The Case for Social Security and Generations

Today was an action packed day, you could say. We started off bright and early by meeting downtown by Union Station at 10 G Street to speak with representatives of The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. The representatives talked about issues such as the trust fund, the trustees, the pay-go system and the risk of privatization. There are many out there who suggest that in order to save Social Security we need to privatize a portion of it. This would mean that instead of paying your full 12.4% into SS, you'd pay a portion into a private savings account and then the rest into SS. The problem, which was pointed out to us today, is that then you have less money coming into the SS system and because it's a pay-go (pay as you go) system, there wouldn't be enough money in the fund to pay for the benefits of the entire retired population. This would obviously cause problems!

Next, we returned to campus and had a quick lunch before meeting Neil Howe, a well known author in the subject of generations and an expert in the filed. His talk was, personally, fascinating. It felt a bit like horoscope reading at first, which I'll go into in a second, but after a while and some heavy fact presentation, it became quite believable and quite interesting. I say it felt like a horoscope reading because he and his colleagues have divided up the generations based on large events and trends which greatly overlap. He also took to referring to people from one generation and the ways in which they interact with other generations as if everyone in one slot was the same. After a bit of talking, this didn't matter at all, however. All of the significances of each generation became obvious, as he gave examples which are not only true, but prevalent. For example, Generation X was raised in an environment in which they had to learn to fend for themselves. They were latch-key kids and often relied on siblings for support as opposed to parents. Commercials of the day portrayed children as annoyances to their parents; this is something almost unimaginable today.

He also pointed out that generations seem to cycle when the passing on of one generation creates a vacuum for certain qualities. Then, the next generation takes on those qualities. For me, I was quite happy to discover that our generation, being called the Millennials, is scheduled to take the place of the G.I. Generation. The G.I.s personified civic duty, service, trust in government, and political and economic power. For someone who wants to make a career in politics, this means that our generation will be much easier to organize as opposed to the Boomers, who emphasized individuality and time for introverted self-discovery. They also tended toward somewhat violent acts in their attempts to define themselves.

So, in conclusion, the rest of the population should watch out for us and we should be prepared to go down in history as American heroes and the stuff of myth and legend.