For the sake of our children, and the future of our country, I believe we must come to a point of acceptance. The older generation will never agree to bear a fair share of the burden of reform and we will never be politcally powerful enough to require them to do so.
I have believed and advocated that the cost of picking up the pieces of Social Security - converting a failed wealth transfer scheme into a fully funded wealth creation system - should be borne equitably by all generations and by all Americans except the poor. In simple terms, this could be accomplished by (1) means testing of benefits to current recipients; (2) decreased current consumption of current workers through funding of current means-tested Social Security benefits with increased general taxes; and, (3) continued liability (but on a reduced basis) of future generations of workers for the retirement benefits of current workers.
In a very real sense, I believe that how we resolve this problem will largely define what kind of America exists in the 21st Century. Will we have a country where every American can aspire to and realistically have an opportunity to go as far as his or her intelligence, ability, and inspiration will take him or her? Or will we see a much more rigid, class-oriented and class-petrified society? We must act now to create the future our children will inherit.
But more and more it is becoming evident that current retirees will not agree to bear any share of the cost of reforming a system that is robbing America of its very soul.
Their generation includes eighty (80) year-olds, born in 1919, who lived through the Great Depression and who fought World War II; seventy (70) year-olds, born in 1929, who were children of the Great Depression; sixty-five (65) year-olds born in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression and some of whom fought in the Korean war.
They all claim exemption from any further sacrifice for the good of their country and its future. The height and grandeur of their generation's past sacrifice is equaled only by the depth of its current greed and selfishness.
So it appears that we - the current working generations - have only two choices: (1) Bear the burden of transitioning to a fully-funded wealth creation retirement system ourselves; or (2) do as current retirees have done, and shift the cost of our retirement onto our children.
While pondering this working in the yard this morning, I thought about the spirit of sacrifice that has - till recently - represented the best of what America has stood for. I thought of what Abraham Lincoln would have done. I thought about the world my two young children will inherit.
Though I will continue to argue for a fair distribution of the burden of reform, I believe we must come to a point of acceptance that we will never have what our parents have had - a world in which the future is bright and better for ourselves than the world from which we have come. But we must work and hope for this again for our children. To do otherwise is to condemn our children and the future of our nation. Current retirees are too greedy and too powerful. By the time we convince them or have more political power than they have, they will be dead and we will be old. For the good of our country and our children, current working generations must bear the burden of transitioning Social Security to a fully-funded retirement system.
... but we should never let current retirees forget that we know what they are doing; and we should never let our children forget what they have done. Reform of Social Security will be our sacrifice, our "World War II."
