The Elderly White Population

Well known conservative columnist for the New York Times, Ross Douthat has written an op-ed for the April 17, 2011 edition in which he echoes exactly what I and many others have been saying for years. Of course, he is now being called a racist for stating the obvious. The article is titled The Middle-Class Tax Trap and he talks about Reagan, Mondale, taxes and what appears to be our apparent inability to escape increasing taxes. But it is interesting that he also gently suggests that as the baby boomer generation begins to die off and we enter an age in which non-whites will become the majority they will be less likely to support social programs that benefit what will still remain for many year a white elderly population.

"Historically, the most successful welfare states (think Scandinavia)

have depended on ethnic solidarity to sustain their tax-and-transfer

programs. But the working-age America of the future will be

far more diverse than the retired cohort it’s laboring to support.

Asking a population that’s increasingly brown

and beige to accept punishing tax rates while white

seniors receive roughly $3 in Medicarebenefits

for every dollar they paid in promises to polarize

the country along racial as well as generational lines."

To read the complete article click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18douthat.html?ref=rossdouthat