Meet the Greedy Grandparents

Slate ^ | Dec. 10, 2003 | Steve Chapman

[luckydevi]

When Social Security was founded, offering a federal pension at age 65, most of the people born 65 years earlier couldn't take advantage of it. They were dead. For the lucky ones who lived long enough to collect, the new pension system, founded in 1935, was meant as a modest support in the brief span before they passed on to glory. No more. Since then, life expectancy at birth in America has increased to more than 77 years. For the majority of people, that means lots of time being supported by the government. A working life is now just a tedious interregnum between two long periods of comfortable dependence.

America's elderly have never had it so good. They enjoy better health than any previous generation of old people, high incomes and ample assets, access to a host of medical treatments that not only keep them alive but let them enjoy their extra years, and a riotous multitude of ways to spoil their grandchildren. Still they are not content. From gratefully accepting a basic level of assistance back in the early decades of Social Security, America's elderly have come to expect everything their durable little hearts desire.

They often get their way, as they did recently when years of complaints finally induced Congress and the president to agree to bear much of the cost of their prescription drugs. From the tenor of the debate, you would think these medications were a terrible burden inflicted by an uncaring fate. In fact, past generations of old people didn't have to make room in their budgets for pharmaceuticals because there weren't many to buy. If you suffered from high cholesterol, chronic heartburn, or depression, you were left to primitive remedies, or none. Today, there are pills and potions for just about any complaint—except the chronic complaint that many of them are pricey. It's not enough to be blessed with medical miracles. Modern seniors also want them cheap, if not free.

That's on top of everything else they get. Retirement benefits used to be just one of the federal government's many maternal functions. But in recent years, the federal government has begun to look like an appendage of Social Security. In 2000, 35 percent of all federal spending dollars went to Social Security and Medicare. By 2040, barring an increase in total federal outlays, they'll account for more than 60 percent of the budget. And that's before you add in the prescription drug benefit. Most of the projected growth is due to rising health-care costs, not to the aging of the population, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Retirees eyeing this bounty feel no pangs of guilt, thanks to their unshakable conviction that they earned every dime by sweat and toil. In fact, economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Jagadeesh Gokhale say that a typical man reaching age 65 today will get a net windfall of more than $70,000 over his remaining years. A luckless 25-year-old, by contrast, can count on paying $322,000 more in payroll taxes than he will ever get back in benefits.

Why do we keep indulging the grizzled ones? The most obvious reason is that they are so tireless and well-organized in demanding alms. No politician ever lost an election because he was too generous to little old ladies. A lot of people are suckered by the image of financially strapped seniors, even though the poverty rate among those 65 and over has been lower than that for the population as a whole since 1974. But it's not just the interests of old coots that are being served here. Young and middle-aged adults tend to look kindly upon lavish federal generosity to Grandma because it means she won't be hitting them up for help. Paying taxes may be onerous, but it's nothing compared to the cost, financial and otherwise, of adding a mother-in-law suite to the house. Working-age folks also assume that whatever they bestow upon today's seniors will be likewise bestowed on them, and in the not too distant future. It's not really fair to blame the greatest generation for this extravagance. They are guilty, but they have an accomplice.

It's surely no coincidence that the new drug benefit is being enacted just as the first baby boomers are nearing retirement age. Nor can it be forgotten that the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired People—it's now just AARP—has lately broadened its membership to include all the boomers it can get its wrinkled hands on. AARP, to the surprise of many, endorsed the plan. And what a surprise it is that the prescription drug program, which will cost some $400 billion over the next 10 years, could balloon to $2 trillion in the 10 years following that—when guess-who will be collecting. You would expect taxpayers in their peak earning years to recoil in horror from a program that will vastly increase Washington's fiscal obligations for decades to come. In fact, they—make that we—can see that the time to lock in a prosperous old age is now, before twentysomethings know what's hit them.

Boomers have gotten our way every since we arrived in this world, and the onset of gray hair, bifocals, and arthritis is not going to moderate our unswerving self-indulgence. We are the same people, after all, who forced the lowering of the drinking age when we were young, so we could drink, and forced it back up when we got older, so our kids couldn't. On top of that, we're used to the best of everything, and plenty of it. We weren't dubbed the Me Generation because we neglect our own needs, Junior. If politicians think the current geezers are greedy, they ain't seen nothin' yet.

But responsible middle-aged sorts may yet be brought to their senses when they realize that their usual impulse to get all they can will sooner or later collide with another boomer obsession: the insatiable desire to furnish our kids with every advantage known to humanity. Load Social Security with more obligations than it can bear, and our precious offspring will be squashed under the weight. To fund all the obligations of the Social Security system, payroll taxes will have to more than double by 2040—on top of whatever it costs to buy all those prescription drugs. At that point, our children will realize the trick we've pulled and start to hate our guts. That would be a cruel blow to a generation that thinks of itself as the most wonderful parents in history.

To avoid that fate, boomers need to recognize the need to stop writing checks that today's youngsters will have to cash. With the eager help of our own parents, we've created an entitlement that is fast becoming unaffordable. To bring Social Security into conformity with reality, we'll have to resign ourselves to a higher retirement age reflecting our prospective vigor and life expectancy. We'll have to accept more stringent controls on Medicare spending and take more responsibility for our own medical needs. We'll have to abandon our assumption that the point of the health-care system is to keep each of us alive forever. At some point—don't worry, not anytime soon—we will have to embrace a duty to stop functioning as a fiscal burden on our children and start serving as a nutritional resource for worms.

[Siamese Princess]

I daresay you are a damn fine person, Cupcakes, despite your parents, not because.

[qam1]

The genuinely sad aspect is the couple of Xers who laid their tragic childhoods out for all to see then use their misfortunate parentage to condemn anyone their parents' age.

Nope! I have boomers parents and I can say in raising me they did the best they could and overall while not perfect by a long shot they were darn good and I know they will be there for me no matter what. Nothing but praise here about the way my parents raised me. However I know I am the expection to the rule.

My "Hostility" towards the baby boomers comes from what other baby boomer parents did to their kids and the over all big net negative effect the baby boomers had and continue to have on my country. 

I was born in 1970 so there was a split between kids my age that had parents that were baby boomers and kids that had parents that were of the silient generation. The difference between the two was easily seen. The baby boomer parents were never around and lot of the time their kids were being raised by their grandparents for they were out doing their own thing and couldn't be bothered. At "Kiddie" functions before I knew any better I used to feel a little weird because it always seemed that my parents were always so much younger than the other kid's parents, Of course the reason for this was because the parents of kids my age who were baby boomers my parents age or younger couldn't be bothered doing anything with or for their kids.

[JoeSixPack1]

Excellent find!! I remember when and where I saw it!!

Full circle or are we looping???

[qam1]

I am the expection to the rule. I am the exception to the rule

[RamingtonStall]

The Current Day Politicians are every bit as bad as any we have had for the past 60 years.

Let them pay first by forfeiting their Pensions and then I will be happy to retire later and do without Social Security.

RamS

[Siamese Princess]

I think what the boomers don't get about abortion is that it is the ultimate expression of how they view all other human beings - as objects to manipulate or destroy at their pleasure.

Be fair, thoughtomator, many people in their 20s and 30s have the same attitude and are every bit as bad.

[JoeSixPack1]

How does one go about correcting 12 years of victimology 101??
2-4 years of sociology 101,
and 2 years pre-K of "The building blocks of how to be offended"?

[qam1]

This whole thread is amusing as a all get out. Gen X hating BB's isn't even a new idea. They stole it!!

Remember back in the 60's when we 'lived' the phrase - "don't trust anyone over 30"? All the same words on this thread.

No, Because unlike the Baby Boomers whose hatred of past generations goes as far back as the founding fathers for the most part Gen-X & Y doesn't hate all Generations before them. We just dislike the Baby Boomers, Hell many Gen-X and Gen-Y were/are raised by their Silent/WWII grandparents because their boomer parents are out putting their career first or doing their own thing first and couldn't be bothered. While yes the WWII & Silent Generations did dabble in socialism they never conceived of taking it to the extremes the baby boomers did and unlike the baby boomers they still believed in strong American and Family values.

[adx]

Load Social Security with more obligations than it can bear, and our precious offspring will be squashed under the weight. To fund all the obligations of the Social Security system, payroll taxes will have to more than double by 2040—on top of whatever it costs to buy all those prescription drugs. At that point, our children will realize the trick we've pulled and start to hate our guts.

They'll probably do more than that. Involuntary euthanization for those that cost too much to fix, or those above a certain age, anyone?

PS: Not saying I support that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it came to pass.

[thoughtomator]

Pointing out that it is personal to me, which I will not hesitate to confirm, means nothing. It is personal in the same way that the War on Terror is personal to me, having been inside the WTC the first time it was hit. Are you going to argue that the War on Terror is wrong because it is personal to me? Neither is a rhetorical war against the destruction the boomers have wrought.

I don't see a lot of people in the boomer generation who fought hard against it. I see a lot of feminists and husbands who went along to get along.

If you think I am taking a huge leap by claiming that these sentiments are broadly held, you may want to avail yourself of GenX literature. I have a funny feeling I know a lot more GenXers than you do. And if you need more proof, witness that at least 4 other GenXers have confirmed what I have said, on this very thread. My experience, rather than an isolated personal trauma, is common theme to the GenX generation.

This is what they mean when, for example, there's a 50%+ divorce rate and you do nothing. Where were the boomers then? Well, if more than 50% of marriages fail, you're going to end up with more than 50% of the kids of those marriages who feel like this. Thus was born GenX, the first majority-alienated generation. And divorce was but a single of the immensely varied tools with which the boomers shredded the moral, social, and spiritual fabric of this nation.

[thoughtomator]

I agree. There are those people in our generation... but they are not a majority and the percentage is shrinking as our unwillingness to be silent about it begins to burst open the pro-death propaganda barrel handed down to us.

[Siamese Princess]

The Day-Care Generation is not all that bonded to their parents. They learned to survive pretty much on their own with not all that much emotional attachment to anyone, since all they saw was a long succession of minimum-wage "providers" from an early age. All those chickens will come home to roose when they also decide that they have to be "practical," just like their parents were when they needed them as babies and toddlers.

Absolutely right. Someone once said, "if you stick your child in a day care center when he is little, because you want a life, don't be surprised when he sticks you in a nursing home when you're old, because he wants a life!"

Also, divorce tends to hurt the parent-child relationship. As a Baby Boomer myself, I think that few in my generation realize the widespread anger many young people feel towards one or both parents, because of divorce, daycare, etc. I've seen it and there will be hell to pay.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Go suck eggs. When SS was founded all those 65 or older couldn't take advantage of it. Oh, Well. What about those who since 1935 when they were all of 10 yrs. old and have been paying into SS ever since 1955, when they went to work,
who are receiving meager benefits for the investment? It is not charity or an entitlement it is their money. Their life's saving in most instances. I know pure conservatives are going to scream "Unconstitutional". Again, oh well, it is and it has been since 1935. Tell it to the mountain.

[wtc911]

You are right about one thing...I had no idea you guys were such whining poor-me types. About the rest...well, as I noted before, you clearly have issues.

[wtc911]

I wonder who will be the Jesse Jackson in this bunch, the one to rise up and lead these poor victims. The more victimization rhetoric I see here, the more I appreciate the way mine, and the others I know, turned out.

[wtc911]

Joe, don't you love it when some stranger tells you whom you hate, heck whom everyone your age hates? One gets the strong impression that these spite filled folks got their concepts of what life was like before their light graced our world from Hollywood and That Seventies Show?

It's funny, no, it's pathetic that these posters are in their thirties, not their teens.

Q, since so many of your friends are so messed up because their parents were messed up, upon whom do you place the blame for those parents being that way?

[thoughtomator]

If the boomers are as determined to ignore the sewage they've left at the nation's doorstep as you, then they will have much more serious issues than I might have, in about 15-20 years. A generation growing senile while gorging itself at the public trough is going to be in for a rough fall when the money runs out. How many years past 2013 do you think this Ponzi scheme is going to hold up?

Moreover, the question of euthanasia will be raised, as it seems it is at least once a generation. With GenXers at the peak of their political power, and by that time a mature GenY generation with very similar, if not worse experience with family matters, the boomers will be in extremely poor position. Having brutally destroyed all respect for family ties most by their words and deeds, to whom will elderly boomers plead? To the GenXers and GenYers they use as pawns to indulge their narcissism?

It will be very difficult to make a credible moral case against euthanasia for the boomer generation, given the boomer generation's overwhelming support for AND practice of feticide, AND which dumped the problem for ending the holocaust on the next, AND which abhored the Word of God by which they would otherwise know that to murder is forbidden.

Since you're so into issues, why don't you work out the issue of why boomers are so scared of God that they won't even tell their children that God forbids them to murder? Is this rampant deiophobia indicative of some deep psychological urge to self-actualize their own mortality?

[liberallyconservative]

This is only food for thought, but I hope all here on this thread will take the time to look at a real-life scenario: my mom.

Mom is 76 years old, widowed, and living entirely on SS. (My father had no retirement plan & left her in some financial straits that took me several years to pay off after his death.)

Her monthly check is not quite $900. She is a cancer survivor, but still has other medical problems which require nearly $300 in meds monthly. Due to numerous hospitalizations (and the inherent co-pays that Medicare does not cover), she pays $130 monthly for supplemental insurance. So nearly half of her money is "gone" before we even begin to address the issues of normal living expenses.

Needless to say, my brother and I supplement her income as best we can just so she can continue to to lead a fairly comfortable existence, but it's HARD on all involved.

There are no easy answers. I know that it won't be long before she will have to move in with me, but she wants to remain independent as long as she can.

Please don't think I'm complaining; Mom has sacrificed all her life to provide for her family. It's the least I can do to see that she is provided for in her advancing years.

[thoughtomator]

Of course you had no idea. It is not in your nature to take into account anything but your own self - this is the defining trait of the boomer generation.

I, on the other hand, know quite well the psychology of boomer denial. What you don't seem to understand is that the world you take for granted - one in which human life is respected - is not the one you passed along. I have been giving you a heads-up on an inevitable and extremely rude awakening.

But of course it is not in your nature to even consider the possibility - the cargo-cult nature of the boomer-parented family simply doesn't permit it any more than it permitted a Pacific Islander to understand factories, airplanes and supply lines.

I *should* know better than to imagine you would react in any other way than you have, but if you've found your way to FR then the probability was greater than average that you'd get it. Hope you will before it's too late.

[Axenolith]

Remember that stupid *itch Pat Schroeder from CO? She proposed levying an across the board 10% taking on everyones 401K and IRA when she was in office!

I hope she's having an uncomfortable retirement...