IT'S ALL THE ELDERLY'S FAULT: Why are we in this debt fix? What is the cure? And some people actually agree. This from the comments below the Samulson commentary linked to above:

MarkMacDonald wrote:Thank you Mr. Samuelson for stating flatly what I have believed for many years: seniors are eating the seed corn of the future and there is no end in sight. I am 54 years old and have made a commitment not to live longer than 70. I will work as long as I can and have no desire to retire at all. We all know that the elderly are by far the wealthiest group of Americans and yet their demands on current and future generations are insatiable: they want to retire earlier and the expect more assistance. Medicare currently subsidizes the purchase of Viagra and the natural decline of the sex drive is not described as a medical condition. The nonsense goes on and on.

"Dying early" is surely a fix for the Social Security and Medicare problems, one in which I suspect ObamaCare's 'death panel' will cheerfully accept. The American public, not so much.

Yet Samulson is largely correct; high taxes and the debt crisis are in fact largely attributable to the elderly via Social Security and Medicare. And both those programs are consequences of a badly flawed liberal philosophy. The thinking, such as it is, goes like this: Some elderly are desperately poor, cannot work, and have no resources (e.g., family) to support them in their later years. Therfore the government must provide Social Security support to all the elderly. Similarly, some elderly have significant health problems, do not have, and cannot get - at any price - even marginally useful health insurance. Therefore the government must provide Medicare to all the elderly.

Neither of those philosophical assertions are correct. As a class, the elderly are on the average wealthier than the younger workers paying for them. Some seniors are in need of support, obviously, but not all. And yet the liberal thought process (if such a thing actually exists) expects - no, demands - that seniors retire at 66 (or 67) and sign up for Social Security and Medicare. The programs are structured such that 'opting out' of the liberal Nirvana is very difficult, if not impossible. Why?