Fighting for What They Are Entitled To : Politics: Fear of a debt-ridden future is propelling politically minded Generation Xers to join the fiscal conservatives’ call for Social Security reform.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

Politically minded Generation Xers have teamed up with older fiscal conservatives and even concerned Baby Boomers to promote a ‘90s version of the welfare mom: the golf-cart granny.

Picture if you will a seventysomething living it up in Palm Beach, Fla., cruisin’ the greens under the canopy of a golf cart, collecting dividends on stocks and interest on bonds and, oh yes, plenty of Social Security too. That’s the image being fed to the media by some young leaders and like-minded politicos.

This is the symbol, they say, behind a new generation gap that is as wide as the 36-plus years that separate GI Generation grandmother from Xer grandson. “Today’s young are being asked to bear the burden for their grandparents’ spending,” says Richard Thau, director of a New York-based Xer political group called Third Millennium.

“The last thing we want is a generational war,” adds Thau, 29. “But in order to avoid one, we have to take steps now.”

The issue of the GI Generation (born roughly 1901 to 1924) possibly leaving debts for Xers (born from about 1961 to 1981) has awakened political youth groups in the last year or so. Some call it a “generational transfer of wealth.” The gripe is that federal “entitlements,” a majority of which go to retirees, are eating up federal spending. Entitlements include Social Security, medical care for retirees and disability insurance for workers.

“A kid flipping burgers at five bucks an hour still pays the Social Security benefits of a retired couple living in Florida with a cash income of $50,000 a year and a paid-off mortgage,” write Rob Nelson and Jon Cowan in their new book, “Revolution X: A Survival Guide for Our Generation” (Penguin). In part, the book targets Social Security as a looming problem facing Generation X.

Last year, the authors led a demonstration in front of the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the American Assn. for Retired Persons. The Xer political group they founded, Lead or Leave, was protesting AARP’s support for entitlement spending.

In August, Nelson and Cowan wrote an opinion piece in The Times decrying the lack of under-40 membership on the federal Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. They called commission members “entitlement warhorses.”

And this fall, Third Millennium released the results of a survey that found that more Xers believe in UFOs than believe Social Security will be around when they retire. The survey also said that a plurality of Xers--42%--believe the AARP “does not care about treading on future generations.”

Even politicians, such as soon-to-be House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), are bringing up the prospect of trimming Social Security. The entitlement and tax reform commission was set to recommend slashing Social Security, but backed off this month. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), chairman of the committee, said cuts were not “a realistic hope” politically.

The 33 million-member AARP has fought back with an offering of “intergenerational” cooperation, a willingness to support “modest adjustments” in Social Security and a rejection of the golf-cart granny image. “Nearly 75% of Social Security and Medicare benefits go to households with incomes other than Social Security under $20,000 a year,” states an opinion piece in the AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine, although those numbers are disputed by some economists.

Many elders argue that Social Security must keep its promises to their generation, that it is fully solvent and that a little tinkering will keep it alive for future generations. “It’s not going to affect the younger generation,” says 74-year-old Ann Miller, a North Hollywood resident and a member of the AARP’s board of directors.

“I worked real hard, I raised four children,” Miller says. “I’m not looking to get all I can get at the expense of my children and grandchildren.”

Xers find allies in such groups as Washington’s Concord Coalition--a political organization dominated by fiscally conservative Silent Generation types (born from about 1925 to 1942)--and the Dallas-area American Assn. of Boomers (for those born roughly 1943 to 1960). Even some GI Generation members are joining in. “The youngsters . . . are being screwed here,” says 76-year-old Lawrence A. Benenson, a retired businessman who contributes money to Third Millennium.

“With all the talk of welfare cheats, it’s nothing compared to entitlements,” Benenson says. “Those in my generation are the real welfare cheats.”

Washington, D.C.-based Lead or Leave has backed away from granny bashing since the AARP protest. “People think this is about our generation versus the grandparents,” says co-founder Nelson, 30. “But it’s going to be 15 or 20 years from now--when the boomers start retiring--when we are going to have our most massive crisis.”

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Social Security was set up in 1935 as a mandatory trust fund that all workers could tap into when they retired. Today, people are living longer, the number of workers per retiree has fallen to almost 3 to 1 (from 55 to 1 in 1935), and the government has increased payoffs. Nowadays, retirees generally get more out of Social Security than they put in.

A GI Generation worker who retired in 1980 got back his contributions in less than three years. “Social Security paid off nicely for the generation that set it up,” Federal Reserve official Lawrence Lindsey argues in a recent issue of Forbes.

To compensate, and to prepare for the tidal wave of boomer retirements beginning around 2011, the government raised taxes and created a special “trust fund.” Government officials say they have enough money today to meet Social Security’s commitments until 2036.

But the federal government is borrowing from that trust fund for today’s budgets--and issuing IOUs for tomorrow. Eventually, those IOUs will have to be paid in the form of more taxes or cuts in services. Generational historians Neil Howe and Bill Strauss call these IOUs “You Owe Thems.” “You’re going to have to pay twice,” Nelson says.

AARP officials say paying off the IOUs is not their problem. “That’s a problem of balancing the budget,” says legislative director John Rother, 47. In fact, argues Rother, Social Security is one of few things in the federal government that does work. “It’s very financially sound,” he says.

Officials at the group say Social Security is an intergenerational program that calls for intergenerational solutions. They support modest tax increases and slowing down the growth of payoffs to prolong Social Security’s solvency. “We’re concerned about Generation X,” says Miller, a retired advertising saleswoman. “We want to do what’s fair for them.”

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The young ones have a more radical approach.

In “Revolution X,” Nelson and Cowan argue for a reduction in entitlement payments to retirees who earn more than $40,000. Groups such as the Third Millennium, the Concord Coalition and the American Assn. of Boomers support such “means testing”--basing benefits more on need.

The groups argue that too much of the federal budget (an estimated $800 billion--more than half) is going to entitlements, and too much of that (nearly half, according to some economists) is going to people who make $30,000 or more a year. Young leaders say this contributes to annual overspending that, in turn, contributes to a $4.5-trillion national debt future generations will have to pay.

The AARP says means testing smells of welfare--and Americans don’t like welfare. “I think that would be a very dangerous idea that would destroy political support for the program,” Rother says.

The mere mention of Social Security reform is controversial. Pundits say Social Security is “the third rail of American politics”--that politicians can get zapped by vote-potent seniors for threatening it.

On the other hand, it took a new generation with nothing to lose politically to bring up the issue, says historian Howe, 43 and co-author of the Xer bible “13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail” (Vintage, 1993). “This generation is better suited to make the case,” he says.

But whether young people are concerned enough to vote their mind is up in the air.

“If you go into a room full of Xers and say, ‘How big is entitlement reform to you?’ no one is going to know what you’re talking about,” Nelson argues. “A lot of young people don’t even know what ‘entitlements’ means.”