Reading the new issue of The Atlantic Monthly, I was once again confronted with the stark truth of the financial crisis that faces much of the West in the years ahead. According to some estimates, the cost of Medicare and Social Security over the long term, will amount to $45.5 trillion. That’s trillion, as in one million times forty-five and a half million dollars. In order to meet this burden, by 2075, Federal spending would have to grow from 19.5% of GDP to 39.7%. In short, the present Social Security system, as well as Medicare, is totally unaffordable.

Few people want to face the realities of what this really means. The abstract way in which we plan for this impending disaster often reminds me of how, during the Cold War, military planning exercises would occasionally uncover disasters so seemingly unstoppable that the planners would respond by simply refusing to think any further about the problem.

The reason why we face this problem is simple. We designed these programs when people lived, on average, to less than seventy and when there were far more working than retired people. Moreover, at the time we came up with this stuff, medical care was far less expensive than it is today.

Advocates of universal health care often remark on how “everyone deserves the best health care available”. While that sentiment might be noble in theory, it is impossible in fact. For all of our rhetoric, there must be a natural limit as to exactly how much we are willing to pay for health care. Given the wide variety of medical treatment available today, if we decided to actually give everyone the best care possible, we could easily end up spending half of everything we reproduce on medical care.

Because seniors use far more health care than anybody else, most of these expenditures would be made with little material return. From a monetary point of view, we’d be (and are) spending vast amounts of money to keep people alive for the sole purpose of allowing us to lavish more money and benefits upon them.

As the Baby Boomers pass into retirement and old age, they will expect us, the young, to pay for them. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to why I ought to.

If we still get to retire as sixty-five by the time I get to retire, we’ll be close to half-way through the twenty-first century. I don’t expect to be seeing much in terms of government largesse. Why should I pay for Baby Boomers who don’t want to care for themselves?

The Baby Boomers are responsible for almost all of the problems that we have in society today. It is they who have created the moral sewer in which we live. It is they who have promoted abortion, homosexuality, and other deviant practices. It is they who worked to undermine the valiant American effort in Vietnam and are working to undermine our cause in Iraq today. Why should we go bankrupt for their sake?