In truth, rising life expectancy and growing health-care costs mean that today's elderly have contributed only a fraction of what they expect to receive from Social Security and Medicare. The government made a mistake in the past by not raising taxes to finance these programs or reducing the benefits that they promised. Unless the growth of these entitlement programs is curbed now, today's young will pay dearly for that mistake, in the form of higher taxes now and lower benefits when they are old.
As we have shown time and time again his arguments are outright wrong for many. Not all, but many. The deal is those who were successful by their persistence and work ethic often pay for those who have done little or less. That seems to be the deal. There are those of us who pay more into Medicare every year after 65 than we may ever collect in our lifetime by benefits. Good living, good genes, whatever. Then there are those who are obese, smokers, drinkers, drug abusers, and bad genes who absorb the resources. 90% of Medicare goes to 10% of the beneficiaries. So Rajan should at least examine the data before spouting the line so many seem to have absorbed. My white paper from a couple of years ago and edited a couple of months ago is a good start. I know, I know, facts are often so difficult because they tend to destroy the myth of policy. But Rajan should remember all those engineers in the Chinese hierarchy, after all he did go to IIT (the one in India).
Now a second point. He states:
Let's start with why the electorate is so polarized. There are two key divisive factors: incomes and age. Income inequality has been growing in the US over the last three decades largely because the labor market has increasingly demanded skills that the education system has been unable to supply. The everyday consequence for the middle class is a stagnant paycheck and growing employment insecurity, as the old economy of well-paying low-skilled jobs with good benefits withers away.
It is not the educational system per se. It is the pandemic problem of the filling of primary and secondary education with union hacks, yes hacks. When I attended the first grade back in the 1940s we had 45 students per teacher. Today a primary teacher may have up to 10 but the teacher has a teaching aide, and almost unlimited breaks. We have see an 8 fold increase in teachers per student. In addition the standards have dropped like a brick. I hazard to say that less than 10% of the grammar school teachers know grammar! No less math and science. A high school graduate in 1940 was more educated than a college grad today! Frankly that is why we got through WW II.
The problem is increased expectations, and the assumption that the Government will provide. That assumption is under attack. As it should and must be.
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