It’s happened. I’m well on my way to old fartdom. Evidence of this comes in many forms. First, there’s my belief that a lot of current music is crap. Okay, John Mayer’s live ten-minute version of Gravity is righteous, but the AM/FM single sucks. Too much of the other stuff is new and mediocre, or it’s a rip-off--witness Kid Rock’s theft of Warren Zevon’s Werewolf of London or Little Wayne’s take on These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (hint: Wake up! It’s not an ‘omage. It’s a finger in the eye.). Second, I think Thriller was way cool. But, come on! Michael Jackson was just a really talented guy who was completely confused about sexuality, childhood, race, and the limits of plastic surgery.
In reality, the music either died in an airplane crash (that’s Buddy Holly for you 12 year-olds) or because the real King washed down too many fried-banana-and-peanut-butter sandwiches with Percodan and bourbon. And, I know there was something else, but I’m getting old, and I forget what it was.
Also, in a more concrete sense, barring untoward events like a truly serious H1N1 flu epidemic or discovering that watching pornography causes pancreatic cancer, I’ll be part of that group of 65+ year old citizens who by 2030 will constitute 20 percent of our nation’s population.
You get on an elevator with four people in 2031. The demographic at that point means that there’s a chance you’ll be sharing a ride with a guy with a bad headache who’s heading home before the Viagra really hits, or someone hoping their Depends is as good as the manufacturer’s claim. Projections of the costs of social support and health care for me and my aging contemporaries send shudders or cold chills—which seem like pretty much the same thing to me—down the backs of policy makers and taxpayers alike.
The facts are now so familiar that most of us want to barf when someone brings them up again. Those 80 or older comprise one of the fastest growing segments of our population, small but fast-growing. Those citizens who require the most health care are the elderly, especially those over 80. Also, there aren’t enough physicians and other health care workers to provide the care we Boomers will need. To top it off, the number of younger workers paying into the Social Security system will soon be dwarfed by the number of aging Baby Boomers claiming benefits.
Medicare expenditures will increase. Medicaid expenditures will increase. Charts reflecting estimated government spending on aging Boomers over the next few decades resemble the take-off trajectory of a Boeing 767. For a number of expensive social programs, we are talking about (in technical terms) a whole lot of “out-go” and not too much “in-go,” which means a bunch of “uh-oh.”
All of us who contribute to that aging bloc of Boomers, the author of a recent Newsweek essay (economist swine) concluded, will be part of the burden of the elderly on our society. Like most economists, he isn’t creative enough to have made up a term like “burden.” He just stole it from gerontologists (i.e., caregiver burden) and used it for his own twisted “Paretoesque” purposes.
Every time I consider this looming “crisis,” I can’t help but think about my generation’s past. In all honesty, we’re not a bunch of folks (i.e., a generation) accustomed to being considered a burden. The burden generation now responsible for those charming TV ads about enormous prostates, constant urination, constipation, and crippling mineral loss has been a “Boom” generation for its entire existence.
When my generation reached school age, expenditures on public education skyrocketed. Some analysts estimate that the percent of gross domestic product (that’s the GDP policy nerds talk about) spent on education increased by roughly 100%, and nobody really bitched. Higher education had to expand when we reached college age. The raft of junior colleges, technical schools, and public universities standing ready today to teach our grandchildren English, Urdu, mathematics, cosmetology, or air conditioning repair is a product of that expansion.
Then, the throngs of the burdensome entered the workforce. The economy expanded dramatically; our consumption built entirely new industries. My generation helped pay for much of the Cold War, spending billion after billion so our Presidents could compare nuclear ‘johnsons’ with Soviet Premiers and preparing for a hot war that never occurred. We spent too much of our treasure and too much of my generation’s blood supporting a war in Southeast Asia with a country so threatening to our national security that it became a way cool destination for American tourists a few decades later. We invested heavily in our children’s education, and America became a world leader in technology and development.
At each stage of my generation’s maturation, changes were required in how our society, especially government, allocated its resources. When my generation needed education or jobs, or paid generously for whatever (and I do mean whatever) policy-makers thought worthwhile, we weren’t considered a burden. Yet, as my generation rolls toward retirement; when nearly all of us will need higher levels of medical care and social services, then we foment a crisis and morph like a bunch of geriatric transformers from a blessing into a frightful “burden.”
Isaac Newton said that if he’d seen further than others it was because he was standing on the shoulders of giants. My generation is not populated by giants. We’re simply people who mostly worked our butts off and never forgot what we and our parents believed was the fundamental promise of America: If you bust your ass, then your kids will do better than you did. My grandfather was a blacksmith, and then he became an auto mechanic. My grandmother worked in one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s shipyard nurseries in WWII, then opened a daycare when my grandfather became too ill to work. My father was a postman, and my mother became a bookkeeper so they could pay for my asthma medication. I’m a university professor with three post-baccalaureate degrees.
I’m where I am today because I stood on the tired, proud shoulders of the men and women in my family. This country is where it is today, discounting the disaster wrought by the “Mistake from Midland” and the puerile horn-dogging of Bill Clinton, because of an entire generation like me. We did well, and America is now the richest, most powerful nation in the world. Those who seek and hopefully find success in this nation in the future will be standing on the shoulders of Boomers—sorry, burdens—like me.
To deal with my generation's needs, things must change. But changes in social policy due to population dynamics aren’t a new phenomenon in this land. America changed from a rural to an urbanized society as it transformed itself into an industrial giant. We’ve now moved from heavy industry to a lighter industry and service economy. Barack Obama is talking about a green economy. America is constantly changing how social resources are allocated. Social Security was a major change. Medicare and Medicaid were major changes. Voting rights for African-Americans was a serious change. Global warming and moving away from a petroleum-based economy will demand major changes.
You’ve got your golf course, and you got your obstacle course. We Boomers have what sociologists call our “life-course.” Throughout the entirety of our life-course, my generation has required change, and our (that is yours and mine) country is usually better for it. The educational system we Boomers stressed and transformed now serves our grandchildren demonstrably better for that challenge.
So now my friends and I will generate major change in social policy over the next few decades. We will almost certainly demand far-reaching changes in how we organize health care in this nation. After we do, I wager that the health care our children and grandchildren receive will be better because of those changes.
Over the next few decades those of my age may well ask a great deal of this country. I see absolutely no shame in this. My generation, like others before us, has given a great deal to this nation. Old age is neither a choice nor an illness. It just is. Caring for frail elders is as much a part of social responsibility as educating the young. Congress meets every year for a reason. Things change, and social policy has to change as well. The aging of our society is just another of those changes to which our society can, and will, respond.
Also, think about our nation and other challenges. We defeated both Germany and Japan in one war. We sent men to the moon. Americans regularly ride around in space. We’ve explored the furthest depths of the ocean. We now make machines the size of single molecules. We pay trillions of dollars for any war our leaders say is worthwhile. And, lest we forget, it was an American who invented the Jet Propulsion Powered Golf Club (patented in 1999, look it up).
Besides, try not to forget we’re your family. I’m still giving my granddaughter money for gasoline. At the same time, I’m buying “onesees” for my great-grandson and working to help educate a new generation of public health professionals. So, try not to act like assholes when we Boomers have no choice but to start asking you for things. Remember what you asked us for, and how we responded.