Another Message to Younger People

The following is a column by Robert Samuelson. He is urging young people to take charge of their futures and not say simply that they do not expect Social Security to be around for them. I agree with him that AARP is a very powerful lobbying organization and that it is well known that AARP wants to protect the system as it now stands. You will be the ones to pay for this and it is not clear that you will get much out of the system. Urge your representatives to think of your interests too. A complete overhaul is needed before it is too late. I know this a scary time in the market but markets have always recovered in the past. There is some combination of solutions, including private accounts, which is needed sooner rather than later. Every year that passes before we come up with a solution is a year closer to a very poor retirement for you and your children.

Save Social Security (but don't let it just go along unchanged)


Aging Boomers Leaving Young Holding Bag
By ROBERT SAMUELSON Posted Thursday, October 23, 2008 4:30 PM PT
To: Voters Under 35
Subject: Your Future
Recommendation: Get Angry
You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50% over the next 25 years.
Plus there's the expense of decaying infrastructure — roads, bridges, water pipes. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. All this will squeeze crucial government services: education, defense, police.
Guess what? You're not hearing much of this in the campaign. One reason is that you don't seem to care. Obama's your favorite candidate (by a 64% to 33% margin among 18- to 29-year-olds, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll). But he's outsourced his position on these issues to the AARP, the 40-million-member group for Americans 50 and over.
Don't believe me? Go to the Web site, www.aarp.org. On Sept. 6, both Obama and McCain talked to an AARP convention celebrating the group's 50th birthday. Click on the Obama video (go to "Voter Guide"). You'll see some world-class pandering.
There are three basic ways of reducing the costs of Social Security and Medicare: increase eligibility ages; trim benefits; and require recipients to pay more for their Medicare benefits (higher premiums, co-payments or deductibles). In his talk, Obama effectively rejected all three.
Or look at the September-October issue of AARP The Magazine, which has a "voters' guide." In it, Obama and McCain receive the opportunity to check boxes agreeing or disagreeing with the AARP's positions on 11 issues. Obama checked agreement on 10.
He's not an agent of change but a staunch defender of the status quo. Indeed, he would expand subsidies to the elderly by exempting from federal income taxes anyone 65 and over with $50,000 income or less.
McCain pandered too. In his video, he praised the AARP effusively. He didn't mention benefit cuts. But he hedged. He said today's system is "broken" and shouldn't be inflicted on future generations. In the voters' guide, he didn't check "agree" or "disagree" but merely described his positions.
The hint is that, as president, he might try to curb retirement spending. There's a precedent; McCain voted against the Medicare drug benefit.
I am 62. Most of my friends are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. I wish everyone a pleasurable retirement. But we need to overhaul our government retirement programs for the common good and not for just the elderly. We have now waited so long that there's no way to do this without being unfair to someone — overburdening the young or withdrawing promised benefits from older Americans.
This financial crisis, by reducing retirement savings, has made a hard job harder. Still, these federal programs began as safety nets for the needy; now they've become subsidies for living long, regardless of need.
What the debate has lacked is a moral dimension. Obama says it's OK to raise taxes on those with incomes exceeding $250,000. Well, why should Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries with incomes of $250,000 get subsidies from the young making less? How about $200,000 or $100,000? What are acceptable eligibility ages? People live longer; they can work longer. Boomers cannot be excluded; they're the problem.
There can be no "rewriting of the social contract" without benefit cuts, because paying today's benefits inevitably involves much higher taxes, massive deficits or draconian cuts in other government programs. Even with sensible benefit cuts, taxes will have to rise and there will be pressure on other programs.
What should you do? First, get angry — at the media and think tanks for discussing this problem in misleading euphemisms (for instance, the problem is not an "entitlements crisis"; it's excessive benefits for the old); at the candidates for exploiting your innocence; and at yourself for your gullibility.
Next, start picketing the AARP. It's the citadel of seniors' political power and the country's most powerful "special interest." It wields a virtual veto over roughly two-fifths of the federal budget. Your activist groups ought to be there every day with placards reading "Give Us Generational Justice" or "Get Off Our Backs." Ask direct questions of federal candidates about what benefits they'd cut, which they'd keep and why.
You need to appeal to the shame and guilt of older Americans by reminding them that their self-absorption is not a victimless exercise. Only if older Americans act on their rhetorical pledges of worrying about their children will the political climate change.
If you don't stand up for yourselves, believe me, your elders and politicians won't.
© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group