Time For Boomers To Stand Tall

The editors at the Star Tribune never let a little problem like inconsistency stand in their way. In their Sunday edition (Travel Section, 2/3/2013) they marvel that baby boomers still set the trends for leisure travel, as befits their status as America's wealthiest generation. Then in the same edition they lament that at least some of the baby boomers are the most squeezed generation suffering from the current recession. Their earning power is down. Their savings and investments have deteriorated. They are approaching retirement with aging parents to support and adult children that have moved back home. So which is it? Are the boomers wealthy or impoverished on the cusp of retirement? Maybe it is a little of both, respective to each family, to each individual. The Star Tribune article goes on to list ways that the boomers have suffered, and it seems credible. What is my response? As one of them, approaching retirement age, and being a person of modest income, I believe that I have skin in this game. What is my response? My answer is so what? We are older, face age discrimination, are the first fired and the last hired, and face issues of health and disability. So what. We must not go to the federal Behemoth and demand more Social Security, Medicaire and Medicaid to alleviate our suffering. We must cowboy up and be willing to live on less, and get smaller checks and fewer government services. We must be willing to work until we are 72or 75 years old at whatever low-paying job we can glom onto. We will demand that the government balance its books next year. We want non-discretionary spending balanced too. It will hurt like hell. But we are heroes, the children and grandchildren of those heroic members of the great generation that lived through the 1930s and world War II. We will live within our means and quit demanding federal handouts. If that means grandma living up the block alone can no longer afford to live in her home, then we neighbors on the block decide who will give her a room int he basement of our homes to provide for the needy. Our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids need a goverment without debt now. Today let AARP go pound sand, as we heroice boomer men and women stand tall and sacrifice now to give the next generations a fighting chance.