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Generation X (born 1961-1981, roughly) is about to be robbed in broad daylight, and the US Senate race in New Hampshire is a critically important piece to stopping that crime.
My generation has already witnessed a diminishing American dream, with our working lives more or less matching the failed Republican economic policy that has dominated this country since, and because of, the Ronald Reagan re-alignment. We have endured under absurdly high student loan debt, impossibly priced homes, stagnant wages, out of control heath insurance costs, stalled 401ks, and an expensive energy policy that has been basically unchanged since we counted our years in single digits.
And here we stand, trying to hold on to what we have scraped together for our families for what could be a very long L-shaped "recovery." Or "Long Depression." Pick your own terminology.
What's next for us? The very real possibility that we will have part of the social compact we have put decades of our earnings in yanked up from under us in the name of Austerity.
This theft, i.e., the raising of the retirement age for Social Security, I think is actually a likely outcome. It will be a theft won or lost on the margins of the numbers in the US Senate, because you know as well as I that a few out-of-touch Democrats will go along with this predominately GOP scheme.
And here's the really slimy part. Politicians, from both parties, are well aware that in a mid-term election, the voting skews older. So they are not going to go anywhere near advocating raising the retirement age on Baby Boomers. Instead, they will do it on the ones they think are paying less attention. That would be you, Gen X-er.
Where do the US Senate candidates from New Hampshire stand on this? Wealthy Republican Bill Binnie "said he would support raising the retirement age" along with some privatization schemes but "would not include seniors."
Ovide Lamontagne? "He too favors raising the retirement age."
Jim Bender and Kelly Ayotte play it cute. The former says nothing, while the latter tries really hard to couch the crime in innocence:
Ayotte said she would "put all the ideas on the table" while protecting people who are close to retirement.
Get that? That's another way of saying "Too bad for you, Gen X. I know who votes in mid-terms."
There is only one candidate in this race who has said flat out he does not support raising the retirement age. Paul Hodes.
It's time to wake up, Generation X. We used to vote on things that didn't necessarily come directly to our doors. But now it is getting personal. Are you going to let Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest and his war unrelated to 9/11 be one day balanced on your 69 year-old back?
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