maybe you will remember this conversation and feel a little more sympathy.
Also, weren't you one of the people complaining about the cost of supporting the boomers when they get old?
My father’s dead, thank you very much. Dead and buried.
No, I was complaining about the costs of the entitlements and the pork and the public pensions that I am paying for.
I don’t believe it’s right to ask young workers to pay for pensions, while at the same time cutting them out of the deal in order to try to preserve the program’s solvency.
That’s a classic ponzi scheme, where you don’t have enough money to keep it going so you pay off the upper level folks and scram. Meanwhile were left to foot the bill. At least with most scams, you can avoid them, but we can’t avoid the mess that is coming up.
I agree with you totally about that. My point was that your generation will have an even greater expense than the entitlements if you try to keep all of us boomers alive up to the very last moment and provide medical care for all of us.
If I get to the point of not really knowing who I am, sitting in a wheel chair all day and having someone change my diapers, I don't want you to bear the expense of keeping me alive. I want a painless death. I want society to come to terms with euthanasia for those who consent to it.
As I said in an earlier post, you will be confronted with one of these 3 choices when you have millions of baby boomers in their 80'and 90's:
1. Pay for expensive medical care to keep them alive and in less pain. This probably means higher taxes for the next generation.
2. Let them just lay there and suffer.
3. Do what we do for a pet that we love when it comes to the end of it's life and is in pain and doesn't have much longer to live.
You can pick one of these, or suggest a 4th possibility.
Philosophically, euthanasia, should not be on the table. We are going to be fighting this battle neck and neck every step of the way.
You are very right that costs are going to come to a head very quickly. Obamacare, if passed will condemn many folks to die on a waiting room table if for no other reason than that they are not the ‘preferred people’.
The real question comes down to the cost of the health care system. What I have been seeing happen more and more, is what we call ‘medical tourism’, where people travel to another country to get care there. Rather then the expense associated with the medical system, they get the care for a much cheaper cost.
Why can’t that model be done in the US? Mostly a combination of things.
One, most of the front line health care workers are overworked, over burdened, and frankly burnt out. There’s simply not enough of them to meet the demand.
So where do you get the people from? This is the real problem that the boomers are running into. There’s 50 million people in this nation that are missing today from the age of 40 and under. That shortage, isn’t even touched by immigration both illegal and legal, and that’s not even getting into the issues of productivity.
Short of mechanization, getting more robots into health care, and trying to string out the people resources that are there, I simply don’t see a way out of the gap.
Another would be to try to get some of the chronically unemployed folks working, but that would take major regulatory changes, which are a huge part of the entry barrier associated with the profession. Every doctor and nurse should be training at least one other doctor and nurse every year. But, for many reason they only train a fraction.
Anyways, just a few thoughts. I don’t have a good answer, but Obamacare is like taking an already difficult path and burning your bridges behind you. America could function much better than other societies with the advantages of enormous wealth and a relatively young population. This is why Obamacare seeks to negate these relatvely significant benefits in exchange for nothing more than a one way path into slavery.
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