We the Feds Part V -- AARP’s Got US by the Balls

It's not just corporate cronies that liaison with the Feds to garner outsize benefits and special favors.  The old folks, courtesy of AARP, are the highest practitioners of the art.

The next time Republicans (or anyone else for that matter) put forward a proposal calling for budget discipline that limits the growth of benefits to senior citizens, and Democrats put out a commercial showing the Republicans throwing granny over the cliff, call the bastard protesters out on their ageism.  Reality is that seniors are the best off segment of the United States population.   One hundred percent of seniors are looking for a subsidy* even though less than ten percent fall beneath the poverty line.  Poverty rates are much higher for working age adults (13.7 percent), and more than double for children (21.9 percent).

 

Poverty Status of the Granny Group



Source:  http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/people.html

 

AARP and the baby boomers have grabbed the government by the balls and are using their leverage to burgle our childrens' fiscal house.  They aren’t letting go anytime soon. 

*  Under charitable assumptions (including that the net proceeds of Medicare taxes were actually saved and invested in high yield government bonds) today's retiring baby boomers and their employers contributed only 30 to 40 percent, more or less, of the cost of the benefits they will receive under current Medicare rules.