13 Responses to “Mail Bag II”

1. #1 |  Matt |  August 16th, 2003 at 2:51 pm

   Yeah Radley, how much pot did you smoke in college? (nudge, nudge). I’ll bet it wasn’t enough.

2. #2 |  Brian |  August 16th, 2003 at 4:41 pm

   I definitely haven’t smoked enough… ;-)

   I love all of the cliched insults being tossed at you in place of real refutations of your arguments.

   Keep fighting for justice…

3. #3 |  Lee |  August 16th, 2003 at 8:51 pm

   Such an eloquant rebuttable from CNN.

4. #4 |  Frank Weismantel |  August 17th, 2003 at 6:59 pm

   Both Brian and Lee have a point, so here goes…

   BTW, Radley’s Fox Op-ed piece on Clinton and Bush resembelances is quite good and deserves a read, just so everyone knows that I generally like his stuff and am attacking his position on this issue, not Radley and his work overall.

   Mr. Balko,

   This was too funny. I suggest you print and save this missive on acid free (no, not the acid you apparently ingested prior to writing this drivel) paper in a vacuum sealed bag. Then, when you’ve reached the age of oh, say 53 years or so, crack the by then crusty old bag (much like you yourself will be at that time at once both near and far) open it and compare your position of 2003 with your position 25 years or so later.

   I wonder how you’ll feel after a lifetime of paying the government vast sums of literally incalculable taxes and fees while watching our political leadership squander that wealth year after year after year after…well, maybe you get the picture.

   I remind you of one simple fact: Social Security is a trust fund, not a component of the general fund. If you remenber that fact you will be light years ahead of the lawmakers in our nations Capitol who, with few exceptions, cannot grasp the concept. If you already understand that fact, don’t be smug. Being ahead of that pack of is not a significant achievement.

   Reading your column reinforces my belief in our failing to identify the most pressing deficit of today; the deficit of ideas. Your writing in this particular column amounts to nothing more than intellectual cowardice (Balky the Brave Essentially Sez: “well, I’m just stimulating the debate”), offers minimal contribution to the debate and does not even begin to rise to the challenge of determining how the country serves the needs of a growing elderly class. That class growth will not stop with the passing of the baby boomer generation, nor will it cease with the passing of the Gen-X group. Where are your proposals, your ideas, your contribution? What do you have to offer besides the general insinuation that one generation should forego that which they’ve paid for through a lifetime of contribution so that your group may prosper? We invested it; We’ll consume our share of it; Shut up and earn your own.

   On a less confrontational note, each generation pays for their own programs. Your group will be paying taxes as well. Your column reads as if you think there is no ongoing federal tax income and there won’t be enough left from the current “pot” so your group can feed at the trough. That just isn’t so. Wait till you start earning big bucks and actually experiencing the joy of high-bracket taxation. Judging from your rate of audience acceptance, that time will come sooner rather than later. You will definitely start to wonder what benefit you personally will receive when you pay $50 or $100K per year in taxes and see so little coming back. I’m fully paid into the SS fund at age 45 and cannot increase my benefit but still contribute. That money goes to support others, not me. I don’t complain (too much) and believe we contribute for both ourselves and the common good.

   Other programs just don’t make economic sense and the govenment generally will not set forth changes calling for means testing for such programs as Medicare and the prescription drug fiasco that’s coming up. If you wanted to discuss means testing or some other idea as rational solutions to the problem of neverending tax giveaways, you’d have found some support from boomers. Unfortunately, you didn’t see fit to look at the solution side of the issue and just went and infuriated a large number of thoughtful boomers beyond the idiots who you posted as representative of the rebuttal to your coulmn. I didn’t like move on your part either. It was demeaning and insubstantial.

   So, once you reach the age of looking back at the totality of your life, break out your little editorial time capsule and review your position of 2003. By then many of us Baby Boomers will be long gone and you’ll be staring down the barrel of a fiscal gun aimed by whomever represents the then current twenty-somenting generation.

   I wish I could be there to see your face as the light bulb of understanding finally illuminates, you bravely screw up your courage and take that first trembling peek outside the door of your self-absorbed and personally inflicted generation-x standardized intellectual confinement chamber. Maybe then you’ll understand there is no crime in reaping the fruits of your labor, both personally and as a generational group.

   Curmudgeonly Regards,

   Frank Weismantel
   Sacramento, CA (Where we teach the entire country how to pour torrents of tax revenue down the bottomless rathole of entitlement programs whose purpose is nothing more than shameless vote pandering.)
   Born 1957, Breathing, but not amused in 2003.

5. #5 |  Frank N |  August 18th, 2003 at 9:53 am

   ok….so basically our gov’t is a legal pyramid scheme….

6. #6 |  Frank Weismantel |  August 18th, 2003 at 10:05 am

   Frank N,

   Well, not exactly. It’s OK for the Gov’t because they declared the “pyramid (pool of beneficiaries)” does not “top out”.

   I think Medicare is very nearly a Ponzi scheme. Someone could correct me and I wouldn’t put up a fight.

   If we set something similar up for our own personal benefit we’d wind up in penitentiary.

   Frank W.

7. #7 |  Julian Sanchez |  August 18th, 2003 at 10:16 am

   “I remind you of one simple fact: Social Security is a trust fund, not a component of the general fund.”

   If you think this is relevant, you are already light years behind Radley. The trust fund is, by law, held in the form of bonds rather than, say, cash or other assets. That means that the trust “fund” constitutes nothing more than a promise by the government to tax future citizens to redeem those bonds. Your smug tone would be less insufferably if you weren’t palpably so much more ignorant than those to whom you’re condescending.

8. #8 |  Travis |  August 18th, 2003 at 10:19 am

   Medicare is not a Ponzi Scheme. Yes! Me 1, Frank W 0…. ;-)

9. #9 |  Frank N |  August 18th, 2003 at 12:42 pm

   the system tops out when payout excedes revenue and reserves…and we are on pace…

   thanks, but i’d rather not play the game…

10. #10 |  Dani-girl |  August 18th, 2003 at 3:52 pm

    Mr. Frank W,
    Thank you for your insight. I had sent comment to Mr. Balko that I agreed with his commentary, but after reading yours, I realized that my perspective as a Gen X’r was selfish and short-sighted. I am a christian and the very principal that we stand on is that a person will reap what he sows. You and I should get to enjoy the fruits of our labors whether it be now (you) or later (me).

11. #11 |  biskit |  August 18th, 2003 at 4:14 pm

    There is no way I’m taking the time to read Frank W’s post. Get your own blog, son.

12. #12 |  Frank W |  August 18th, 2003 at 8:08 pm

    Biskit is right, too long, I apologize to the host.

    Dani-girl: Don’t let one little blog change your mind! Blogs are best at creating dialogue. Research on your own and discussion with individuals holding a broad range of perspectives might be a better path to wisdom. I’m just another a-hole with an opinion.

    Ah Julian, the master of Gov’t 101: Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight. The loser winds up dead and the winner looks like a bully. Why do you think I advocate means testing as a way of partially bringing the social security trust fund back under control? Or did you miss that part? Social Security isn’t the only trust based vehicle in government; it’s just the largest and the one in deepest trouble. Remember, I wasn’t defending social security, I was rebutting Radley’s Gen-X vs. Boomer column. Perhaps you read it?

    Travis: Good shooting, right between the eyes and a graceful winner to boot!

13. #13 |  Dani-girl |  August 19th, 2003 at 9:44 am

    Mr. Frank W, as little as I understand or know about you, your eagerness to portray yourself as NOT the final word is what I admire about your blog.

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