[Da Coyote]

If one wonders where the flunkouts from even the most basic math classes go...just pick up a copy of the LA Times.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”That's because most of the spending on seniors is in Social Security and Medicare, and therefore has been largely paid for by those very beneficiaries over the course of their working lives.
Payroll taxes have more than covered what today's average retiree will receive back from Social Security. They won't cover the average payout on Medicare, but that's an artifact of uncontrolled healthcare costs, not of the structure of Medicare itself. Changing the terms of that program, say by raising the eligibility age (currently 65) won't save money and may actually raise costs.”

He doesnt understand how these programs work. The same seniors who get the benefits cant at the same time be (nearly fully) funding them. That has to be done by younger people who work.

Medicare is different than SS in that it provides services.
There is a question as to what happens to people who would be over 55 but will not get medicare for a few more years and do not have employer based insurance.

They would go on Obama-care instead. Is that cheaper? Do we know?

[goldstategop]

Social Security and Medicare are defined contribution programs - not entitlement programs.

Entitlement programs are paid for out of general tax revenues and are means-tested.

Social Security/Medicare on the hand are paid into by their beneficiaries. They get back what they paid into them during their working lives when they retire.

The people on them are not moochers and don’t deserve to have their benefits cut or their eligibility age for them increased. Society made a pact with them to put their money aside for their later years.

To say its generational theft isn’t accurate and misses the point. A decent society takes care of its aged and sick and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Its who we are as a country.

[King Moonracer]

I wonder if Libtards get whiplash from nodding their agreement to this drivel. To suggest that retirees have prepaid most or all of their government benefits is leftist BS.

[KarlInOhio]

This article is the equivalent of yelling "Squirrel!" to distract people. I never heard the "generation theft" argument backed up by saying that "we spend too much on the old and should spend more on the kids". It has always been that the government spends too much and is running up a debt of over $16 trillion. The author tries to claim that we are getting a lot, including captial goods like highways, from the spending but we are not getting anywhere close to what we have spent. Most of the projects for the stimulus were plans from the bottom of the cities' road departments pile which never were important enough to build with their own money or previous years' smaller piles of federal money. We aren't building a new interstate highway system. We're building a hundred thousand sidewalks where people aren't walking.

And even more than the debt, the creation of a tidal wave of new money out of thin air is just waiting to hit shore in a destructive crush of hyperinflation.

[bt_dooftlook]

“That’s because most of the spending on seniors is in Social Security and Medicare, and therefore has been largely paid for by those very beneficiaries over the course of their working lives. “

That is a lie.

First, most retirees, at least up until now, took out far more in benefits than they ever paid in.

Second, both Medicaid and Security are funded out of the current budget. Their “trust funds” are special government bonds that must be redeemed on demand.

In short, the monies people thought they were setting aside went to current beneficiaries or went into the general fund, where it helped mask deficit spending. What they in fact were buying was a promise of some large future payout, contingent on electing politicians who wouldn’t reform the system.

Millions of people are going to wake up soon and find out that there is no money in SS, and that their “benefits” are contingent on a shrinking workforce with declining incomes. Millions of workers will simultaneously realize that they are being fleeced to cover current benefits, benefits which are mathematically impossible for them to ever receive.

And then the intergenerational wars really begin...YMMV

[Sgt_Schultze]

I can't tell if this is from "professor" Ted or the author:

That's because most of the spending on seniors is in Social Security and Medicare, and therefore has been largely paid for by those very beneficiaries over the course of their working lives.

In either case the writer is an a$$.

As soon as the money was collected it was spent and replaced with government bonds. Since there is only government paper in the SS "trust fund," the government will have to either sell additional debt or increase taxes to redeem the current paper. That action will fall on tomorrow's employees (today's youth). The government is spending money today that my grandchildren haven't even earned yet!

[Jack Hammer]

Wonder what these reporters will be writing when the f*cked up economy results in them being laid off and they can’t find any jobs.

[Lancey Howard]

(( ping ))

[cpdiii]

If this is not generational theft, who is going to pay for all this spending and borrowing? Perhaps it is the tooth fairy.

[NELSON111]

There is a very simple reason why lefties don’t care about the deficit: They want to crash the system....EVERY system...so they can rebuild one system in the form of a New World Government with one currency.

[rottweiller_inc]

I thought generational theft was when they steal from the next generational to pay for the programs today.