A Nation Of Octogenarian Welfare Queens

That's what former Reagan OMB John Cogan believes Social Security and Medicare have created in America:  a country of senior-citizen millionaire welfare queens driving Cadillacs at 20 MPH and really, really old bucks gumming T-bone steaks. His solution to this horrible socialism?  The Ryan Unicorn Plan, of course.  But Cogan's screed reveals the deeper pathology of the conservative mind...

To fix Social Security, Congress should start by limiting the increase in benefits of future retirees to the rate of inflation. Congress should then gradually raise Social Security's normal retirement age. Congress should also allow younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes—and create more incentives for them to invest their earnings—in safe, broadly-diversified, stock and bond funds. This would allow younger workers to become millionaires through their own hard work and thrift.

To fix Medicare, we must move away from the current system of fee-for-services and low copayments. First and foremost, copayments should be increased significantly. Medicare recipients need to have more skin in the game if they are to become cost-conscious medical consumers.

The higher copayments can be offset by reducing Medicare premiums and offering more Medicare health plan choices. Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal—to provide fixed annual grants to enable Medicare recipients to buy an affordable private insurance plan—is a fiscally sound way to achieve this outcome. Competition among providers, not government-administered prices and government boards of experts to determine coverage, is the best way to ensure high quality and reasonably priced health care. 

So that's the first half of the plan:  privatize Social Security, cut future benefits, and jack up the retirement age to 70, 72, 75 and then  privatize Medicare, cut benefits, and jack up co-payments.  No more guarantees, seniors.  You're on your own.  Death panels?  more like Death giant committees.  But that's standard, boilerplate Conservative stuff.  Pay attention to the reasons why Cogan says we need to cut off seniors:

Many of the million-dollar couples believe they rightfully deserve the benefits they have been promised. They have, after all, spent all of their working years paying into Social Security and Medicare. And true enough, the typical 66-year old couple and their employers, on their behalf, have contributed nearly $500,000 in payroll taxes (in today's dollars) toward these benefits during their working careers.

But regardless of how much they have contributed, the hard reality is that the federal government has already spent it. No matter how deserving they are, it is younger generations of workers who have to come up with the money.

So today's seniors need to consider how they want the script for "The Millionaire" sequel to be written: There's a knock at the door. We now know that on the other side there's a check for a million dollars. When the door opens, do we really want to see our children, under the commanding gaze of Uncle Sam, presenting us with that check?

The shame and guilt of being on welfare, that's the weapon of choice here.  Cogan wants you to feel awful that the benefits the government promised you when it took taxes out of your paycheck for 45 years might actually get paid back, because if you take them, you hate America's children.  Conservatives are rushing to attach as much stigma as possible to Social Security and Medicare as evil welfare that "Real Americans" would never take.

Seniors and especially baby boomers heading into retirement, like people my parents' age, are the new Welfare Queens.  And the Republicans have declared all out war on them, in an effort to split the country and have us at each other's throats while they loot the country with more tax breaks for the richest Americans.  They hope you're stupid enough not to notice.