Samuelson: How Baby Boomers Are Robbing Our Grandchildren

Robert Samuelson wrote this piece that was published in Newsweek.  The premise:

As someone born in late 1945, I say this to the 76 million or so subsequent baby boomers and particularly to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, our generation’s leading politicians: shame on us. We are trying to rob our children and grandchildren, putting the country’s future at risk in the process. On one of the great issues of our time, the social and economic costs of our retirement, we have adopted a policy of selfish silence.

Nancy Pelosi promises to “build a better future for all of America’s children.” If she were serious, she would back cuts in Social Security and Medicare. President Bush calls “entitlement spending” the central budget problem. If he were serious, he, too, would propose cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

He backs up this statement with the following points:

1. 65-and-over population will double by 2030 (to almost 72 million, or 20 percent of the total population)
2. In 2005, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (the main programs for the elderly) cost $1.034 trillion, twice the amount of defense spending and more than two fifths of the total federal budget. These programs are projected to equal about three quarters of the budget by 2030, if it remains constant as a share of national income.
3. The tax increases required by 2030 could hit 50 percent, if other spending is maintained as a share of national income. Or much of the rest of government (from defense to national parks) would have to be shut down or crippled. Or budget deficits would balloon to quadruple today’s level.
4. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are pay-as-you-go programs. Present taxes pay present benefits. In 2005, 86 percent of Social Security payroll taxes went to pay current retiree benefits. True, excess taxes had created a “surplus” in the Social Security trust fund (it hasn’t been “plundered”) of $1.66 trillion in 2005; but that equaled less than four years’ worth of present benefits. More important, Medicare and Medicaid represent three quarters of the projected spending increase for retirees by 2030.

Please read the entire piece.  He balances his condemnation equally to the right and left, and there is plenty of blame to go around.  I do not agree that you cut benefits to those that make more.  There are cuts that can and should be made but that is not one of them..I would deny any illegal a benefit first and foremost as they committed a few crimes prior to even putting those funds in.  I agree with raising the age to 70, but he assumes that the person making more will save more and doesn’t take into account that we do have poor people that will do as little as possible in order to collect a benefit!

Hat tip to Noel Sheppard

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