Stop Baby Boomer Bashing: Protect Social Security and Medicare

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthout.org/021609A

Remember all those headlines about how the baby boom cohorts just lost several trillion dollars in home equity due to the collapse of the housing bubble and how they lost trillions more in their retirement accounts as a result of the stock market crash? Most people probably don't remember those articles because most of the media have failed to notice the stories.

This should have been an easy one for the media to see. The people who take the biggest loss when home prices plummet will be the people who have equity to lose. This will mean mostly older workers or people who are already retired, since these are the people who will most likely have paid off much or all of their mortgage.

Similarly, the loss of stock wealth would have been concentrated among older workers and retirees. Few workers manage to accumulate any substantial stake in the stock market in their 20s or 30s. This means that loss when the stock market collapsed was almost entirely born by older workers and retirees.

Given the massive loss of wealth incurred by the baby boom cohorts that are nearing retirement, it would be reasonable to think that President Obama and Congress are trying to develop plans to ensure that they can still enjoy a secure retirement. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case. There are reports President Obama is considering establishing tasks to examine Social Security and Medicare with an eye toward making cuts in both programs.

More at the link --

[Demobrat]

1. Ironic that the very people who have paid

into the system their entire working lives, and are paying still, to pay for the generation that spawned them are now being vilified for growing old enough to get benefits. How dare they?

[bain_sidhe]

3. Not only that, they've paid EXTRA

for most of their working lives, because, unlike previous generations, they were required to help pay their own future benefits, not just the currently-retired recipients benefits. This was the "Social Security Trust Fund" established under Reagan that every president (including Reagan) has looted since it was established.

[HereSince1628]

6. Right, this part of the story is very poorly known. Now DC plans to raid the box that wasn't locked

You know, they are gonna take all those IOUs in the two filing cabinets W showed us in W Virginia.

[JDPriestly]

12. I got my Social Security card for my summer job when I was 14.

I am now 65. My husband and I are among the real victims of this crisis. If you are 45 and you lose everything, chances are you will recoup your losses if you tighten your belt a whole lot (and stay employed and in good health). But if you are over 65, you just don't have enough good working, earning years left to make up those losses. So, if anything, Obama needs to raise Social Security benefits, not "reform" or reduce them.

The alternative is that you younger folks invite your destitute parents and grandparents to live with you. You then provide for your own older generation. That's the way it worked before Social Security.

But then, living in the extended family was easier when a large percentage of Americans lived on farms and the older people could help with the gardening, chickens and small livestock -- much easier to feed yourself, your spouse, your children and your parents and possibly grandparents.

If you are under 50, I hope you get along with your parents. You may be seeing a lot of them in the not so distant future.

[stray cat]

2. Raising the cap, a means test ie Trump doesn't need it, raising retirement age

I suspect these are things Obama may be thinking about. He doesn't seem like the type to suggest throwing parents or grandparents on the street.

[rurallib]

4. a means test will end up dividing older folks

and eventually they will be conquered. This is one of the few items any group is cohesive on.

[JDPriestly]

13. As long as there is no cap on eligibility for getting benefits -- talk about an inheritance tax.

Lowering Social Security benefits, raising the age of eligibility for Social Security, linking Social Security payments to a means tests. Those are inheritance taxes on the children of those who would otherwise be receiving their full Social Security benefits. The lower my Social Security benefits, the more I have to dip into savings and house equity to meet my daily needs -- the less I will leave to my children.

[JDPriestly]

14. If the Obama administration really took on age discrimination,

he could do a lot to help older people.

[acmavm]

5. Obama needs to keep his hands off SS. That money is not his to touch.

I don't want his hands on it anymore than I would want george bush** to touch it.

[eleny]

7. Amen!

I won't be eligible for SSA since I don't have the quarters. I do have a safe retirement. But I so agree with you. It's been sliced and diced and mingled with the General Fund over the years to pay for wars etc. They need to leave it the heck alone.

[Peregrine Took]

8. I agree. Its still the "3rd rail" - even for him. n/t

[kiva]

9. Absolutly. No president, no matter how well intentioned,

should touch it-and I say this as someone whose "retirement" (choking a bit) will not be funded by SS.

[earth mom]

10. Word. Social Security is NOT broken & if Obama says it is, then he's no better than *. nt

[blues90]

11. Obama or no one has the right to take away what we paid in .

and paid in double since Reagan that's 29 years of double pay. This is our money that was taken out of our checks and belongs to use. We were not asked if they could take it out of our paychecks and they have no right to revamp it now or making cuts.

Want to see the Boomers take to the streets , we still can then give us nothing left to lose.

Another thing , if these cuts do happen and apply to us Boomers then I guess that means the Grandmother in the whitehouse will have to move the hell out as part of the cutback.

[JDPriestly]

15. Any government that sends riot police to silence elderly people

marching in the streets will not survive long.

[closeupready]

17. A-freaking-men. Do not TOUCH Social Security.

:mad:

[blues90]

16. So what do we do to fight this ? nt

[MajorChode]

18. I don't really follow your reasoning

As far as "equity" goes, it is irrelevant. If your home's value plummeted you lost that value whether you had equity or not unless you declare bankruptcy.

As far as stocks go, 90% of all US stock equity is owned by the richest 10% of Americans.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

When SS first came about, being old was synonymous with being poor, however today older Americans are the most wealthy demographic.
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/markets/w07-1.pdf

The US of today is NOT the US of 1935, yet SS has not fundamentally changed except for the fact that working Americans now pay a whopping 12.4% between the employer and employee's share.