Robert J. Samuelson is a liar and a provocateur. In his Washington Post op-ed March 8, 2010 he once again blames Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the fiscal woes of the US economy.
In a report ostensibly reviewing polling reflecting differing opinions held by separate generations he reaches the conclusion, without any substantiation, that the "millenials could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders' economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predicable costs of the baby boomers' retirement." Facts present a much different picture. Today, baby boomers aged 67 and eligible for full Social Security benefits have for 25 years been paying Social Security taxes at a rate far in excess of the amount necessary to pay current benefit costs. This has resulted in a Social Security trust fund surplus nearing 2 trillion dollars. Samuelson's statement that there has been a "failure" to confront predictable baby boom retirement costs is a lie. And his description of the millenials as the "chump generation" is a shameless incitement to generational conflict.
Unlike the Social Security system surplus, two fiscal policies of the US government over the past 25 years are abject failures. First, trillions of dollars of military spending have been expended on wars and weapons of profoundly questionable value to our national security without even a pretense of raising the taxes to pay for them. And second, tax policy itself has been corrupted to provide huge tax cuts to the wealthiest and most favored of Americans.
Samuelson and the Washington Post know these facts, and their relentless efforts to shield their sponsors among the rich and powerful leaders of the national security state from their responsibility for the US economy's fiscal catastrophe by placing it upon the poorest and least powerful members of society must be resisted and defeated.
