Posted on 06/09/2019 4:43:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
Baby Boomers are retiring. Most are now starting to take their pensions and Social Security. The more fortunate are beginning to dip into their IRAs and 401Ks.
As we reach this milestone, our views tend to harden. We are growing less tolerant. Some may call it cranky. We don’t buy a lot of the nonsense that is shoved down our throats by so many of the so called experts on television. We frequently find ourselves yelling back at them.
We are even less tolerant of all the politically correct BS. As our circulation slows, we look forward to spending more time in warmer climates. So, the Global Warming ruse doesn’t scare us a bit. We are oblivious to the snickers of our kids or our comfortable clothing choices.
The cat calls from the Left have little effect either. We acknowledge that we are mostly white, middle class and have faith in God. We worked hard, sacrificed to pay for braces and tuition. Along the way, we paid off the mortgage. So, call us any name you want. We are not homophobic haters and are quite comfortable in our now sagging skin. We are not easily cowed. More than some Americans, we relate to people like Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump and William Barr.
If there is one thing that makes our thinning hair stand on end, it is the growing sense that we have been lied to. We’ve started to figure a few things out. And we are getting crankier.
For decades we were told by experts that we had to make “investments” in one government program after the next. Oh, they never said that they really just wanted to grow government. No, we were making investments in people or in children. If we had a dollar for every time we were told that our investment in public education was the best investment we could make, we could all retire more comfortably. Here in Minnesota, the per pupil investment in our public schools has increased by 23 percent over the last ten years. This while Social Security COLA’s have increased by only 15.6 percent. Do test scores reflect a very good return on that additional investment?
Against our better judgment, we have allowed our taxes to go up and up. With only a few exceptions, spending (and thus taxes) at all levels of government has grown at rates that far outpaced inflation. The property taxes on our home here in Rochester have gone up 41.3 percent in just the last five years. We could have invested that money ourselves and received a nice return. We’ve been forced to reduce our standard of living to subsidize others. We were promised that if we would just allow the enlightened to build bigger and better safety nets, everyone would be better off. The welfare state grew. Our national well-being did not.
Higher education was said to be the best investment of all. A college education, we were told, was the key to a better future. So, we dug a little deeper to subsidize the denizens of Leftist indoctrination. First, through our taxes and state support. Second, through ever-increasing tuitions. Kids were forced to run up mountains of debt to pay for diplomas, many of which are worth only slightly more than the sheepskin they are written on.
he same voices lied to us about immigration. How many times have we been told that illegal immigrants and refugees “contribute so much to our economy?” Poppycock! If you still believe that, just drive through the large sections of Minneapolis that now resemble a third world country. Taxpayer subsidies have ballooned. The promised contribution hasn’t found its way back to those of us who have been pulling the wagon and paying the bills.
The day for payback has come. Baby boomers are expecting real dividends from their IRAs and other investments. We want dividends on those decades of public investments as well. No excuses. We demand tax cuts and we want them now! President Trump has delivered. Now it’s time for state and local officials to follow suit.
A national tax revolt is brewing among cranky baby boomers. And we vote.
56 here. Sorry it has taken so long for so many of these people to catch on to the ruse of government. We, and those before us, knew the simple facts of learning a skill, working hard, doing the right things by our creator, our family and our community and things would always get better. Yet we allowed these government programs to rise.....and now they are consuming us. We were made to fell guilty because of inequality. Those who were perceived to be unequal really don’t want equality. They want control. And they want to crush America.
People in Florida screamed that their property taxes went up this year forgetting that the idiots voted for it in 2018 with the school safety measures after the ONE school shooting. Idiots!!!! I voted NO to the tax but still get screwed paying the extra taxes because of the emotional voting liberals.
We’ll see. Not sure that enough have yet caught on to the lies.
>>People in Florida screamed that their property taxes went up this year
I am always surprised how high property taxes are in FL (at least in the places I look near the water)- was hoping to either retire there or at least have a winter home to get away from the New England weather - but way up on my list of requirements for any 2nd home I buy is a low carrying cost - property taxes, hurricane insurance flood insurance (and possibly sinkhole insurance!) and HOA fees really drive up the cost of an otherwise ‘affordable’ house.
Now I consider buying a place out of the country instead...
We need to convince the Xer’s that they are in the same boat and it’s sinking fast. Millennials are probably a lost cause at this point.
That line was worth the price of admission.
Why anyone votes for tax increases is beyond me. I always vote no and will continue to do so.
Public employees. And they don't care if they bankrupt taxpayers.
Public employees? You mean public masters right?
The teacher’s union is a particularly powerful voting block here in Louisiana. Add to that all their kinfolks.
Boomer less tolerant?
Boomers are the original “me” generation. They spawned the millennials. The ruined the education system. They are ruining government.
They will reap what they’ve sown.
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I'm not waiting for my state to do this; I'm moving my domicile to another tax friendly state in a matter of months.
I'm not going to lie to myself that they might cut taxes.
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If you really think about it we live in a sea of lies.
-- Governments at all levels lie and deceive us to put up smoke screens so we won't discover their self-serving greed and corruption.
-- In the commercial world we are targeted every minute of every day (no exaggeration) by deceptive commercials, advertisements and p0p-up ads. Note how few commercials say anything about the actual product itself.
-- Academia is supposed to teach and instill in us a mindset of critical and logical thinking but instead is more concerned with indoctrinating students in socialist ideology and relentlessly increasing tuition to cover their own empire building and increasingly lucrative employment for faculty members.
-- And the mainstream media, the biggest liar of them all, passes off a steady stream of left wing propaganda as "journalism" and "news coverage".
We are surrounded by so many lies we don't even notice most of them anymore.
The other thing they did to destroy our sense of independence in retirement, they passed a state wide rent control bill. We can only raise rents up to 7% a year, the renter association wanted to make it no more than 2% per year, remember when I said our property taxes go up 3% the renters want us to loose money for them.
Were moving and selling, it will take some time, but we are taking all of it to another state were we might be more appreciated? All of it is 19 rentals and a 165 acre timber farm.
Property taxes are county level, not statewide.
Maybe you live in a liberal county? Broward?
Public employees? You mean public masters right?
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This week I had the misfortune of speaking with a local “public servant” about a service issue. This person was was one of most rude, condescending and arrogant people I’ve ever encountered. I guess from their perspective, they have absolute job security so why should they care about friendly customer service?
I voted NO to the tax but still get screwed paying the extra taxes because of the emotional voting liberals.
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No liberal ever saw a government program or a tax hike that they didn’t like.
Millennials are probably a lost cause at this point.
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They have no idea what they’re in for.
“The teacher’s union is a particularly powerful voting block here in Louisiana.”
I am sure you meant teachers as a voting bloc. Teachers’ unions have no power in Louisiana. Teachers’ unions are often confused with the educational bureaucracy, which in all fifty states is Marxist and anti-American to the core.
Most teachers I know personally are very conservative.
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