The alleged “first” baby-boomer applied for Social Security benefits on Monday, beginning the long, painful ride to the bottom, be it by increased taxes, reduced “benefits” or a combination thereof, to somehow breathe temporary life into the resusci-Annie doll that is the Social Security “trust fund.” Of course she is quite lucky to be at the top of the list, having paid into the system relatively little compared to the benefits she’ll receive if she lives for another 30 or 40 years – even another 10 years. This is a system that was implemented to remove the elderly from the workforce in order to make room for the young and falsify labor-force-participation statistics, at a time when these people could reasonably expect to live another 3 or 4 years. So it is no surprise that she’s taking the pie while it’s hot – god forbid she ever actually need it one day, it might not be there.
The incentive is merely to take what’s been promised to you. Of course, you were the one making the promise for which someone else had to pay, but let’s not get bogged down in semantics. Semantics like, well, it’s probably of no real significance to mention that this recipient, a certain Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, has retired to the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland. Not a bad place to live, if your grandkids you can afford it. But despite the inevitable clusterfuck of socialism that will likely succeed what we know of as OASDI/SS, Casey Kirschling remains optimistic about the program’s future:
[She] said her generation won’t let Social Security fail.
“I think the baby boomers will want to get this fixed. They’re going to want to take care of their children and their grandchildren.”
With all due respect, your grandchildren should be taking care of you, not vice versa. If you want to take care of them, I commend you, and wish you luck in that endeavor. But your cheer-leading benevolence unfortunately depens upon reducing their future “benefits” and raising the taxes levied against their children. Probably the single greatest thing you could do to help your children, and your children’s children, ma’am, is to repeal that abomination of a safety net, which is in fact an enormous transfer payment from the young and relatively poor, to the old – who happen to be the wealthiest people who have ever lived.
Of course this is unlikely to ever happen, because rich old people vote, and they have a strong lobby. They’re also miserly curmudgeons, and they will continue to drink the social security kool-aid as long as someone else is filling the glass.
And as long as there is a 10% discount.