Boomers Versus the Rest

Samuelson usually writes good articles, but this one is not the case...

" Doom & gloom " & no proposals...

What does he propose as a remedy ?

What can we do ?

children do not vote....therefore they mean less to politicians than the AARP crowd....how wil this be resolved if Social Security and Medicare is deemed "too big to fail" when it actually is only "too underfunded and too often stolen from" to work....this continuing Ponzi scheme is nearing it's "Madoff Point"....the only question is who is left without a chair to sit in when the music stops, other than the recipients who have been robbed....will it be this administration or the next, and who really cares since everyone young and old will be getting a pie in the face on this gag

There is all this talk about SS for the Baby Boomers being cut or that we will work through our retirement. What I have yet to hear about is the entitlements that all the government employees get and will get. Do they have to work through their retirement also? There doesn't seem to be a fairness in the distribution when government workers get to retire when they put in 20 to 30 years and start drawing a guaranteed pension while the government spends our Social Security savings. Then they also go out and get a job in the public sector and double dip after retirement from the government. GEEZ!!!

Boomers paid their entire working lives into SS. The first recepients didn't pay in one dime. Crooked politicians voted to spend the money that the workers were contributing. If the boomers are screwed, there will be blood. I am not speaking euphorically.

Samuelson grossly oversimplifies from one problem into two: Social Security, which needs only a slight fix to be made.fiscally sound; and Medicare, which thanks to Bush's illl-thought presc. program, is now bound for bankruptcy.

Samuelson knowingly obscures the fact that the federal budget consists of two budgets improperly bound together: the so-called Social Security trust fund, funded by payroll taxes and EVERYTHING ELSE. The first is further divided into Medicare and Soc. Security. The SS part of the trust fund has been running well in the BLACK for years. In fact, the rest of gov't. has essentially been stealing to give the APPEARANCE of smaller negative balances. SS has piled up enough surpluses that it should survive the baby boom bulge in the 2020s-30s, needing only small adjustments perhaps to taxes or retirement age. It is the EVERTHING ELSE, 50% of which is military or defense-related, that is essentially stealing from boomers' retirement and the nation's financial well-being.

Samuelson correctly foretells only the obvious: our health programs' costs are spiraling out of control. However, simply hacking away at physicians' reimbursements or members benefits will only lead to the complete collapse of Medicare as both providers and patients flee the system. President Obama's healthcare reform therefore will NOT necessarily burden the system, contrary to R.S.'s neo-laissez faire pronouncements. Healthcare reform that requires all Americans to obtain/receive a minimum package of benefits will actually LOWER costs because it will (1) provide greater bargaining power from providers and insurance companies; and (2) allow authorities greater ability to plan for and hence limit healthcare consumption.

The priority of our nation's health care system is to provide medical care to those who need it. Reducing the burden of unwanted teenage (or adult female) pregnanices is a matter of a woman's Pro-Choice decision-making capacity which is protected under the US Constitution. No church or federal official's decision-making should supercede that of the pregnant individual (late-term abortions is still controversial), but even in those cases where does the infant wind up, state foster care???

A major problem with the nation's health care system has nothing to do with abortion. It has to do with the aging of American society. In 2006, 49% of US residents in their 60's have at least one lving parent, and 52% of young adults between the ages of 18-24 live with their parents. These 49% of pre-retirement aged individuals are caught with the additonal financial burden of living with their children or parents while their incomes have remained flat and their health care insurance premiums are no longer affordable. Add the unwanted pregnancy of one of their daughter-in-laws and viola you are creating a whole new generation of welfare children that goes beyond the color barriers of the past. This is why we are seeing less conservative Republicans becoming either Independents or right-leaning Democrats. My parents are Republicans, but they are staunchly Pro-Choice in their beliefs, support stem-cell research, and support gay marriage and adoption. The Republican party has obliterated the Separation of Church & State within its party platform, and that has only led to it's decline as a party, and will continue to do so in the years to come. I don't think the RNC realizes how many thousands of disenfranchised members exist who now support our Democratic President. God Bless America.

So let meget this straight - we can afford to provide abortions to women around the world but we can't afford to take care of the women who gave us life?

I am fairly certain that if you leave the country, you still pay US income tax, in addition to any taxes in your new country, unless you are willing to give up your citizenship.

All those years when Social Security was running a surplus the government shouldn't have been stealing from it to make our deficit look smaller. When you rob Peter to pay Paul eventually Peter is going to need to be paid back. The program would be working fine if it wasn't for that.

It's not just Social Security that is the problem, it's the entire way our government budgets, does its books and answers to its constituents. I would love to bring back Reagans idea and let some corporate downsizing firms loose on our federal budget and see what happens. What he determined was we could save roughly 30-40% of our budget without cutting anything and that opened up a huge sh**storm. What he said later was that, if he had known it would open up that large of a can of worms he never would have mentioned it.

Me personally, I like opening cans of worms. A fiscal can of whoopas* wouldn't be out of line in my opinion at all either.

The problem is that when Medicare and Social Security were first implemented, the life expectancies were 15 to 20 years lower than what they are now. If people still died at 70 instead of 85 or 90, we wouldn't have these problems.

In addition to people living longer, expensive end-of-life care now may take place over several years, instead of several months or weeks. And diseases that used to kill people in a matter of months, like cancer, are now treated and in many cases, cured, so that instead of dying of cancer at 68, a person may die of heart failure at 78.

In short, we are victims of our own success.

The answer is to adapt to the longer life expentancy and the higher cost of keeping people alive. A combination of raising the retirement age, and increaing the amount of money deducted, along with more cost-effective and preventative health care will help.

But ultimately, a change in attitude about aging and dying needs to occur. Perhaps we would all do better to follow the examples of George Harrison and Pope John Paul II, who chose to die at home, without benefit of costly end-of-life care.

Maybe what we really need is not to do a better job paying for retirement - perhaps we need to do a better job of dying.

Like I said buddyroo, your comment is the very reason I feel I will get the short straw in my retirement. "Share the pain" you say...lovely. We'd better start with the CURRENT retirees then. They have paid into SS, but inflation and the increase in healthcare...along with the expensive advances in healthcare suck away the $ for future retirees. We better get ready to see the elderly on the streets.

Your article implies that the older generation, who are more focused and organized, will win this battle and that things look grim for the young. But one thing the young, particularly the best and brightest of them, can do is vote with their feet and simply opt out of America, i.e. leave the country and go somewhere where the opportunities and potential for a good life are better.

For so long it has been America that was the magnet of the world's talented youth, but this could reverse with America's youth leaving and going elsewhere if taxes get too oppressive in supporting social security, medicare, servicing the debt, etc. And, similarly and possibly more damaging, the bright foreigners that have already come to America and who we rely on to be our engineers, scientists, etc. might leave and stop coming. Kevin Philips in his latest book "Bad Money" which I'm starting to read raises this possibility --- a NY Times review of it says 'The final pages of his bleak new book, ???Bad Money,??? tell of an ???unprecedented??? number of Americans planning to leave the country or thinking about it.' I certainly hope this doesn't happen, but there will always be consequences to actions and the older generation must be realistic about the consequences of keeping all their benefits regardless the cost. I agree that they have earned their social security, etc. and ideally should get it, but we all have to be realistic about the situation. We need to share the pain.

We would prosecute the government if they were a private business in the way they've managed all the Boomer $ thoughout the years. The thousands upon thousands of dollars I've paid into FICA (Social Security) ALL goes to the current retirees instead of setting aside a % for my generation. I'm 52...I'm at the tail end of the Boomers...and, I'm sick to my stomach that MY Social Security money will not be there when I retire (as they continue delay the retirement age also). Other retirees will have used it, and the younger generation will be upset that THEIR money is going into my retirement. Social Security is a PONZI scheme...and, I feel like I will have the short straw in this lousy deal. The little $ I will get in retirement will come with the younger generation resenting me for receiving MY OWN MONEY! Such a deal.