AARP is mortgaging America’s future

That’s the upshot of this jeremiad by Robert Samuelson in today’s WashPost: “AARP’s America is a mirage”

AARP would have you believe that it's trying to balance the interests of retirees and workers. It has just released a report, "Reimagining America," that rightly poses these questions: "Can America afford to grow older? And can we do so with intergenerational fairness -- that is, without burdening our children and grandchildren with the bills?" It then spends 41 pages not answering those questions. On the one hand, it concedes that "as a nation, we are not now ready for the retirement of the baby boomers." On the other, it argues that "the problem is overstated." Nowhere will you find a precise agenda of what ought to be done.

Overstated? Well, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid constitute more than 40 percent of federal spending. Given the baby boom, longer life expectancies and rising health care costs, these programs are projected (by the Congressional Budget Office and others) to grow by about two-thirds or more during the next 25 years. To cover these costs, we'd have to do one of the following: Raise all federal taxes by 30 to 50 percent (depending on whether today's budget were balanced); eliminate defense spending and 30 percent of other federal spending, excluding interest payments; run budget deficits three times present levels.

Samuelson has been my journalistic soul-brother on the issue of exploding entitlements and he makes some apt comparisons to the automotive and steel industries, where promises simply outpaced the ability to pay.