Baby-Boomers Break the Budget

What will happen as the baby boom generation retires? Will they break the budget and saddle Gen X and Y with enormous taxes and debt?

Or will the taxpayers of the era just say no?

Richard Fairbanks and Paul S. Hewitt rehearse the gloomy predictions.

Say what you will about global warming or Iraq, over the next generation no trend will more directly shape the substance of American politics than the looming self-impoverishment of legions of middle-aged, middle-class voters.

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As recently as 2004, one-third of Baby Boomers had no financial assets.

The startling thing is that the largest share of the Baby Boomer retirement costs will be in Medicare and Medicaid:

Of projected new spending on the aged, $3 in every $4 will be in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

No doubt it is there that the government will try to economize. Especially if the Democrats succeed in nationalizing health care. No doubt it won’t be much fun being a health care professional.

Of course, what will happen is that the health care professionals will unionize and demand to be well-paid for doing not very much.

Goodness knows what that will do to the federal budget.

And goodness knows what that will do to the well-being of the aged.