Selfish Baby Boomers

To be brutally honest, even if it is likely to get me into a lot of trouble, the baby boomer generation has created a looming fiscal crisis which could bring the United States economy to its knees if measures aren’t taken to deal with the trillions of dollars of deficits and the mountain of public debt that have accumulated over the years the baby boomers have presided over our country’s economy. I am talking about the runaway spending of mandatory programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and veteran benefits, which is 70 percent of the entire budget of the federal government, excluding interest on the federal debt.

Let’s take a look at the numbers to see why it’s impossible to ignore the colossal increase in the size of these entitlement programs. In 2023, the entire federal budget was $5.4 trillion excluding interest, of which $3.8 trillion was mandatory spending or entitlements. Discretionary spending was $1.7 trillion, which included everything other than entitlements and interest on the debt. Our interest cost is running around $700 billion, almost as much as our defense budget and approximately 40 percent of the discretionary budget.

In order to bring down our annual deficit, which is now almost $2 trillion a year (yes, that’s trillion with a T), it doesn’t take a genius to see that we cannot substantially lower this number by only cutting discretionary spending or increasing taxes.

For years now, this mess we have created is commonly referred to as the third rail of politics, because it’s practically a near death experience for any politician who dares to speak about it. A politician who cares about his or her future does not want to step in this minefield. The minute any of them are honest with the American people about the unsustainable path we are on because of these entitlements, they are literally accused of elder abuse and starving babies. The demagoguery regarding this topic has no limits or boundaries.

We know from the election results, people are not fond of inflation. Inflation running below 8 percent for a few years has caused tremendous consternation among the general public. Imagine if we were Argentina and our average inflation rate was over 200 percent because we printed money like it was a Monopoly game. All hell would break loose if we had to cope with inflation of that magnitude.

Of course, what happened in Argentina can’t happen in the U.S., right? The answer, sadly, is that it can happen if we don’t begin to control our runaway spending, and we know this will not happen if the baby boomers, who are the current beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare, refuse to make any personal sacrifices for the benefit of younger generations.

And so I don’t seem too self-serving, I am one of those baby boomers who is on Social Security and Medicare. While I am not enthusiastic about cutting my government benefits, I recognize the problem of excessive entitlement spending cannot be solved unless the generation that is benefiting the most from them are willing to experience a little bit of the pain, too.

I can already hear the gnashing of teeth of why we shouldn’t cut back our benefits since we have already paid into the system. The answer is very simple: Because there is no other way. To ask our children and grandchildren to pay more into Social Security or take less in the future will not entirely fix a system that is hemorrhaging money faster than a speeding bullet. Today, there are only 2.9 workers paying into the system for every beneficiary. Sixty years ago, when Social Security first started paying out benefits, there were 42 workers per retiree.

I, for one, would have been willing to participate in a voluntary private Social Security system when it was first proposed in 2004. If that had been successfully implemented, I would be receiving benefits several orders of magnitude greater than what I am getting today. Now it’s probably too late for even this fix to stem the avalanche of deficit spending we are confronted with today.

I know there are some baby boomers who are entirely dependent on their Social Security and cannot afford to take less, but let’s be honest, there are also many who could sacrifice without significantly altering their lifestyle. The truth is that the baby boomer generation is far better off financially than every other demographic group in the US. They control 52 percent of the total wealth in the United States despite making up only 20 percent of the population. Much of their net worth was derived from intergenerational wealth transfer (inheritances) and a booming stock market since the 1980s. However, if a politician dares to ask them to share in the inevitable pain from fixing this broken system, they will scream bloody murder. To me, that is the definition of selfish.

I am not optimistic that my generation will be willing to make any personal sacrifices, even if it will guarantee a better future for their children and grandchildren. Although it is hard to see how we get out of this mess if baby boomers are unwilling to participate in the solution, I inevitably think of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, who said with hope and faith in the promise of a better future when faced with the loss of her land, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”