If anyone under 55 thinks the election changes anything for their future, they are pretty much wrong. The details may have changed. They may face even more reductions in their old age benefits, rather than even greater tax increases. They and their children may be living with a deteriorating, third world infrastructure rather than groaning under the weight of more debt. If they choose to work for the government, they may have their pay and benefits cut to fund the enriched retirement benefits of those who went before, while those who went before do less and less work because they are “underpaid.” But one thing has not changed.
Generation Greed will not be asked to give back anything. Neither will producers of public services, who have become richer and richer in total compensation compared with everyone else not on Wall Street. Governor-elect Cuomo proposes scaling back retirement benefits, but only for future public employees, while the public employee unions are allowed to provide worse services. The retired will continue to pay vastly lower taxes on the same income than workers, workers who will later face poverty without retirement in their own old age. Republicans in Congress say entitlements must be “reformed,” but those reforms cannot affect anyone age 55 or over – cannot affect the best paid generations in U.S. history. In fact, they owe their electoral success in part to promising to eliminate the modest restrictions on Medicare spending the Democrats put in place. Will anyone talk about this? Will anyone at least force them to admit it? Will those under age 55 finally wake up, or will Generation Greed be allowed to keep taking and taking – without paying?
It used to be that the future is the one concern that bridged all interests and ideologies, because everyone shared it. But since the ascension of Generation Greed the future has become the one thing no one cares about, because it doesn’t belong to them personally. The one thing they could all steal from, because no one would realize what had been stolen until later. It has been a ready victim for the ongoing cry of “I Want for Me Now” and “What About My Needs.” Well it is the future. And all anyone can think of is to take more and more from it.
Cutting the compensation of future public employees, but not existing employees and retirees, without even acknowledging that future employees will be worse off than those who came before, is not reform. Running up debts is not reform. Reducing services for New Yorkers, who pay the highest taxes as share of their income in the country and have seen their income, sales, and property taxes and fees, fares and tolls increased, is not reform. Not reform even if taxes do not go up further, and layoffs – which unions claim to object to but don’t give a damn about – occur. Making those who have taken and taken and taken give something back, to those they have stolen from, that would be reform.
They have a contract? They are vested? They cut a deal with incumbent state legislators – enrich our pensions and we’ll keep you in office. Those who will actually pay received no benefit from the deal, and its terms were fraudulent, as the cost was announced as zero. One year in retirement for every year worked, funded by the collapse of public services, is fair to those with no retirement plan at all? Providing less and less to those who pay more and more is fair? What would Attorney General Schniederman have to day about any private business that pulled off a heist like the pensions enhancements of the past 15 years? He would probably say that those who had been defrauded, and were not even told they were parties to a legally binding contract, should not have to pay. But he has been paid, so expect him to be silent.
Do people deserve it, because they let it happen? On a radio show former Governor Mario Cuomo had briefly after being turned out of office, I heard him say that if you don’t participate in the system it will hurt you, and right now the seniors are running and taking everything. They kept taking for another 15 years with no end in sight. More benefits and tax breaks for those over 55 is reform, they say. Spending cuts and tax increases for those coming after is reform, they say. And it will go on until someone who is actually listened to has the guts to say otherwise.
When I was a child, my mother baked a big batch of my favorite Christmas cookies. Some were for us. Some were for a party she was having with their friends, and those she stashed away, but I found them. I decided that taking one off the top wouldn’t make a difference. The next day I took another, and arranged those left to make it seem like none were missing. Later on in the day, I wanted another. Bottom line, I ended up eating half of them, as my mother didn’t find out until she needed them.
You can tell I felt bad about that, because I still remember it. But Generation Greed doesn’t feel bad. They are angry about the fact their children will be worse off, not guilty. Really? Why do you think that is? Who took all the cookies? They did, but no one will challenge their sense of entitlement by saying so.
Better to lie to those coming after, and claim that their tax increases (less now than might have been) and service cuts and benefit reductions (perhaps more than might have been) are for their benefit. Raising their taxes is for their benefit because it preserves their services and benefits. Cutting their services and benefits is for their benefit because it means no more increases in taxes.
Generation Greed? Lets not talk about them. The public employee unions and contractors? Instead of doing the same for more, they will now do less for the same. And talk about how much they have sacrificed. They might even hold rallies against cuts in public services – as disgusting an exercise in hypocrisy as there possibly can be. And they will rationalize, rationalize, rationalize – to avoid even a psychic price for what they have done. Are they capable of it? Well, “Christians” owned slaves, didn’t they?