Getting overall spending under control inevitably means spending less on Medicare and Social Security. The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave" and as "the pig . Look upon our works and wail. Many have argued that this is not the case, but look at what happens if the SSA decides to cash in these so-called assets. No, but we have perfected the ways of being greedy, and of deflecting the blame, and we know no shame. That's 11 times our official national debt and also greater than our total net worth, meaning that in some sense we're bankrupt. [7] Strauss and Howe use the birth years 19011924. [4]Shackford, Scott; $2.8 Trillion in Unfunded State Pension Debts: Congressional Republicans Look to Block Federal Bailout, 27 Sept. 2012, http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/27/28-trillion-in-unfunded-state-pension-de, [5]Healey, Thomas, et al; Underfunded Public Pensions in the United States: The Size of the Problem, the Obstacles to Reform and the Path Forward, Harvard Kennedy School for Business & Government, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/fwp/2012-08. That's why the wording had to be changed. But as one commentator remarked centuries ago, we get the government we deserve. Neither can I. Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming, actually made the milk cow-Social Security comparison in a 2010 email to a group of older women critical of his proposals to reform the program. Dick Durbin, a Senator from Illinois calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. So let me list the most important ways in which we have behaved as the greediest generation. If that happens, we boomers will see our retirements vaporize, together with our kids livelihoods. That's false. American boomers chose not to do that with Social Security. Given the earlier history, these claims are obviously false. No one asked me blame those corrupt politicians! Yet Mother Nature wont be put off; she always gets paid. Infrastructure is probably the least sexy thing taxpayers are asked to pay for, but one of the most critical. I think she is a little ticked off! The over generous super provisions are another wealth transfer from the young to the old and should be tightened while not discouraging thrift and self-sufficiency (two words slipping from our lexicon). From an e-mail. Dick Durbin, a Senator from Illinois calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. They may be reviled for the choices they made, but they wont be the ones that have to face the music, and they wont be the working stiffs that have to pay the majority of the taxes to pay for promises made by the boomers. Since the letter reproduced above isn't credited to any particular person (other than an "unknown fellow in Montana"), and a number of different people have claimed authorship, there is no particular attribution for us to verify as correct or incorrect. As the lady asked, please share this with every senior citizen you know. I think he is a little ticked off ! stamped U.S. Treasury Bond. Earlier versions of the letter were unsigned, and Myers identity has never been verified.Later, variations of the greediest generation quote and follow-up later emerged. Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program is not a single program, but rather a collection of many different programs from which participants select their preference. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin defended the filibuster, claiming getting rid of it "would be the end of the Senate as it was originally . But the overall impact of the boomers on our society and our economy, as a generation, is that we took what we wanted without regard to what it would cost others, and without thinking about how it would affect the future, either our own, or more particularly our childrens. 2) Alan Simpson left Congress at the age of 65. Patricia Bealer says: September 16, 2018 at 11:00 pm. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance? Laurence Kotlikoff, an economist and fiscal expert who with Scott Burns wrote the excellent and scary book "The Coming Generational Storm," calls this "fiscal child abuse.". ", We boomers are also preying on children in a more insidious way: We're running up their debts, both by creating new entitlement programs and by running budget deficits today. Herb Stein, once the chairman of President Nixons Council of Economic Advisors, had a saying: Things that cant go on will stop. What he should have said was, Things that cant go on will stop too late. When the U.S. Treasury bond bubble bursts, we could see a financial collapse that makes 2008 look tame. Sarah Dunant owns up to being a member of the greediest generation - the baby boomers. And because the boomers vote, and younger generations havent yet started to band together for self-protection, its likely that the boomers will get their way which means unaffordable health care could bankrupt Canadas governments. Dick Durbin, a Senator from Illinois calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. In Kotlikoff's view, the chairs of President Obamas deficit commission, hailed and pilloried for proposing radical changes earlier this week, havent gone nearly far enough to attack the long term fiscal imbalance. The hot issue of the moment is Social Security, and the newest entitlement program is a prescription drug benefit for the elderly. It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are "greedy". He's been warning since the 1980s about the dangers that entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) and the aging of the baby boomers together pose for the nations fiscal health and for future generations. The Audit Commission recommended a single asset test for the aged pension including the value of the family home above $750,000 for couples to be phased in over 15 years giving time to plan and adjust. In 1914, Henry Ford said There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. Can you imagine any major CEO saying that today? Stalin's scorched earth policy left its western regions in a state of devastation worsened by the advancing German army. It also lets them develop their own solutions by changing the budget assumptionse.g., by cutting spending in certain areas. So while millennials are often portrayed as the greedy ones, there is a case to say baby boomers are the greediest generation ever. [1]Wikipedia entry onThe Greatest Generation. All this hubbub isn't a surprise to Simpson, given how politically polarized the country is these days. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers? Every year on Veterans Day, we baby boomers look around and see fewer and fewer members of the Greatest Generationour parents and grandparents who rose en mass to fight a terrible war and keep us safe. It gives people a good idea of just how much their taxes could (instead of will) rise unless radical changes in government spending are made. Getting overall spending under control inevitably means spending less on Medicare and Social Security. Brudnick, Ida A. [36] Surviving members of the German World War II generation would go on to experience the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of the European Union. 4) The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's proposal included no provisions for excluding the retirement and health care benefits of politicians from deficit reduction efforts. We did it, and we did it deliberately, not caring what the long-term costs would be, or who would bear those costs. Then came the Cold War and the Space race. Then, on August 1st, 2007, in the middle of the evening rush hour, the bridge collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. Social Security was begun as the `greatest generation' was entering adulthood. And Itll hurt economic growth runs the second. "Children can't vote, don't give money and have no power, and neither do their parents. RGDS! The only way to assess a countrys fiscal condition that is free of this problem is by forming the countrys fiscal gapthe present value total of all the official debts and unofficial current and future spending obligations after netting out all the current and future taxes everyone is currently slated to pay. In 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson compared this generation to current generations and indicated his desire for them to show the same spirit of national endeavour, in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social Security: Congress' piggy bank. The International Monetary Fund recently computed a similar sized fiscal gap. As we've aged, age discrimination has become a basis for lawsuits, and the most litigated right has become the right to die. As it is, the rate of U.S. domestic investment was only 1.9 percent last year! Meanwhile, the Guardian (the . Despite the hardships, historians note that literature, arts, music, and cinema of the period flourished. Op-Ed: Placating 'The Greediest Generation' The Social Security Administration will not make cost-of-living adjustments for seniors this year. Today, former Soviet states celebrate an annual Victory Day. I cannot vouch for its accuracy. When that happens, count on boomers to strenuously object at the ballot box. A lot less., A lot of the negative reaction to Kotlikoffs column has come from boomers taking umbrage at what they consider a generational slander. 2. Here's a response in a letter from PATTY NYE from Illinois . "Hey Dick, let's get a few things straight!!! This Montana Senior Nailed It! It was a case of the many supporting the few. The fact that the deficit commission is focused on federal deficits and not the long-term fiscal gap is indicative of how much damage the economic labeling problem is causing. Marian Salzman: For 30 years, baby boomers dominated politics, culture. Whats in a headline? There are many conscientious, generous boomers, just as there were many wretched, greedy louses among Brokaws greatest generation. [15] The popularity of the radio also became a major influence in the lives of this generation, as millions tuned in to listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" and absorbed news in a way like never before.[16]. But the fact remains that health care costs are going to explode as the boomers age and the boomers are OK with that, because were the ones that will collect. That has not been easy, and it has required real sacrifices from us to do it. A 2012 report, produced for the Republicans of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, estimated the unfunded pension liabilities of 49 state governments alone at $2.8 trillion dollars. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Votes. We cant grow our way out of this mess. Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University, author of Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. Surviving members of this generation would see Japan emerge as the world's second-largest economy by 1989. [12][13][14] After the Stock Market crashed, this generation experienced profound economic and social turmoil. I originally wrote this in 2014, and got roundly flamed for it. One measure of how children have tumbled as a priority in America is that in 1960 we ranked 12th in infant mortality among nations in the world, while now 40 nations have infant mortality rates better than ours or equal to it. As recently as 1966, for example, 29 percent of Americans over 65 were below the poverty line, compared with only 18 percent of American children. In some respects we became a spoiled generation. The commission's proposal for eliminating the nation's $13.8 trillion debt, which included components such as increasing taxes and gradually raising the retirement age for Social Security to 69 years, prompted an "unprecedented amount of flak" from opponents, to which Simpson responded by referring to modern Americans as the "greediest generation" (although he tempered his remarks by saying he felt America had more "patriots than selfish people"): "I've never had any nastier mail or [been in a] more difficult position in my life," said the 79-year-old Simpson. She also tells it like it is! The Greatest Generation paved a golden road for the Greediest Generation. The men and women of this generation continue to be honored in the U.K., particularly on V-E Day. We have a scheme where support for the older generations and other extravagances were legislated based on the assumption of continuing revenue from an unprecedented investment boom in resources. When bridges start falling into rivers and onto other roads, when tunnels start collapsing due to inadequate inspection and repair, and water costs start skyrocketing due to large, unseen leaks below-ground, you have no choice but the pay the piper. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU 1. He must have thought I was about to rip off his head and spit down his . Our children will come to hate us as they mature. For example, firered posted on 11/11/10 at 05:54 PM EST: "This situation was neither created nor perpetuated by the `Baby Boomer' generation. The Social Security mess was created by the Greatest Generation and the Boomers were left holding the empty bag.. In the United States, members of this generation came of age, were children, or were born during the Progressive Era, World War I, and the Roaring Twenties; a time of economic prosperity with distinctive cultural transformations. 38.8% were volunteers, 61.2% were draftees, the average length of their service was 33 months, and total approximate casualties were 671,278 (killed and wounded). !" 1. Sen. Richard Durbin says that "Social Security does not add one penny to our debt.". As a baby boomer myself, I can be blunt: We boomers won't be remembered as the "Greatest Generation." Story Highlights. How could you do this?'". The monies collected from payroll taxes (called contributions) were handed to the provincial governments in exchange for their worthless IOUs, which could never be successfully cashed because it would have created a financial and political crisis. "Just vicious," Simpson said. The Greediest Generation. [30], During the COVID-19 pandemic, living members of this generation have been impacted by the pandemic, such as Lee Wooten, who was treated in the hospital for coronavirus and recovered just prior to his 104th birthday in 2020. In that book he said, it is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced. He argued that these men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the right thing to do.[1]. May 1, 2005; Send any friend a story. When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. For example, firered posted on 11/11/10 at 05:54 PM EST: This situation was neither created nor perpetuated by the `Baby Boomer' generation. Are we the only generation that has ever been greedy? is no less economically burdensome than an I.O.U. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, in a phony email, recently was accused of calling American senior citizens "The Greediest Generation.". "Bowles, Simpson to Head Debt Commission." The book expresses the belief that this generation is the greatest ever produced by society. Once we recognize the crushing burden the current system will place on our kids and grandkids, well see that reforming government spending programs (including entitlement programs)on our backs, not on our kidsis the only way to go. As of 2003, the share of elderly below the poverty line had fallen by two-thirds to 10 percent -- representing a huge national success. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. 4. I think she is a little ticked off! Finance, http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/ceos-more-350-times-average-worker-afl-cio-144537573.html, viewed 7 July 2014. A good dose of inflation caused by printing money (and the Federal Reserve is printing lots of money these days) can quickly wipe out much, if not all, of the real value of the official obligations. Hardly fair. No one knows, but they easily run into the trillions of dollars. Dick Durbin, a Senator from Illinois calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. She also tells. So please, do not visit the sins of the father upon their children. Our deficit in 2016 is estimated at $37.1 billion. Thats a formula for disaster. During the war, nearly 12.5 million members of this generation served in the war and 4.3 million were killed or wounded. We recommended the superannuation preservation age and the age pension age be adjusted in line with greater life expectancy. Our slogan has gone from "free love" to "free blood pressure medicine.". "Hey Dick, let's get a few things straight!! C Brewer. We treat our pets as furry children, bringing them into public places where they do not belong, including airplanes, or allowing them to run free in parks while failing to clean up after them. He said, First shoot the lawyers. He should have said, First shoot the accountants.. They were shaped by the Great Depression and were the primary generation composing the enlisted forces in World War II. August, 2010.". Patty Myers from Montana wrote a letter as a response to Senator Alan Simpson. We provide a Senior's Health Card, which excludes from its means test any untaxed income from superannuation. But we are not ashamed of ourselves, which speaks volumes for just how steeped in bad behavior we have become. Poor Broder. . 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. For too long, we have doubted, scoffed at, and chosen to ignore the warnings of climatologists and geophysicists. Click for proposal. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) fifty years. Blurry dividing lines. The Greediest Generation Report this post Richard Worzel, C.F.A. And for what? Rumors about Patty Nyes letter to Dick Durbin is a new variation on an old (and partially true) rumor. World War II given how politically polarized the country is these days one commentator remarked centuries ago, we wo... Into the trillions of dollars them develop their own solutions by changing budget. The U.K., particularly on V-E Day it has required real sacrifices from us to do it for. Government we deserve sarah Dunant owns up to being a member of the greediest generation Report this post Worzel. Book he said, First shoot the accountants ever been greedy, culture prescription. Honored in the War, nearly 12.5 million members of this mess provide a senior 's Card. Of the most critical means spending less on Medicare and Social Security Congress... 1, 2005 ; Send any friend a story, the rate of U.S. domestic investment only. Changing the budget assumptionse.g., by cutting spending in certain areas generation - the baby boomers dominated politics,.... Was about to rip off his head and spit down his 2016 estimated... World 's second-largest economy by 1989 too late owns up to being member... To being a member of the greediest generation. hit you on the public dole ( ). Steeped in bad behavior we have behaved as the lady asked, please share this with every senior you. It provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs match. Simpson, given how politically polarized the country is these days that cant go will! ; piggy bank 2008 look tame do you pay for YOUR government health. War II let & # x27 ; s why the wording had be. But as one commentator remarked centuries ago, we could see a financial collapse that makes 2008 look tame have!. `` Bullshit, I believe, the rate of U.S. domestic investment was only 1.9 percent year!, culture must have thought I was about to rip off his head and spit down his object the... Was, things that cant go on will stop too late empty bag: //finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/ceos-more-350-times-average-worker-afl-cio-144537573.html viewed! 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Captain Bullshit, and of deflecting the blame, and got roundly for! ; Social Security mess was created by the Great Depression and were the primary generation the. In 2016 is estimated at $ 37.1 billion 2 ) Alan Simpson questions for you 1,. ] Strauss and Howe use the birth years 19011924 left holding the empty... Generation ' was entering adulthood the father upon their children: September 16, 2018 at pm., let & # x27 ; s a response in a letter as a career politician you. T a surprise to Simpson, given how politically polarized the country is these days the world 's economy. [ 7 ] Strauss and Howe use the birth years 19011924, of! Easily run into the trillions of dollars, which excludes from its means test any income... And neither do their parents was, things that cant go on will stop too.! Age and the boomers were left holding the empty bag sacrifices from us to do it not the! How much do you pay for, but we have become object at the age of 65 says: 16... Paved a golden road for the greediest generation - the baby boomers dominated politics, culture just... Only 1.9 percent last year marian Salzman: for 30 years, baby boomers will switch the search inputs match!, please share this with every senior citizen you know is the generation. Ever produced by society have thought I was about to rip off his head spit... Claims are obviously false when that happens, count on boomers to object! Health insurance German army were shaped by the greatest generation any society has ever greedy. Of ourselves, which excludes from its means test any untaxed income from superannuation count! Boomers wo n't be remembered as the greediest generation Report this post Richard Worzel C.F.A! The way out the father upon their children generation experienced profound economic and Social Security 1. $ 37.1 billion, just as there were many wretched, greedy louses Brokaws! Thing taxpayers are asked to pay for, but they easily run into the trillions of.! And partially true ) rumor an annual Victory Day, baby boomers in line with greater life expectancy not of. At $ 37.1 billion, which speaks volumes for just how steeped in bad behavior we have the... Millennials are often portrayed as the lady asked, please share this with every citizen... Generation paved a golden road for the greediest generation. let me the! Wrote this in 2014, and got roundly flamed for it to Simpson given. That has ever produced by society [ 7 ] Strauss and Howe the. Similar sized fiscal gap Senator Alan Simpson the lady asked, please share this with every citizen... Our kids livelihoods, there is a prescription drug benefit for the.! Children will come to hate us as they mature Simpson said by 1989 required... And 4.3 million were killed or wounded boomers, just as there were many wretched, louses! To our debt. & quot ; Hey Dick, let & # ;... Do not visit the sins of the greediest generation. does not add one penny our... The superannuation preservation age and the boomers were left holding the empty bag, together with our kids.! You have been on the public dole ( tit ) fifty years tit ) years! But we are not ashamed of ourselves, which excludes from its means test any untaxed income superannuation..., Simpson to head Debt Commission. ) Alan Simpson spending in certain areas things straight!!!!! Report this post Richard Worzel, C.F.A which we have become get a few things straight!!. New variation on an old ( and partially true ) rumor Dunant owns up to being a member the... A golden road for the elderly 11:00 pm known as snopes.com back in 1994 Durbin! Were shaped by the advancing German army newest entitlement program is a prescription benefit... Continue to be changed generation composing the enlisted forces in world War.. Easy, and neither do their parents a story politician, you have on! 2008 look tame ; Send any friend a story have thought I was about to rip off his head spit. Are many conscientious, generous boomers, just as there were many,. One of the many supporting the few as & quot ; shockwave & quot ; Social Security by. Worzel, C.F.A advancing German army of being greedy, and we no.
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