Generation Warfare is Brewing

In her April 9, 2014 column, one of my heroines, Terry Savage, describes looming Generation Warfare.

In a nutshell, our government is spending far more than it takes in. Check out Truth in Accounting, a nonprofit that keeps track of both our  current national debt and the burden of future government payment promises. We now have an “official” national debt of more than $17.4 Trillion. The ticking clock on their website shows that we have promised to pay a total of $76 trillion to future Social Security and Medicare recipients, not to mention interest on our debt, along with military retirement benefits, etc.

In other words, we owe a lot of money! More than the government can raise in taxes.

In the meantime, Washington is playing a shell game. Instead of figuring out how to grow the economic pie, they are obsessed with dividing up the existing pie.

Generational warfare is brewing. Young people are enticed to take out student loans at interest rates many times what the government pays to borrow — and then graduate into an economy that is not providing jobs so they can repay those loans.

Younger workers pay into a Social Security “trust fund” that is scheduled to move onto shaky ground long before they can expect to receive benefits. They’ll be supporting government retirement benefits for someone else’s parents and grandparents.

And from the seniors’ side, isn’t it generation warfare for the Fed to keep interest rates low (depriving seniors of the opportunity to earn interest in their retirement years), so that the government’s unprecedented borrowing (a burden on the young) can continue?

And isn’t it generation warfare to reduce the government’s support for Medicare Advantage plans and limit Medicare reimbursements to physicians and hospitals, just when seniors most need the care?

Here’s another article about oncoming Generation Warfare that came out about the same time Terry Savage’s column did. It echoes what Terry predicts.

My April 9, 2014 blog is about how astonishingly huge and unsustainable our national debt is. Tax collection doesn’t put a dent in it. Medicare and Medicaid, the primary ways long-term care is paid in the US, are on the firing line and already suffering cutbacks. The giant bulge of Baby Boomers, most of whom are wholly unprepared to pay for their long-term care, is just beginning to hit our system.

At age 65, there’s a 70% chance any of us will need long-term care during our lives. I urge you not to depend on the government to provide your long-term care.