Posted on 12/28/2005 5:39:02 AM PST by .cnI redruM
WASHINGTON -- As noted by recent cover stories in Newsweek and Business Week, the first of the roughly 77 million baby boomers turn 60 in 2006. J. Walker Smith of the polling firm of Yankelovich Partners told Newsweek that many boomers ``think they're going to die before they get old'' -- a reference to one survey in which boomers defined old age as starting around 80. Business Week asserted that fifty- and sixty-somethings consider their ``middle age a new start on life'' to indulge hobbies, begin new careers or remarry. These portraits of vigorous baby boomers clash with another reality: their huge federal retirement benefits may seriously damage the economy and American politics.
Our continued unwillingness to address this disconnect counts as one of 2005's big stories. We should ask ourselves: Why? After all, the need is well known. Consider the Congressional Budget Office's just released projections. By 2030, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may cost 15 percent of national income --almost double their level in 2000 and equal to 75 percent of today's federal budget. Left alone, these programs would require massive tax increases, cause immense deficits or crowd out important other government programs.
Still, we fiddle......
I could understand that.
Oh, and they won't bankrupt the nation...only people who work and pay taxes. The government can always print more money...unfortunately...I can't. I have to make money the old fashioned way.
"The first thing we should do is means test all handout programs."
Double-dog dittos to that! Starting line -- All of the gimme-programs started by LBJ and his "Great Society". Paying able-bodied people (mostly women) to sit on their butts and collect a monthly check, food stamps, a housing allowance, health insurance, etc. is out-right theft! Paying them more money each month for each additional child, fathered by a different man is outrageous.
My insurance doesn't pay for cosmetic surgery and the feds won't allow a tax break for routine cosmetic surgery.
All the while, Jim Wallis and Sojourners is willing to address this, from the opposite point of view, and infusing the argument with relgious language.
LOL.
There will be a long line of post boomer opportunists gorging themselves on the Boomers' tasty decaying flesh.
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