Generational Warfare!

Grooviosity. Reform social security, man, because you can’t trust anyone over 30. Cool.

These doughy, briefcase GOP baby boomer geeks have always had a case of arrested development. They started their “revolution” in their 40’s. In their 50’s they’ve discovered the “generation gap.” The rest of us got over this intergenerational squabbling a couple of decades ago. It’s never too late to act like a teen-age ass.

For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era. In those days people didn’t live as long, benefits were much lower than they are today, and a half century ago, about 16 workers paid into the system for each person drawing benefits. Our society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not have foreseen.

Man, if only those old people would just die younger, or at least take less money, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Right now, a set portion of the money you earn is taken out of your paycheck to pay for the Social Security benefits of today’s retirees. If you are a younger worker, I believe you should be able to set aside part of that money in your own retirement account, so you can build a nest egg for your own future.

… instead of having to worry about your revolting, diseased parents.

As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts.

Awesome. A better deal for me!

It is time to extend [the same] security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans.

Listen kids. Here’s your choice. Either keep social security as it is or plan to have your parents —- people my age — living with you for the last twenty years of our sick, decrepit lives. This will be as you’re putting your kids through the privatized school system and saving for medical expenses with your “medical savings account” while putting something aside for your kids’ college and your own meager retirement. Good luck with that. That’s the “choice” you’re getting here.

Bush says nobody over 55 will see any change. I’m 48. Somehow, I don’t think I’m one of those “younger workers” who is oging to experience the miracle of the market. I’m not the solution, I’m the problem. There are a huge number of people my age out there. We who were born in the mid 50’s are the biggest bulge of the baby boom cohort. And we are the ones who are first in line to get fucked if this social security “reform” is passed.

But the good news is that by that time our children will have these lovely fat portfolios. They’ll be happy to take us in if our “personalized social security” doesn’t stretch quite as far as George W. Bush says is will. Right?

Oh, and by the way, kids. You’ll be the ones stuck with the gazillions of dollars in debtthis whole useless scam is going to cost. Don’t be fools.

Update: Josh speaks to this as well:

the president is now saying — and saying emphatically and militantly, with an eye on his critics — that if you’re 55 you’re home free, nothing to worry about when it comes to phasing out Social Security.

One might observe that this is a rather unfortunate dividing in half of the country. If you’re 50 today, you spent most of your highest earning years not only paying into Social Security, but advance-paying even more, under the 1983 Social Security Commission which put in the extra level of tax to build up the Trust Fund. Now you’re hosed. Too bad.

The important point though is that this is simply not true. And the defenders of Social Security would be straight-up fools to let the president get away with a guarantee as obviously bogus as that one.

Maybe they can try to finesse those older than 55 into believing him with a direct, straight up lie, but he’s not even trying to finesse those of us who are just slightly younger than that. And we are a huge demographic cohort. The transition costs, which the Preznit doesn’t address at all, are going to hit this bulge of the baby boom right between the eyes because most of us are under 55. And ALL of us have been paying “extra” since Uncle Alan Greenspan told us to in 1983.

I think we need to start talking to people my age. We are following this closely because retirement issues in general are beginning to get our attention. We are the biggest single age group in the country and we are about to get fucked.

Update, Update:

Ooooh. I see that we are talking about “benefit offsets” which just means that any “extra” money you make in your “personal” account goes into the pot. No ownership, no guarantee, no nothing.

This is more and more ideological by the day. It’s just about tearing up the new deal and destroying people’s trust in government, period.