Pre-Boomer Musings

We are the recent retirees, or are soon to be.  So pre-boomers are most vulnerable to the taxes, fees and extra costs federal, state and local governments plan to impose on us.  Few of us have pension plans that will allow us to live exactly as we did while working, but we thought there was enough money for us to live comfortably in the years ahead.

Included in many retirement portfolios are IRAs, the values of which have declined significantly in the past year, at the age of 70 and a half  withdraws become mandatory and are taxed as regular income.  Couple this with lousy interest rates on savings and the specter of inflation looming over us, and there’s little reason for those born between 1930 and 1945 to feel comfortable about our financial situations.

We are on fixed incomes or dependent on returns from conservative investments and can’t go back into the workplace to earn more money, making pre-boomers vulnerable to a variety of outside influences.  Besides the depressed financial markets, there are a multitude of unforeseen costs that will bite into our nest eggs.

Due to government intervention or outright takeovers, there are potential new taxes that will that will likely make the things we use cost more.  We hear and read about the escalating national debt without knowing how we are going to eventually balance the budget.

Blaming the federal government is easy, but it’s just part of the story.  As you read this state and local governments are scheming to find ways to pick your pockets, too.  In Los Angeles, California, where I live, we are faced with massive deficits at both the state and city level.  Our much publicized system of placing propositions before the voters, rather than leaving it to elected represents, has resulted in the citizens calling for added programs and services without raising taxes.

So, we end up approving propositions that call for the spending money we don’t have; and the legislators can’t stop it, even if they wanted to.  Either we have a representative government where those who we elect are supposed to listen to their constituents and are responsible for the way they vote, or we have a direct democracy and relegate elected officials to the role of implementing the will of the people, with the door being opened for special interest groups to hijack the election process.  What appears to be a way of keeping politicians under control and getting important issues before the public leaves no one in control and eliminates true checks and balances.

Let’s face it any individual, or business, or government (at every level) that spends more than it takes in is in trouble; so income must be increased and/or what’s going out must be reduced.  Americans are smart enough to know this, why can’t we get the politicians to embrace this simple concept?  Maybe our voices have not been loud enough or often enough to drive home the point that we can’t spend our way back to good financial health.  Please let your elected representatives know how you feel, and keep telling them until they act; because we pre-boomers are caught in the middle and no one seems to care.

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