re: Myth- “social security is guaranteed”.

quote:

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So boomers weren’t smart enough to see the problems even though they were in charge of the government?

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You might be interested to know that Boomers didn't reach a majority of the seats in Congress until 1999.

Only 4 Presidents have been Boomers since they were old enough to be elected to that office. Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. Less than half.

Starting from the year that SS was passed in 1935, the Greatest Generation had much more time in charge of the government, 42 years, 21 Congresses, and 8 presidents. The Silent Generation reigned for 22 years, 11 Congresses, but they only had two presidents (and one was Biden ).

The Boomers have been in charge of Congress since 1999, 27 years, 14 Congresses, and four presidents.

So you're blaming everything on Boomers, but they weren't the ones in charge for most of the time span we're talking about. They didn't preside over the creation of the welfare state, SS, they didn't start deficit spending and running up debt, they didn't take us off the gold standard, they weren't responsible (not in the sense of being "in charge," anyway) for any of the social or financial changes of the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s.

Honestly, if we're talking about Boomers actually being "in charge," really about the only thing I think you can hang on them is ramping up the quantity of US military interventions, but even that has a caveat.

We've engaged in a much higher number of separate interventions since 2000, but the number of US troops deployed has actually gone down. Because, remember, the Boomers weren't responsible for the Cold War and the proxy wars we fought as a result of it.

I find this to be pretty common. Young people say "Boomer" like it means anybody over about 45, and their grasp of history is so poor that they don't realize that the stuff they blame on the Boomers wasn't anything the Boomers did.

Most of them didn't age into being candidates for positions of real power until the mid-late 90s.