Generational Warfare
Old-age entitlements vs. the safety net
Nick Gillespie & Veronique de Rugy from the August/September 2012 issue
In 1964 a young Bob Dylan released “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” an anthem that defined what would shortly become known as “the generation gap.” With a mix of sympathy and sneer—“Come mothers and fathers / Throughout the land / And don’t criticize / What you can’t understand / Your sons and your daughters / Are beyond your command / Your old road is / Rapidly agin’ ”—Dylan described an unbridgeable gulf in values, styles, and aspirations between the rising baby boomers, born between 1943 and 1960, and their elders, who had managed to survive the depredations of the Great Depression, World War II, and the swiveling hips of Elvis Presley.
Flash forward half a century, and the boomers who once sang along with Dylan have become the reactionary elders, clinging to their power and perks at the literal expense of everyone younger. There’s a new generation gap opening up, one that threatens to tear apart the country every bit as much as past confrontations over war, free love, drugs, and sitar music. This fight is about old-age entitlements and whether the Me Generation will do what’s right for the country and stop sucking up more and more money from their children and grandchildren.
Social Security and Medicare, which provide retirement and health insurance benefits for senior Americans, generally without regard to need, are funded by taxes on the relatively meager wages of younger Americans who will never enjoy anything close to the same benefits. From any serious fiscal or moral viewpoint, and particularly for the sake of helping those truly in need, Social Security and Medicare should be ended.
The demographic math is irrefutable: Entitlements are killing the safety net. They should be replaced with social welfare programs that cover all citizens, regardless of age, but only those who are too poor or incapacitated to take care of themselves. Focusing on those truly in need instead of automatically shoveling out larger and larger amounts to well-off senior citizens is the best way to avert looming fiscal catastrophe and restore some morality to an indefensible system.
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4 comments:
Just give me back what I paid in to SS for the last 35 years and I'll be happy. This article doen't include the fact that many have died before they were of age to collect. At death SS pays $250. Where did the rest of the money go? I'm not going to feel guilty collecting from a system that took my money from me before I even got it.
When a third of my money is removed from my paycheck before I get to spend the first dime it leaves little to save up for retirement. Raising taxes even higher on the younger generation to pay for what we thought we were putting into a social security account for our later use is not something to blame us for; that money was extorted from us and squandered by our same batch of government thieves who are trying to raise the extortion rate today.
When a third of my money is removed from my paycheck before I get to spend the first dime it leaves little to save up for retirement. Raising taxes even higher on the younger generation to pay for what we thought we were putting into a social security account for our later use is not something to blame us for; that money was extorted from us and squandered by our same batch of government thieves who are trying to raise the extortion rate today.
Excuse me I'am 56 years old and i have been working since i was 14 years old,and i have been payingin to the social security for decades so the young ones who say we are taking from them the heck with them . get off your duffs and work like i did. Social security is not an entitlement we paid into. now hows about some of you young folks get some morals and top popping out babies like a bubble gum machine so i dont have to pay for your mongrel kids.If you cant feed them dont breed them.
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