Posted on 03/07/2013 5:44:14 AM PST by Kaslin
One thing nearly everybody agrees upon is that the "sequester" is a silly sideshow to the real challenge facing America: unsustainable spending on entitlements. Ironies abound. Democrats, with large support from young people, tend to believe that we must build on the legacy bequeathed to us by the New Deal and the Great Society. Republicans, who marshaled considerable support from older voters in their so-far losing battle against Obamacare, argue that we need to start fresh.
Perhaps it's time for both sides to consider an underappreciated fact of American life: The system we are trying to perpetuate was created for the explicit benefit of the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history.
I don't mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap. One of the egalitarian precepts that all Americans are supposed to subscribe to is the idea that one citizen isn't more worthy than another, simply by accident of birth. If you stormed the beaches of Normandy, you are due praise and honor. If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you're no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation.
Moreover, government was bending to the needs of the greatest generation -- for good and ill -- long before they did anything great. Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe made this argument in their famous 1991 opus "Generations." Before Tom Brokaw dubbed them the "greatest generation," Howe and Strauss called them the "GI Generation."
"The initials GI can stand for two things -- 'general issue' and 'government issue' -- and this generation's life cycle has stood squarely for both," they wrote. "The GI life cycle has shown an extraordinary association with the growth of modern government activity, much of it directed toward whatever phase of life they occupied."
When GIs were children, the White House held its first Conference on Children, and Congress created the first U.S. Children's Bureau and passed the first federal child labor law. They benefited from government-run schools in large numbers, and after the war from the aptly named GI Bill. And when the first wave of GIs approached old age, Howe and Strauss noted, the White House held its first Conference on Aging. Congress created the National Institute on Aging and passed the first federal age discrimination law.
"The entire modern growth in government spending has coincided with the duration of their adult life cycle," the authors noted.
Also, the GI Generation was deferential to authority long before anyone was asked to fight the Nazis. It was the most "uniformed generation" in U.S. history, the historians wrote. Nearly all the scouting organizations -- Boy Scouts (1910), Girl Scouts (1912), 4-H Clubs (1914) -- were launched to accommodate the GI.
Despite nostalgia for the New Deal, people forget how militaristic it was. President Franklin D. Roosevelt conceived of the New Deal as a "moral equivalent of war" effort and promised to use the tactics of World War I to fight the Depression. Nearly all the New Deal agencies were modeled on the war agencies of the Wilson administration. The Civilian Conservation Corps turned 3 million men into a paramilitary "tree army."
The National Recovery Administration, run by former general Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, aimed to organize the economy along the lines of war mobilization. On Sept. 13, 1933, he organized the largest parade New York had ever seen. Tens of thousands of workers marched in military fashion celebrating the mascot of the NRA, the "Blue Eagle." Similar militaristic pageants were held across the country.
FDR explained the purpose of the Blue Eagle in a fireside chat: "In war, in the gloom of night attack," he crooned, "soldiers wear a bright badge on their shoulders to be sure that comrades do not fire on comrades. On that principle, those who cooperate in this program must know each other at a glance. That is why we have provided a badge of honor for this purpose."
I have neither the space nor the inclination to pronounce on what was good or bad about all this. But as Washington grapples with the legacy costs of the "greatest generation" -- including the unsustainable burden of paying the retirement bills for the GIs' supremely entitled children, the Baby Boomers, perhaps it is at least worth recognizing that the government and the culture designed to benefit one generation has come at the cost of those that come after it.
Kinda hard to miss when you pollute FR with all of their trash articles. Still waiting for you to let us all know how much Townhall compensates you for your “work” on their behalf.
I agree that the article is misguided on several levels, including, as you point out, that the ‘Greatest Generation’—a moniker that nobody would have dared trot out while the WWI vets were still around—is largely gone now.
What he’s getting to re: our elderly bankrupting the country with the level of, particularly, healthcare benefits that they are receiving from the government is a fair one, but it is put into poor context here.
I think the illegals and non-citizens should be addressed first.
They’re chump change compared to Medicare costs, but they should be addressed. Unfortunately, the GOP is rushing to legalize and make citizens/voters out of them all, despite the majority taking some sort of welfare support at least three generations in.
Medicaid paitents are worse. They call an ambulance to go to ER with a headache.
A LOT of waste could be cut out...including fraud!
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Yes—though the really big bills come from Medicare.
Two months ago he gave her an anti-biotic that gave her diarhea (sp?) that required a $1600 Rx to fix.
He orders so many blood tests that I accuse her of needing a transfusion...in which case he could test other people's blood while he's at it.!
The very first thing that needs to be done to cut expenses is to get every single illegal off of every program (which means getting them out of the country) this would save tons of money. Illegals are a drain on social programs, education, health care, law enforcement, courts, jails and prisons, and many more budgets. Illegals are the elephant in the room that few are talking about.
Getting illegals out of the equation will not solve all the financial problems of course, but would be a good start and I am not willing to cut our citizens like seniors, veterans, etc., until we do get serious about the illegal drain. Any solution that does not address the illegal issue is not a serious solution.
I see the same sort of thing with my parents. They’re in for quarterly visits and the billing for everything is just amazing.
That is something I don't enjoy and Medicare doesn't pay for the shots.
I fell at the airport waiting to board a plane for the Bahamas and went on as planned. I swam with dolphins; took Aleve 3X daily. When I got home I did go to an Urgent Care center because it was obvious by then I had a broken shoulder. I did need PT for a few weeks but got over it. I was 72 when that happened.
My shoulder hurts just reading that!
But you’re right. Most healthy people don’t need annual physicals, for example, and a nurse at a CVS or Walgreen’s could do most basic screening for a fraction of the cost in our regular medical system.
If people would simply not smoke or eat themselves obese and be moderately active we could probably cut our healthcare costs in half.
Republican leaders and ideologues like Paul Ryan support reining in entitlements. But the Greatest Generation, while supporting the party for other reasons, doesn’t agree. Old people, no matter what their political persuasion, defend Social Security. It’s called the Third Rail of Politics. Don’t touch it!
Here are the results from a recent Pew Poll —
Elderly people who favor keeping Social Security and Medicare at current levels outnumber their counterparts who think the deficit is more important by a 3-to-1 margin, highlighting the generational support for the nation’s two largest social programs.
The elderly, who supported Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by a 56-44 percent margin, are more likely to support the social programs that the Republicans pledged to change; those from 18 to 19, who voted for Obama by a 60-37 percent margin, are more concerned about deficit reduction than their elders.
The most accurate poll is the vote, the republicans run on changing the system and win the old people’s vote.
Democrats fight that change and win the young people’s vote.
I would worry more about the people voting against your agenda , rather than about the people voting with you.
Sure the oldsters vote with Republicans, that’s good. I’ll give them credit for that. But when Republicans get to Congress and actually start proposing Social Security reforms, the reforms go nowhere in committee or on the floor, due to strong opposition even from their own party. The oldsters make their voice heard. NO!
That’s why NOTHING has happened on Social Security for many years, since Reagan was in office and raised the retirement age quite gradually.
I disagree, Republicans lose because while the old people are voting for them, the young are throwing them out.
You might want to look at who you are losing elections to, and who are throwing you out of office and blame them, not the people voting for you.
It isn’t the most republican voting age group who is blocking the republicans, it is the most anti-republican age groups who are doing that.
In 1996, the Greatest Generation stood by and allowed President Clinton to demagogue Newt Gingrich on cutting entitlements and throwing granny out into the snow. If these supposedly hard-core Republicans had supported entitlement reform, Clinton would not have won reelection. I blame the Greatest Generation for that.
I think you mean that women and Catholics elected Clinton in 1996, thereby being the enemies to reform and Gingrich, and conservatism.
Clinton got 54% of the female vote that year, and 43% of men.
Clinton got 53% of the Catholic vote, and 41% of the Protestant vote.
Clinton won 53% of the under 30 vote, and 48% in all other age groups.
Yeah, Lyin’ Bill got the airhead chicks, who thought that he cared more about them than their own worthless husbands.
But the Greatest Generation, both men and women, stood silent while Bill abused the truth on entitlements.
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