Writes Jim May:
It seems to me that the budget deficit/national debt issue boils down to two things. You have AARP with Social Security and Medicare in one corner and the War Machine/Israel/Religious Right in the other corner. SS/M is a huge future drain on the system and the War Machine is a huge current drain on the system. Politicians must have AARP’s vote numbers and volunteerism to win and they must have the War Machine’s money to win. If hyperinflation is the one thing no politician can deal with, a choice is going to have to be made. By definition, AARP means you have a limited time left as either a taxpayer or as a benefit eater. I think AARP is going to be the loser. SS/M will start to be means-tested, and eventually reduced and done away with. Politicians can replace votes; they can’t replace money. Most of them follow the script that WWII is what got us out of our last Depression anyway. As a 49 year old, I can tell you that my generation and younger generations don’t expect anything out of the retirement system anyway. I just view it as having paid more taxes that vaporized into the ozone.
Plus: massacring foreigners for the Pentagon, and incinerating their cities and towns, is patriotic.
11:08 am on March 15, 2010
