Posted on 10/14/2012 3:34:55 PM PDT by Publius804
The Economist ominously reports:
The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing baby-boomers threatens to strangle economic growth. As the nature and scale of the problem become clear, a showdown between the generations may be inevitable.
The statistics are frightening:
The average federal tax rate for a median American household, including income and payroll taxes, dropped from more than 18% in 1981 to just over 11% in 2011. Yet sensible tax reforms left less revenue for the generous benefits boomers have continued to vote themselves, such as a prescription-drug benefit paired with inadequate premiums. Deficits exploded. Erick Eschker, an economist at Humboldt State University, reckons that each American born in 1945 can expect nearly $2.2m in lifetime net transfers from the state—more than any previous cohort.
Boomers’ sponging may well outstrip that of younger generations as well. A study by the International Monetary Fund in 2011 compared the tax bills of a cohort’s members over their lifetime with the value of the benefits that they are forecast to receive. The boomers are leaving a huge bill. Those aged 65 in 2010 may receive $333 billion more in benefits than they pay in taxes (see chart), an obligation 17 times larger than that likely to be left by those aged 25.
The Boomers are a powerful, large group of both voters and policymakers:
More worrying is that this generation seems to be able to leverage its size into favourable policy. Governments slashed tax rates in the 1980s to revitalise lagging economies, just as boomers approached their prime earning years.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
As bad as it is, SS doesn't come close to equalling the collective damage attributable to the "New Deal" substantial effects doctrine of the Commerce Clause.
The "Greatest Generation" handed Congress a blank check.
I don't know about your thesis of seniors rejecting entitlements, given that the reason they are turning to RR may be Zero's $500 billion cut in MediCare.
FIFY
They should have shot Wickard, and sent Filburn to Congress.
Guilt trip much?
I’m a boomer, vintage 7/46. My wife finds me pretty useful. I don’t steal, I don’t lie, as a rule, and I’m bald and overweight so vanity’s right out. I do tend to get a little mouthy with liberal idiots, that I do admit.
I’m a Vietnam combat vet. No medals but also, no PTSD, either. I did my time, came home and picked up where I left off without whining. My company had a pension plan once but decided to end it, and 9-11 and the latest recession have left my 401K in ruins. My wife of 44 years and I are getting by as best we can in retirement and ask for no more than that the promises our government made to us be honored. And if the bastards think they’re going to grind us down in our old age without a fight, they will find out I’m no coward, either, because I fully intend to take a few of them with me.
Boomer Power!!
If by "the Greatest Generation" you are referring to the generation that fought WWII, they were, for the most part, too young to be voting and participating in politics at the time of the "New Deal." It was their parents and grandparents who were largely politically responsible for it.
That "substantial effects" doctrine of the Commerce Clause came in a 1942 Supreme Court case, Wickard v. Filburn. You can't really blame "the Greatest Generation" for that because they had much more pressing concerns as they were actively engaged in a world war at the time. The seeds for Wickard v. Filburn were sown starting about five years earlier when Roosevelt started to appoint his pals to the SCOTUS. "The Greatest Generation," as I said, was too young to have much political clout when that occurred.
If they weren’t part of the “Greatest Generation”, what “generation” were they? The “Boomers” are their children.....
Racial demographics determine the future success of America when boomers withdraw from the workplace more than anything. Education levels, work ethic, crime rates, socialization for individual liberty and constitutional government, etc. will determine the economic and social success generations following boomers.
Boomers have a lot of amorals and socialists running our institutions; but they were beaten back by American conservatives in political power or things would be much worse.
The younger generations don’t have the benefit of that strong group of educated and socialized American-American conservatives. Liberal boomers culturally cleansed the joint while flooding America with foreigners and globalization.
The more Americans that look at themselves as ‘racial victims’ with free stuff coming to them and have no clue about personal responsibility, morality, constitutional government and ideals, the more this country will dive.
These people would be wiser to remove the left from American institutions than whinning about too much success among boomers. You can not rob and cheat one generation to make the next generation of foreigners, losers and resenters wealthy. We can steal all of the boomers’ retirement money and push them out on the streets but that won’t make for wealth and success for the younger generations.
Don’t worry too much, though. Bamster and his pals has them lined up for institutionalized murder in the name of rationed death care.
My father receives $600 a month SS. He wants to know when he'll receive the rest of his $2.2 million.
But I thought that Roosevelt declared that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."/(sarc.)
They should have shot Wickard, and sent Filburn to Congress.
Have to confess that I chuckled at that one. But literally speaking, I don't think that shooting Wickard would have helped the cause of freedom at the time, since he would probably have been replaced by another bureaucrat of the same ilk. As for Filburn, he should be admired for his pursuit of his very important case to the Supreme Court, but I don't know if he had any interest in a political career.
In my area it is contradicted by the enormous property taxes used to primarily fund the school lobby. Many older people in my area are being driven from their homes.
Amen! We are the ones going to be left holding the empty bag. The problem is not Boomers; it is government programs that rob from one set of people to give to another. This is what pits groups of Americans against one another. It wasn’t the Boomers who voted for FDR.
Is this the generation gap redux to go along with the '60s Marxist meme?
We're all in the same boat, here, and sinking one end of it will only raise the other for a moment before it all slides under.
I think the younger voters are being gamed to hate the people on Social Security and Medicare. It as if they were evil, for paying into those systems their whole life, and are now taking the younger people’s money unfairly.
There is truth to the idea that older folks are taking money directly from workers. What’s lost in all this, is that money was taken from today’s retirees during their careers too. It’s just the way things worked. And today’s seniors didn’t set up the game.
I support this all being returned to a self-contained savings program for future retirees. I do so with the knowledge that if set up correctly, future retirees will live far better retired lives, and in some instances be able to retire much sooner.
Instead of folks looking at today’s retirees and having some animus toward them, they should look at them and feel sorry that retirement planning wasn’t privatized decades sooner, so today’s retirees could have a better standard of living.
Thankfully, it no appears reform is on the radar, and today’s young people will have it much better by the time they retire. And I’m happy as can be about that.
Let’s not let facts get into the way of reality here.
(standing ovation!)
Agreed. The real damage started with the early century progressive generation that brought about the 16th (income tax) and 17th ( direct election of Senators) Amendments. Those were the two enablers for what they then allowed FDR to do with the New Deal.
And let’s not forget the Federal Reserve.
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