Bush Rescues the Boomers!

It was a stressful week for President Bush. In Tbilisi he was the apparent target of a failed grenade incident. The day after he got home, a stray airplane over Washington set off a White House evacuation. And now the real danger begins: Bush is going to start campaigning again for a change in Social Security.

We all know the spiel. The system is running out of money. In 1950, there were 16 workers supporting every beneficiary; now there are only three (and soon it will be two). Sometime around 2040 the fund will go belly up. Sacrifices must be made.

But not by everyone. The president says nobody born before 1950 will lose a thing. Bush was born in 1946. I was born in 1947 and consider this an excellent plan.

But it’s doubtful that younger Americans will feel the same way. Unfortunately for Bush and me, there are millions of Gen X (and Y, and Z) Americans out there who would like nothing more than to see the Grooviest Generation f-f-fade away on a diet of cat food and welfare cheese.

Why do they hate us? Well, it could have something to do with the fact that sometime between Elvis and the Beatles we seized control of the national dial and kept it tuned to us ever since. For the past half-century we have been guided by the immortal words (not all of which could be printed here) of Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick: “We do what we want.” And, because there are so many of us, we have.

In retrospect we should have been a little more inclusive. In the ‘60s we dismissed our parents (“Never trust anyone over 30”) and ignored our younger siblings. As adults we’ve hogged the best jobs, lived in the biggest houses, force-marched our children to Grateful Dead concerts and generally lived in passionate, uninhibited pursuit of our every whim and pleasure. If you’re looking for a metaphor for boomer-Gen XYZ relations, I’d say the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky pretty much summed it up.

Not surprisingly, we are an unloved generation. This is what President Bush forgets when he urges younger workers to sacrifice (up to 40%, according to some Democratic pronouncements) future benefits. Sacrifice on whose behalf?

“For those born before 1950, the Social Security system will not change in any way,” Bush says. This protected population encompasses the boomer aristocracy: the Sons and Daughters of the American Sexual Revolution, 90 million people who were at Woodstock and almost everyone old enough to have wrangled a student deferment during Vietnam.

Now, it’s possible that Gen XYZ is prepared to treat the boomers to 30 or 40 medically prolonged golden years. But it is more possible that they will rebel against Bush’s “he’s-not-heavy-he’s-my-father” fix for Social Security.

Gen XYZ could decide, for example, that we can work a few more years -- say, until the Stones stop touring. Or that we should be assessed a good-luck tax for being the only generation in history to escape war and depression (with exemptions for Vietnam vets and residents of Detroit).

Or the kids could go Gitmo on us, turning the entire state of Florida into a giant boomer internment camp, barbed wire from Miami to the Georgia line, patrolled by sullen young men and women who have heard one too many parental dynamite anecdotes about the Summer of Love.

Extreme, you say? So too, it once seemed, was banning cigarettes in New York bars. It doesn’t take much in this country for an idea to go from absurd to obvious.

Getting old is a big enough drag without worrying about winding up in geriatric Camp X-Ray. Being that Bush is one of us, and he needs to look out for our interests, which, in this case, means the right to a gracious and prosperous seniority in the retirement venue of our choice. If the system goes broke after that, well, that’s not our problem. Let Chelsea and the twins sort it out.

So come on, Mr. President, drop the subject. Never trust anyone under 50. And remember this: If you get us all thrown into Boca without a golf club, nobody named Bush will ever carry Florida again.