Republicans say they have the votes needed to pass the Senate tax bill—which, as Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic notes, is great news for rich Boomers. (And just about no one else.)
The House and Senate measures shower enormous benefits on households at the top of the economic ladder, a group that by all indications is older and whiter than the population overall. Then it hands the bill for those benefits largely to younger generations, who will pay through more federal debt; less spending on programs that could benefit them; and, eventually, higher taxes.
In that way, the bills would intensify the generational inequity in how Washington allocates resources between the country’s increasingly diverse youthful generations and its predominantly white older population, groups I’ve called “the brown and the gray.” At a moment when political influence is inexorably shifting to the brown, the tax bill represents an 11th hour raid by the wealthiest of the gray.
If you're not entirely full up on intergenerational resentment and rage after reading that, perhaps try an episode of Blabbermouth, our weekly Boomer vs. Gen X vs. Millennial podcast? This week Rich Smith (swinging hard for the Millennials) and me (solid Gen X-er) talk argue with "Barely a Boomer" Dan Savage about Nazi journalism, Roy Moore, and Al Franken. And in the previous episode, noted Millennial expert Sydney Brownstone laid out her view on what it means, in this cultural moment, to "believe women."
