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Now throw in the fact that we: 1) have much higher housing costs, due to housing policies created by boomers 2) have much higher out of pocket education costs
by darksaints 10y ago
Now throw in the fact that we:
1) have much higher housing costs, due to housing policies created by boomers
2) have much higher out of pocket education costs, due to education policies created by boomers
3) have much higher out of pocket health care costs, due to health care policies created by boomers
4) have much higher payroll taxes due to social security raiding and general mismanagement by boomers
5) have much higher sales taxes due to erosion of property tax revenues from policies created by boomers
6) have much higher future income taxes due to decades of deficits from policies created by boomers.
And they after they are done FUBAR-ing us, they call us entitled for wanting reform.
- maxerickson 10y agoSocial Security tax rates haven't increased a lot since 1984. The maximum income they apply to has increased since then though: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/policybriefs/pb2011-02.html https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/policybriefs/pb2011-02.html (using the inflation adjusted numbers, 20-25%) I'm not real sure what you mean by social security raiding. Of course the government has borrowed and spent much of the Social Security trust fund, but this has little bearing on the future of Social Security, as the borrowing has been fully accounted for. Some future government could decide not to pay the money back, but they would be responsible for that, not the government that borrowed the money.
- darksaints 10y agoIf I take out a loan from a bank, I am the one who benefits from the loan, and I am the one that pays it back. But if you borrow from social security, the benficiary and the payee are not the same person, or even the same generation of people. One generation benefits, the next is on the hook to pay. And that is exactly what happened. Boomers borrowed from social security because they weren't willing to raise taxes on themselves. They promised to pay it back using Millenials' taxes. They got the benefits, we got the debt.
- maxerickson 10y agoOh sure, the debt is not good for the future but in that sense it doesn't matter a great deal who they borrowed from.
- massysett 10y agoAnd despite all that, the boomers go vote and their children do not.
- cookiecaper 10y agoParents want nothing more than a bright and stable future for their posterity. They vote in accordance with policy that they believe will achieve those ends.
- mark_edward 10y agoParents would like to think that they do so, this article defies that.
- badsock 10y agoBoomers in the US have largely adopted ideologies that promise prosperity for all but, by shear coincidence, /also/ benefit them directly. Trouble is, the prosperity stuff is all theoretical (cutting social programs to lower taxes = eventually a better economy, trust me), but all the benefits to the boomers were concrete (shifting tax breaks and program funding towards things that help older people and away from those that help younger people). Shockingly, after 40 years of these policies, the prosperity for everyone never showed up, but the boomers somehow managed to enrich themselves above all others, despite not (by objective measures) working harder or being more skilled than the generations that came after. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm sure a better future was one of the things that they genuinely wanted. I'm saying that boomers (in aggregate) are self-delusional about their greed. Judge people by their actions, not their intentions.
- Jtsummers 10y agoIn a strictly rational world, yes. But many people vote without thinking about what improves things for the future, but what makes things better for them now. Or they vote on emotional or moral grounds without considering the actual economic and societal costs.
- cookiecaper 10y ago