The baby boomers were the manifestation of the relief and joy that followed the end of world war II and the Korean conflict. The generation that fought these wars was, for the first time, able to look to the future with some degree of hope. The men and women of that time were determined to make a better life for their children than they had and they did what came naturally and had a lot of children.
It is true that the baby boomers were a little spoiled as they benefited from the hard work of their parents and in so doing they sometimes forget the determination it took to get the benefits their parents earned and more importantly how hard it is to keep what you have. Complacency is the enemy of all generations. Our constitution may say that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights but the truth is that there is always someone willing to infringe upon or take away those rights. The same goes for those rights and benefits that are earned by hard work.

Before we get to carried away with condemning the baby boomer generation, we should remember that it did pay a price in blood in Vietnam. It was the last time that the draft forced men to fight whether they wanted to or not and it has burdened the baby boomer generation with memories of a war and the deaths of over fifty thousand men it still does not understand.
The time has come for the baby boomers to begin retiring. Beginning in 2008, those baby boomers born in 1946 will become eligible for early retirement under social security and each succeeding year will see a larger percentage of our population become eligible.
What the baby boomer generation has failed to do is remain vigilant in maintaining the benefits that their parents worked so hard to get. When you have something there is always somebody willing to take it from you. Complacency gives the very smart and greedy an opportunity and they have used that opportunity to undermine the benefits that they once had. Medical and retirement benefits have been eroded as the elite in our society have funneled more and more dollars into their own pockets. They have cleverly covered this up under the cloak of globalization and outsourcing.
Because we all have been negligent in paying attention to the future needs of programs such as medicare and social security we have allowed the very rich and powerful to convince us to put off paying for these programs and placed the burden on the next generation.
Who is to pay? Do we tell the baby boomers that because we didn't take care of things that should been taken care of that we are going to cut their benefits and that they will just have to keep working? Do we raise taxes on the current generation so that we can meet the demands of medicare and social security and long term care? Or perhaps we could go after the rich who have pocketed the money that should have been set aside. It is likely that no one thing will be enough and that some combination of these things will be necessary not just for the baby boomers but for the sake of all of us.
Because of these factors, many baby boomers will continue working at least part time because of the need to pay for medical insurance at least till they are 65 and the need for supplementary insurance after that. Most will have to face ever increasing property tax bills and many will lose everything to long term care.

Learn more about this author, William Ryals.
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