An Open Letter to the MAGA Boomers out There
Dear MAGA Boomers,
I've been putting this conversation off as long as possible because I really don't like conflict. Quite a few of you are my relatives, neighbors, and friends whom I care about. However, I just have to ask:
Was it worth it to hitch your ride to the Trump Train?
Before you blurt out a confident, “YOU BET YOUR ASS IT WAS! 'MERICA!!!” I just want to go over some topics that maybe you'll read. I'll try not to litter this letter with stats and facts because you've chosen 'Feels' over, 'Reals' when it came to getting news. The right wing media was great at telling you what you wanted to hear, not what was really happening.
It's so biased that Fox's lawyers argued in court that you can't believe anything Tucker Carlson says on his show, and that it is for entertainment purposes only.
It's called confirmation bias, and it's a real big problem... especially with MAGA Boomers. I will leave links that support my concepts throughout my blog. Feel free to click on them if you like, or just keep watching right wing media if you prefer. The latter has made you a peach of a person to be around.
This letter is to congratulate you on consistently selling out future generations, and then yelling at them for being lazy. You were the first generation in the history of our nation to do that. Each generation that came before wanted a better future for the next generation, but not you guys... nope. If you want some reading material on this, here you go:
You're a generation that as a whole used all the advantages that social programs and unions provided, to climb up the economic ladder, then turned around, burned that ladder to the ground, and then had the audacity to ask future generations, “WHY AREN'T YOU SUCCEDING? IT MUST BE BECAUSE YOU'RE LAZY!!!” Rather than acknowledge the clear data that states that it is much more difficult for Gen Xs or Millennials to attain the wealth or standard of living you enjoyed (who are way more skilled and productive than you) it was easier to call all of us, lazy. Here are so more data points:
https://time.com/magazine/us/5280431/may-28th-2018-vol-191-no-20-u-s/
Well, your greediness and selfishness might finally have cost you. You've repeatedly voted people into office that want to destroy the very safety nets which your parents put in place, and many of you rely on.
Social Security and Medicaid
Before you shout in all caps, “THEY AIN'T TOUCHING MY SOCIAL SECURTITY! I PAID INTO IT!!!”
Yes. Yes they are, and you voted these people in.
If you're still shouting that, then you clearly don't understand how social security works. Your parents started social security to help their parents, so there is always a one generation gap. The generation paying into it is paying for the previous generation.
Just so you know, it's not just Trump's tactic. Republicans have been using this tactic for 40 years now.
Here's trickle-down economics in a nutshell:
Cut taxes massively for the rich, claiming it will generate so much capital that corporations will hire more people, which they never do. They just use that money to buy back their own stocks and artificially drive the price of their company up. Next, promise that with all this extra capital there will be so much GDP growth that the tax cut will pay for itself, which it never does, thus making the debt and deficit go bananas.
Spend like drunken sailors making the deficit (remember, Trump's Tax plan made the deficit balloon before the pandemic) go out of control. It's amazing that fiscal conservatives don't really care about fiscal responsibility when they are in power...
Last, they change the argument that the reason we have a deficit is because of entitlements. It's astonishing that it continues to work over and over.
This last tax cut, which plunged us into a massive deficit to benefit the 1%, was the equivalent of me taking all the equity from my home, withdrawing my life savings, maxing my credit cards, and giving all of it to the richest person I could think of.
“No no, you need it more, Mr. Bezos, I don't mind paying a 200k medical debt.” – An old NickelNDime trying to help the plight of the oligarch.
Don't worry, if a Democrat takes office, the Republicans will start to worry about the debt and deficit, and insist we have to cut a bunch of safety nets.
Eliminating the Payroll Tax
I'm okay with not paying the payroll tax if you're okay with giving up your Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That's what I can't fathom. Why would you vote for a man that would take away something that was yours, just as you started to collect on it?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/31/payroll-tax-cut-trump/#af89e256e472
Even if you're a boomer who doesn't rely on SS, ask yourself this. How much is private insurance going to cost without your Medicaid or Medicare subsides, or if they roll back the ACA (Obama Care)? Imagine trying to get coverage after accumulating a lifetime's worth of pre-existing conditions. By the way, 'pre-existing medical conditions' is just an American term. In other countries it's just known as, your 'medical history.'
I don't care how much you've saved your entire life, you'd burn through a lifesavings if you didn't have subsides of some sort in retirement. There's a reason medical debt is always in the top three reasons for bankruptcy in the United States. Can you imagine what it would be if we didn't have what little protection we currently have?
https://www.abi.org/feed-item/the-3-most-common-reasons-why-people-file-bankruptcy
You were sheep, you elected a wolf, and as the wolf ate your face, you shouted, “HEY! AT LEAST HE DID WHAT HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO!!!”
“It's okay, he won't eat **my** face. **I've** got a MAGA sign on my lawn.”
BUT MY TAXES!!!
Let's get over this notion that we're going to stop paying taxes. The more important conversation is, “What is our tax dollars going towards?”
“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” In some respects, a “civilized society” is the rationale for government in the first place. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, former Justice of the United States
Look, I'm not saying Biden is a saint, or the Democrats are some champion of the people. I believe the people should push him as far to the left if he's elected. Keep in mind, placed on a policy scale, Biden is still right of the center. That's how bananas this government has gotten.
Was he my first choice?
Nope.
Second?
Not really.
He could've been my 200th choice for all it matters, because out of the 200,948,641 people eligible to run for President in the United States, Donald J Trump comes in dead last for my pick to run this nation.
It's not even close MAGA boomers, and you know it. Just please don't act shocked when the wolf is eating your face off.
If you really think it is, then I don't believe you're being honest with yourself.
NickelNDime Out!
PS
When boomer parents used to tell us, “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me,” I didn't realize what they really meant was they were going to destroy the economy three times, make college unaffordable, and make home ownership such an unrealistic goal to attain.
PPS
Trump once claimed that he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it, I'd like to add another thing he could do. Trump could take a poop in the mouths' of MAGA people, and they'd smile as long as liberals had to smell it.