Generational War

[LuvNewcastle]

I've been watching PBS just now and one of the little pundits they have -- he's obviously working for the administration -- explained the Obama explanation for the chained CPI.

In a nutshell, the man said that the Baby Boomers have been getting enough from the government. It's time to divert some money from the seniors and spend more on the youth and make "investments in the future."

He didn't deny they were considering the chained CPI, he didn't deny that it was a cut.

So what follows this will be a generational war over government services.

How do you like that? They don't want to pay SS back the money they owe and they'll start a fight between age groups if they have to in order to get them what they want. That's some cold-blooded politics, folks.

[winter is coming]

1. If memory serves, they increased FICA back when Reagan was in office,

to offset the "boomer bump". Before that change, my grad student stipend wasn't subject to FICA. Afterwards, it was.

So... they didn't increase it enough? Or are we not supposed to remember that they already tweaked SS to offset the Boomer bump?

[LuvNewcastle]

6. This is about returning the money they've stolen from SS through the years.

The fund is full of IOUs. If they can get the younger folks up-in-arms about getting their fair share (and the fair share will be nothing in comparison to what was taken), that means they won't have to return the money. They'll call it "shared sacrifice" and "investment in the future." But the main idea is to deflect the issue from themselves about cutting social security and turning the argument into one about investing in the youth. The issue will be distorted and unrecognizable from the simple discussion about cutting SS.

[tech3149]

9. YES! and as a result of that our generation was the first to not only pay to supplement our parents

but to provide for our own retirement. That "bump" was pretty painful but I didn't mind too much. I still did OK. Taking off or increasing the cap would easily adjust for variations in population growth and should be done to adjust for the generally higher wages of the top percentile.
I remember the pleasant surprise the first year my income exceeded the cap. That was worth quite an improvement in my audio equipment.

[mick063]

2. A grand old Republican tactic

Divide, hate, and conquer.


So now is the time to beat up on old folks?

.01 percent of the people are fucking us and we gotta find a larger group to blame.

Listen up Mr. President. The billionaires must be your primary "target". Get it?

[LuvNewcastle]

3. He billionaires aren't his target, they're his bosses.

[Hoyt]

4. Old fella here - I agree we better start helping youngsters for their future and ours.

We better do what we can for the 3 youngsters who might well be working crappy jobs to pay our benefits.

We'll adapt, and in the past few years we've gotten big improvements in Medicare that are worth many times the small Cola decrease, assuming it even passes.

[Cleita]

5. PBS, the Koch Bros. network?

Yeah, I'm not surprised they would be promoting this.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. PBS is a big disappointment these days.

[Cleita]

8. They do major funding for some of the shows like Nova and Nature,

so I feel the news part of it has veered way to the right because they are owning the message.

[forestpath]

10. So Obama is pitting the have nots against the have nots - instead of asking the haves to

make any kind of "sacrifice" whatsoever.

[avaistheone1]

11. What have the Baby Boomers received from the government?

Not many have even received their first Social Security check.

Why is Obama so hostile to seniors? I thought Obama was everyone's president.