Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The White House put the cost at $13 billion. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year. It would mark the first year without an increase in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

Come January, seniors may do a double take after seeing their Social Security checks. The 2% to 3% increase in benefits they usually get each year won't be there. The reason: For the first time in three decades, there likely won't be a cost-of-living adjustment. Though benefit amounts for 2010 won't shrink, with investment losses and lower home values, the lack of an increase will feel like a loss to many seniors. checks could be lower when factoring in premiums for Medicare Part B, which are deducted from monthly benefits. For most of the 42 million Part B beneficiaries, the...

Although, President Barack Obama participated in an AARP Town Hall to promote his health care reform, his appearance was not a success among members of the powerful AARP. Comments posted by AARP members indicate they are far from assured by Obama or his message. Most comments show a continued distrust of Obama's assurances that Medicare will be protected and that health care will be better. Baby boomers who now hold a great deal of power in the AARP and among voters, just don't want their entitlements smaller. Never mind, that they are the only group of Americans who have what...

Long hailed by free market economists as the model for how to create a pension system, news out of Chile that it plans on making payouts to low income seniors, has government interventionists jumping for joy. The AP writes: The new $2 billion-a-year program will expand public pensions to groups left out by private pensions - the poor and self-employed, housewives, street vendors and farmers who saved little for retirement - granting about a quarter of the nation's work force public pensions by 2012. The fact is that this move is the way that governments should generally function. Stay out...

Social Security faces an enormous future deficit: Between today and 2075, the inflation-adjusted shortfall is projected to reach a staggering $20 trillion. Although the problem with the current system is due in part to changes in demographics, the root of the problem lies in the fact that the Social Security system itself is poorly designed. Workers, particularly those under age 50, are slated to receive very low benefits in return for a record amount of payroll taxes they send to the federal government. 1 These workers could enjoy substantially greater levels of retirement income if they were allowed to place...

Concerned about a critical shortage of affordable housing for low-income senior citizens, the House passed a bill on Wednesday designed to spark an dramatic expansion of subsidized apartments and improve services for residents. The legislation would affect needy senior citizens nationwide but would have a special impact on South Florida and along the Treasure Coast, where hurricane damage, rising costs and a large population of retirees create widespread demand for affordable options. "A large number of seniors are on waiting lists. The need and the demand are much higher than the market's ability to meet it or the federal incentives...

WASHINGTON — The nation's first baby boomer applied for Social Security benefits today, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World War II war generation. Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey, applied for benefits over the Internet at an event attended by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue. Casey-Kirschling, who now lives in Maryland, was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, making her the first baby boomer — a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964, Astrue said. Casey-Kirschling will be eligible for benefits after she turns 62...

New Jersey towns have figured out a way to sidestep the highest property taxes in the U.S. Keep children out. Educating a child in New Jersey costs an average of $12,567 a year, the most in the nation and more than double the property tax parents typically pay. So local governments have hit upon a way to expand the tax base without the expense of higher enrollment: age-restricted housing. New Jersey developers have responded by building an estimated one-fifth of the country's adults-only housing, making the state the leader in a national trend spurred by baby boomers seeking new homes...

As you people know, I have shared with you over the course of many years the writings of Robert Samuelson who is an economist and columnist for the Washington Post, and on most occasions, I am a supreme advocate. This piece that ran today in the Washington Post is a little problematic for me in some areas. The title of his column is, "Entitled Selfishness." His theme here is that the baby boomer generation is in a state of denial. Let me give you some excerpts here. “As someone born in late 1945, I say this to the 76 million...

Continuing our coverage of the next generation of seniors, this one is for the kids - men and women in their 40s or 50s. They are our grown children, most of whom have not known privation, economic depression, a world without television or what it was like in a country that was truly at war to save democracy. In short, it's for a generation with little or no memory of what came before. As my late colleague Lars-Erik Nelson once wrote, few of these people "can imagine why there was ever a need for Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill,...

I find it disgusting to think of exempting taxes (school taxes and state taxes) for old people. Just because you don’t have kids in school does not mean that you don’t benefit from having a good school system. If the school system went to pot and started turning out more dropouts than graduates, you tax free fogies would be crying about the state of affairs and how it sure was better when you were younger. The Governor has a new item on his Sonny do list. Let the retired folks off the hook for state taxes. Bad idea. Let’s look...

Retirees Will Face Dire Straits BY TERESA DIXON MURRAY This nation faces a massive economic crisis -- indeed a social catastrophe -- that some experts even say will be among the worst the country's ever seen.Much has been said about how the looming retirement of 76 million baby boomers will stampede Social Security, which is expected to start running out of money in 11 years. We almost joke about senior citizens eating dog food. Maybe that joking is the only way we can keep from crying.But Social Security is just one piece of a cruel puzzle. It's not until you...

Everyone seems to have a plan now to “save” Social Security. While these plans typically include varying degrees of increased taxes, higher retirement ages, reduced benefits and escalating deficits, they each share a common theme. That is, they all preserve a massive government mandated retirement program that has us deep in the red. In fact, at this critical juncture in history, as we watch the last years of Social Security surpluses tick away and await the morass of deficits to come, phasing out Social Security could hold the key to solving our looming financial crisis. Like many famous pyramid schemes,...

Today's younger workers face a higher health-care tab as their elders retire Young people may be less tuned into the debate over Medicare prescription drug benefits than their elders, but experts say it's time for them to pay more attention. According to analysts and researchers throughout the health-care policy community, now may be the crucial moment for people in their 20s, 30s and 40s to sit up and take notice of the coming changes to the health care system. "Once the boomers retire, you're not going to take anything away from them," said Robert Moffit, director of the Heritage Foundation's...

MANCHESTER — "We have overpromised." That's how America got into the fix that will see the Social Security trust fund run out in 36 years unless something is done, according to James B. Lockhart III, deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. On a recent visit to the Manchester SSA office, Lockhart sat down with the Sunday News to discuss the coming Social Security shortfall. These days, he spends a lot of his time on the road, sounding the alarm and pushing the administration's reform ideas. He could be just the man for the job. Earlier jobs During the first...

For the first time in our history, we are regularly spending more than we make. People are not just saving less of their income, they are spending their savings. This disastrous, hedonistic proclivity was ordained by liberal/Progressivism. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s began the process of killing traditional moral values. Among the victims was the idea of saving for a rainy day, the virtue of thrift, Ben Franklin’s “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Young people since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth had been raised with the admonition to spend only after working hard and saving more...

<p>Dear Robert J. Samuelson, Our records show that you haven't yet registered for the benefits of AARP membership, even though you are fully eligible. . . . I look forward to your joining us.</p> <p>Among AARP's 36 million members, there must be many decent people who benefit from the discounts offered on car rentals, hotel rooms and airline tickets. But I won't be joining, because AARP has become America's most dangerous lobby. If left unchecked, its agenda will plunder our children and grandchildren. Massive outlays for the elderly threaten huge tax increases and other government spending. Both may weaken the economy and the social fabric. No thanks.</p>

SAN DIEGO -- People are busy talking about what this country is going to look like in a few years when a cohort of 78 million Americans acquire a title they never wanted: senior citizen. Hippies who turned into yuppies are about to turn into golden oldies. Just what I wanted to hear: more about the baby boomers.USA Today recently wrapped up a series on aging in America that touched on everything from life expectancy to saving for retirement to long-term health care issues. The newspaper insists that by the year 2046 -- when those Americans who were born from...

America should prepare for a big fat war between the generations. It’s going to be ugly. On one side is the baby boom generation, which retires and claims a ton of government benefits. On the other are younger workers, forced to fund those benefits plus pay the bills their elders left them. When the war comes, the Federal Reserve chairman will have to be a general. That person will likely be Bush nominee Ben Bernanke. The question is, for which side will he fight? Outgoing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to represent both sides. He supported the Bush tax cuts....

I cringe with disgust when I hear politicians say, "We're doing it for the children." What's worse is so many Americans mindlessly fall hook, line and sinker for the hype. Judging by our actions, Americans could not care less for future generations, and future generations will curse us for it. Let's look at it. According to several respected authorities, including the Concord Coalition (co-chaired by former Sens. Warren Rudman and Robert Kerrey), the Congressional Budget Office, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, and the Social Security Administration, the estimated present value of the unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare ranges...