I forget - - what did this guy Robert J. Samuelson have to say about George Bush's attempt to introduce a bona fide fix for siocial security wherein people get to invest their social security "contribution" so they could take control of it and watch it grow? You know - - the proposal the scumbag Democrats demogogued into oblivion?
Did Robert J. Samuelson have any opinion about that?
Sorry to disagree with this guy, but IMHO, it's the present day "seniors" (aka AARP members and the like) that are preventing a "fix" to the problem.
The politicians are afraid of denying or cutting back benefits because they'll lose the elderly vote.
Most boomers I talk to don't expect to collect SS, and many are planning on working past their 65th birthday, not necessarily because of necessity.
Maybe this is why the administration is ao all-fired anxious to get Mexicans in the door - to shoulder the social burden of our retiring baby boomers(?)
"There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
"They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his "minimum sustenance" his food, his clothes, his shelter, with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright.
To receive it, from whom? "
AYN RAND
(Boomer Generation Is in a State of Denial)
Egypt?
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Why take more away from the people who paid into it? If the money paid into it had been invested and allowed to grow at the prevailing market rates, instead of being plundered and squandered, there would be enough. This is the single largest CRIME in this country. Only instead of indicting the criminals, they just quietly take more away from those who invested in it.
Regards, Ivan
Well, not all boomers are liberals, which is what this article is saying.
It will solve itself one way or another. At some point the workers will be so heavily taxed that they will either openly revolt or quit working. If they revolt, there will be blood in the streets and the survivors will go back to some sort of a "pay your own way, work or starve" system. Alternately, they may just quit working. If the latter, the govt. will go the totalitarian route, force them to work, and the country will do the socialist spiral down to where everybody is standing in line hoping to get their turnip ration. Too bad, but if people were smarter, outcomes would be better.
The X'rs seem to forget that the more mom and dad boomer die with,( $$ assets, property etc. ) the more their children stand to gain .
Carolyn
Tell ya what, just give me my money back from what SS and medicare/medicaid has taken and I won't take ANY SS or medicare.medicade.
Another "Boomer Bashing" thread... Sometimes I think the people who post these are just trolls trying to stir up divisiveness on this board.
This is not the approach I'm crazy about, but I think a politically possible first step is cutting back social security and Medicare for seniors with over, say, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in other income. Medicare would still cover the catastrophic costs for health care, but beyond that, they'd be on their own.
I would much prefer the option of phasing out Social Security and Medicare all together and letting the States and charity take care of the elderly hardship cases. But that's not going to pass. The best politically feasible option would be to make the Democrats claim that our country is uncaring if rich seniors don't get full benefits.
Also, cutting off rich seniors will save a great deal of money. Seniors are the wealthiest age group in America.
Now is it fair that someone pays into Social Security for their whole life, makes a few million on the side, and then finds their benefits reduced because of their hard work? No. But Social Security and Medicare aren't fair
to begin with, and sometimes, we have to look at the larger picture of how to save money and accept that the result will be unfair to some people.
"Socialism is wonderful until you run out of somebody elses money." - Margaret Thatcher
Government entitlements are de facto a Ponzi scheme. If any citizen tried to run a scam such as they, he would be frog-marched to prison.
Another reason why I still scratch my head about the last election. Does anyone, anywhere, at anytime believe a Democrat-controlled Congress will do anything about SS? In their desire to "show Bush we p!ssed," the American people have handed their wallets over Congress.