Representative David Scott of Georgia recently died, at 80, while running for re-election. That make five sitting Congressmen who have died this term.
I remember back in 2008 when Obama became president I had the thought that he would probably be the last president older than me. Silly me! Instead we have had two demented presidents in a row.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg handed a crucial Supreme Court seat to the Republicans by refusing to retire in 2014 at the age of 81; and she had already had two bouts of cancer. She eventually died in office at 87.
The dominance of America by ever older politicians is starting to creep me out. When did retirement with dignity go out of fashion? Instead we have people clinging to office and power long past their mental peaks, stumbling through their official lives while those around them try to keep the state running.
But that's just one side of our gerontocracy; the other is the way government at all levels seems determined to hand ever more wealth to retirees. I already wrote here about the bizarre movement to limit or eliminate property taxes for the elderly, which has spread to other kinds of taxes as well. Social Security payments and health care (the large majority for the elderly) are the two biggest parts of the federal budget, but I still see people complaining all the time that the country has forgotten old folks.
One factor driving this is voting, because older people just vote much more reliably than the young. According to Idrees Kahloon in The Atlantic, the median age of a general election voter in the US is 50, while for primaries it is 57.
I worry that the long-term result of all of this will be increasing hardship for people of child-bearing age, leading to ever lower birth rates, leading to more of the same in a grim spiral.
We must fight the people determined to give more and more to the old and find a way to balance our obligations and demands across all ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment