Why Your Senior Vote is Important

By: George Wallace

I was just reading that some of the Boomer generation object to the descriptive term, particularly the Baby portion of Baby Boomer. Be that as it may, it seems to me that Baby is preferable to Piggy, as in Piggy in the Python. This is also a descriptive term used for the generation that “boomed” after World War Two. A group with a larger than usual number of children born into an era of prosperity following both a period of economic depression, and the period of the terrible and doubly depressing psychological effects of war.

Technically I am not a Boomer. I was born before the U.S. entered the war. I am however close enough to be running interference for that group. That said, I will try to lead the way and make a difficult subject clear.

Every study and discussion of the effects your “enlarged” generation has had upon the American and world scene, zeros in on the very measurable effects of such a huge population. The effects of a sudden swelling of numbers of persons within an age group upon the various segments of society as the “pig” passes through the normal stages of life was a previously unknown phenomenon.

First there was the early pressures on hospitals and maternity centers. There was a major effect on housing construction and automobile manufacturing. The pressures then moved on to elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. I remember newspaper stories about the State of California opening a new school every day. Next it moved on to colleges and universities. Later the general economy had to absorb large numbers of students and workers. This was a very real challenge for society. As the impact of the enlarged generation hit each new part of society, society was forced to react, change, and experiment in coming up with solutions that worked. The tsunami wave passed through, first extending and distorting, then receding and leaving problems and surpluses in all kinds of ways.

Now your generation is doing it again as you move into your retirement years. I want to elaborate and hopefully clearly explain a very special set of problems that you and society face that again are an experiment in shaping society which has never before been seen or experienced. You are a part of the problem, and much more importantly a very big part of the solutions which will emerge.

Mature citizens tend more than others to exercise the franchise of the vote. Voting means that you are making very real choices. Your votes, your voices and choices, and your numbers are going to be extremely strong driving forces affecting how our society and culture goes about solving the new round of problems through the political system. These problems simply come into existence because you are here, and alive, and want things, like nursing homes, and conditions that you like.

The mature vote has never been as important before this as it is going to be over the next twenty to thirty years. Seniors have never before been such a huge voting block. You will decide the major directions of efforts of local and state governments, and especially the federal government.

Your vote, what you do with it, who you elect will control elections, directions, bond issues, and how governmental expenditures for services for people are made. Your vote will also have an increasingly direct effect upon your own personal pocket book.

For example, we will need fewer but better elementary schools. We will need more senior friendly residences, retirement villages, and nursing home facilities. We will need fewer Boys and Girls Clubs and more Senior Centers. We need public facilities that accommodate Seniors.

More directly, there are huge unresolved issues with Social Security, Medicare, Health Care, and Education.

These Top Four will, in my estimation, have a direct effect upon the number of dollars you will really have in your retirement pay packet after inflation is factored out.

We are now a nation of some 300 million souls. We are supporting the world’s largest military-industrial complex although we seem to have some problems with identifying the enemy from which this enormous structure and system is designed to protect us. We have 11 to 20 million illegal immigrants swelling the ranks of the lowest paying job ranks, over pressuring our schools and hospitals.

We have an educational system trembling on the verge of complete collapse and almost total failure. The educational system is not even doing what its name implies. It is not educating our population to fit into the new economics we are rapidly crafting together with the rest of the world.

That new world economy demands very highly trained and skilled workers to keep the economy going, growing, and expanding. Electronics engineers in India speak English and do exactly the same kind of work as American electronic engineers, for less.

Result, we are educating our children to be economic failures. American children without a thorough command of their own English language, much less other languages are destined to be failures. American children without a sound grounding in mathematics, science, health, and modern technology are automatic economic failures. Failures which will be fit only for the lowest paying jobs.

Worse, our educational system used to be a vehicle wherein the health of all children was a concern. I vividly remember doctors and nurses from County Health Services coming to my little country school to be sure that all kids got their inoculations against childhood diseases. At the same time we were screened for vision, hearing, and other conditions, and referred as necessary to other medical professionals. Schools were a central, efficient location to see the majority of children.

Physical fitness of children used to be a concern of schools. The nation had been shocked to learn of the poor health and poor physical fitness of huge numbers of young male adults when the draft induction centers were working full tilt in World War Two. Today, most schools rarely see the presence of a nurse, and when they do, it is to examine paper records. Schools are not allowed to dispense band-aids.

Worse, many schools have reduced the importance and time devoted to play, exercise, and physical fitness. Many schools have removed playground equipment for fear of lawsuits. Kids have very little to do on playgrounds to occupy them except to walk, run, scream their frustration, and get into fights. Schools are now even disallowing running on the playground for fear a child might fall, be hurt, and the parents sue the school. No wonder that we have a nation of fat kids. Fat headed legislators is more like it.

I walked to school all through out my elementary and high school years. The last year, as a Senior, we lived about 20 yards short of the distance which would have allowed me to get on a school bus. Today most kids arrive at school in a bus, even those that live within a few blocks of the school they attend. I do not remember vending machines at any of my schools until I attended a very large high school in crowded Southern California. There wasn’t room for everyone in the cafeteria even with multiple lunch periods. As I remember it, those machines vended cold apples, milk of two colors, and sandwiches. No wonder that we have a nation of fat kids. Just how did it happen that schools were forced to use the profits of soft drink, candy, and chips vending machines to support important school programs?

Schools systems that do not teach the rudiments of learning: the English language and how to use it, mathematics, science and health, technology, and civics do not deserve to be open. It is better to close them, change the plan, change the rules, change the expectations, change the personnel, and start over again.

There is nothing wrong with a national set of school norms, expectations, and requirements. There is nothing wrong with separating the sexes, required school uniforms, required and strictly enforced codes of individual and group conduct, high expectations for completing any course, tough grading systems, required apprentice programs where students earn money on the job while at school, and performance based graduation. A high school diploma ought to be, and mean more, than an attendance report.

Schools must graduate students that can read, write, use mathematics, science, and technology very skillfully to do useful things and to make a living. Any high school that graduates a single student that cannot go out into the workplace after that graduation and almost immediately get a good paying, self supporting employment is not doing its job, and that is, by definition, a failure.

Today, almost any eighth grade student would be better off spending the four years now spent in high school in an apprentice program on the job at minimum wage, learning how to do useful work and make a living as an adult. For the overwhelming majority of students, high school and some say even college, is a sad waste of time, energy, and money.

When Social Security was begun there were something like 32 to 35 workers contributing to the system for every person getting the benefit. Today it is about three workers per recipient. Since Social Security is, and has always been, a pay-as-you-go system, that means that the tax rate and amount has gone up dramatically. Most workers today pay more in Social Security tax than they pay in income taxes. Today, more people are living longer, staying in the system longer, and getting retirement checks for a longer period.

What is going to happen when those few workers that support you in your retirement cannot compete for and hold good jobs paying a good income to tax ? Your Social Security check will have to be changed to fit the new level of income coming into the system. That thought ought to scare you.

Radical change of our national educational system is required.

That is why your vote to support a reformation of schools that perform well, as described above, is so very important to your own personal future. That is why you need to get involved in your schools present and future and help push for the changes that have to be made. You have the lifetime of experience, and you have the time. No nation today can long endure with an unfit, ill fed, unhealthy, and poorly educated work force.

This is an issue of national will. We are not now competing with our international competitors. China has more people studying English, the language of international commerce, than there are people living in the United States. They are serious about being competitive! Remember, English is a foreign language for them. China is investing in its future. China will have a future. I am seriously worried about our country’s and our children’s future.

Does this mean that we will have to spend more on our schools? Yes. On that, you can bet all your plush toys and a fat bippy. Adequate school buildings that are energy efficient and with roofs that do not leak, paint that is not peeling, with books for every student, more than just possibly adequate learning and teaching supplies, real tools, and modern technology are not cheap. Consumables, and especially technology, must be replaced regularly. Custodial staff wages and benefits, toilet paper, soap, electricity, heat, and floor wax to keep them operating efficiently are not cheap. People who are skilled at teaching useful knowledge and skills will necessarily have to be well paid and will also want benefits. Where is the money to come from?

Honestly, I do not know. Perhaps we can sell all of the naysayers and lawyers who get in the way of the process into perpetual slavery? Perhaps we can do without one of the now obsolete and totally irrelevant aircraft carrier task forces cruising the world’s oceans? Do we need all those atomic submarines? Just how useful in fighting a terrorist is a military tank? Maybe we can reduce Congressional perks and pay scales? Perhaps we will have to use some basic intelligence and prioritize government spending. Horrors of horrors! Maybe everyone will have to pay their fair share of taxes to make sure our country stays internationally competitive.

Radical reform of Social Security is not necessary. Only one small change is really necessary. Make all earned income subject to the tax.

Radical reform of Medicare is not necessary if health care is reformed and the program is properly funded.

Radical change of our health care system is required. A national system will take this onerous task and expense away from business, and empower business to get on with their primary jobs of growing, creating new jobs, and building profitability inside the boundaries of our national borders. Adding 46 million Americans now uncovered by medical insurance to the roles of healthy workers will also help businesses get on with their jobs.

Health care today is a bloated financial monster with more tentacles than a gigantic school of squid. Costs have to be forcibly brought under control. Pharmaceutical companies and costs must be reined in. Each of us needs a health card that instantly accesses our complete medical records. This is no more complicated than the ATM and credit card system we now enjoy, and is much more economically important.

We need a national system of managed and rationed health care. Expenditures on individuals simply cannot continue to be unlimited. We have to grow up and be willing at some point to pull the plug. We will have to make some heartbreakingly hard choices and decisions. Some people, even children, will have to be allowed to die earlier than it is medically possible to artificially extend their organic lives. Some people will have to be denied some treatments and procedures, just as was done in Seattle in the early days of kidney dialysis.

The cost of health care can also be reduced, again by and together with the school system. We can require thorough health education. Then when individuals deliberately choose not to use that learning, they should also bear the additional costs and results of poor decision making in higher insurance premiums, bills, and even lesser access to treatments and surgery to alleviate symptoms of self-inflicted conditions and disease. Examples are: smoking, alcoholism, AIDS, illegal drug use, obesity, and even high risk activities, hobbies, and life styles. The motorcycle rider already pays a higher insurance premium. When the rider also chooses to not wear a helmet, and in an accident is turned into a mental organic radish by preventable head injuries, the health care system does not owe that poor decision a long lifetime of very expensive medical and nursing gardening care. Pull the plug for that individual and for the rest of us. We currently give our pets better medical care than we now give people.

In case you missed the argument earlier in this article, I will repeat again, the mature vote has never been as important before this period of American history and society as it is going to be over the next twenty to thirty years. Seniors have never before been such a huge voting block. You will decide the major directions of efforts of local and state governments, and especially the federal government.

Your vote, what you do with it, who you elect will control elections, directions, bond issues, and how governmental expenditures for services for people are made. Your vote will also have an increasingly direct effect upon your own personal pocket book.

That is why your vote to support reformation of the national school system so that it performs well, as described above, and creation of a national health care system is so very important to your own personal future.

Article Source: http://www.retirementlivingarticledirectory.com

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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