Boomtastrophe

Well, no. Boomers might be on the dark side of the cemetery lawn. The rest of us will be taking their name in vain for the mess they bequeathed. "The psychology of Boomers is, 'There is no future, we are it,'" Males says. "That's an easy way to excuse your behavior."

Their expedience, besides burdening the country with Vietnam's sequel and ever-more greenhouse gases, poses another threat. The U.S. spends in excess of $1 trillion a year on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, or 40 percent of the federal budget. By 2030, when the number of people age 65 and over will top 71 million, double the current figure, the three entitlement programs could devour almost 80 percent of the budget. Covering the soaring costs may require enormous tax hikes in coming decades, increases that would land hardest on post-boom generations.

Boomers bear fault neither for their sheer numbers nor for aging, even if once upon a time they hoped to die before they got old. But their mulish resistance to reforming the benefits system betrays the allergy to sacrifice that defines their generation. Economists contend that pruning payouts to affluent recipients or raising program eligibility ages would avert a budget meltdown. Boomers counter with a less nuanced argument: Gimme, gimme, gimme.

The reaction exposes their dual identity as the country's wealthiest generation and its least frugal. Boomers leverage their personal finances as if they were running a banana republic, with one-third of them reporting retirement savings of less than $25,000; close to half anticipate they will need to work past age 65. Fleetwood Mac said don't stop thinking about tomorrow. Boomers instead took to heart Jim Morrison, spending money like today was the end.

So the generation that replaced private pensions with the 401(k) wants its public benefits paid in full, on the grounds that, after picking up the entitlement tab for their elders, Boomers merit similar recompense. "There's nothing selfish about that," says Carol Orsborn, author of 15 books on her generation. "Boomers have lived their lives believing that society is supposed to deliver on its promises."

Shuttling between Napa and Washington, D.C., Orsborn works for the public-relations firm Fleishman-Hillard as an expert on marketing to Boomers. She regards the benefits debate as a "false dichotomy" that artificially pits her generation against subsequent ones. Citing the willingness of Boomers to prop up their adult children, the so-called Boomerangs who return to the parental nest, she asserts that "a society that won't take care of its old people or [conversely] its young people is in trouble."

There's only one problem. As a massive voting constituency abetted by proxies in Congress and the White House, Boomers have already chosen to cheat the young. They endorsed Bush's tax breaks without concern for the swelling federal debt that in time will wallop their kids and grandkids. They shrugged as Bush and Clinton alike gutted social-service programs, cutbacks that betrayed scarce empathy for the children of the poor.

The two Boomer presidents may stand on opposite sides of their generation's undying cultural war, but their shared arrogance bridges the gorge. "Bush is a feckless Boomer who thinks he's never made a mistake," says Martin Nolan, a San Francisco author and social historian. "And Bill and Hillary had that attitude of 'Aren't you lucky to have voted for us?'"

Like Nolan, Nancy Pelosi belongs to the Silent Generation, the almost 50 million Americans born between 1925 and 1942. In age and political status, the 67-year-old House speaker wields the authority to urge Boomers to relinquish their childish ways for the sake of their children. As Nolan says, "She has less sympathy for their bullshit, so maybe she can get something done [on entitlements]."

Then again, if she can't, rest easy. We'll all be dead.

Pelosi and her colleagues could solve the looming benefits crisis with one stroke of political boldness. Suppose Congress granted tax breaks to Baby Boomers if they promised to commit suicide when they turn 65. A generation obsessed with wealth and youth could find itself tempted by the opportunity to both earn more money and miss out on incontinence.

Alas, at the moment, the proposal remains rooted in fiction. The scenario propels the plot of Boomsday, Christopher Buckley's new novel that satirizes the generation that "made self-indulgence a virtue," in the sneering opinion of one character. Buckley skewers "the wrinklies," as he describes his aging peer group, with keyboard firmly in cheek. Yet the virulent anti-Boomerism circulating the Internet offers hope that, much like The Jungle spawned the FDA, Boomsday will inspire what it merrily dubs "voluntary transitioning."

The Web site Die Boomer Die takes as its credo "There is no political left or right, only failed Baby Boomer leadership." Run by someone identified as Dead Hippie and featuring a photo of a Kent State shooting victim, the site posts news articles critical of Boomers and ticks down the days until they hit 65. Similarly, Boomer Death Counter keeps a running tally of the percentage who have died, 7.048 percent as the week began, while blogs burst with random generational screeds. A recent posting on It Comes In Pints? conveyed a common sentiment: "I swear, if I see one more story, book, news report, or PBS special about how wonderful and inspiring and inventive and interesting "Baby Boomers' are ... oh, just FUCK OFF."