Monday past we looked at an anecdotal piece from the NYTimes about how young people think life is unaffordable. But it took a piece in The Free Press for me to understand just how wide and deep the ingratitude gap is between the youth and our seniors, the title – “Total Boomer Luxury Communism Is Bankrupting America.” Nothing like starting a piece with an insult.
Make no mistake, I am a “boomer.” I’ll own that label, but “luxury communism” – not on your life. The piece is mostly a gripe about Social Security and how my generation is drawing “excessive” benefits. Clearly Russ Greene, author of the piece, does not have a clue how the system works. He is ignoring two very salient points. One, Social Security is supposed to be a savings account, not an entitlement. That’s the deal that the federal government made with the American people when they established the system during the Great Depression. For crying out loud, if I had been given the money I have paid in FICA taxes over the years and invested it on my own, I’d be doing a lot better than I am with Social Security. The fact that he calls Social Security “an entitlement” is an insult to the taxes I paid (still pay, since I still work some) and the taxes he is paying.
Now, the federal government has screwed things up quite a bit by “borrowing” from the Social Security savings account to fund its activities, effectively leaving it so that Social Security is paid out of current revenue, but that ain’t the contract they made with all of us, including this youngster, so the problem is the government’s, not mine. Blaming me for drawing in accordance with that contract is again, insulting.
That screw-up by the federal government was livable provided the population kept growing at the rapid post-war pace, but it didn’t. Second salient point, population growth has slowed significantly and it is driven more by immigration than reproduction, and it is this demographic fact that is stressing Social Security – not me and my generation drawing in accordance with the deal made with the federal government.
So, Mr. Greene, you are correct is saying the Social Security system needs work. But you are an ungracious, ungrateful, selfish slug in blaming me and my generation. Even today the FICA tax withholding from my less frequent and smaller paychecks is larger than the personal income tax withholding. That has been the case for decades. Don’t you dare blame me for the situation. Don’t you dare.
Gripe concluded – on to the rather massive pile of stuff
This piece and this piece are related – even if they don’t know it.
Divides within the Republican Party – the reality and the (largely) fiction.
More reality – about genuine faith in America.
Americans are moving in new directions. Here is one pretty big reason why. And this is a big part of how that situation developed.
