Completely flawed argument. The baby boomers (and the tail end of its previous generation) have been the dominant force of power in politics for the better part of the last 20 years and have done nothing but generally increase their own benefits without regard to future generations.
You are clearly too 'inside' your generation to have this argument from an unflawed perspective.
You make yourself appear like a cliche baby boomer republican (should I throw in SUV/Suburban driving to top it off?) who applies to simple reductionistic tendencies to denounce democrats based on their love to create programs lacking thrift and appeal to republicans as the opposite.
Interestingly enough, Bush's drug program (a republican creation) is this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9328-2005Feb8.html
$120B/yr in unreserved obligations (that is, obligations that my generation has to pay for to keep your generation going). That is republican waste. The party references you stick to are no longer reality. Both sides are wasteful, just slight variations on the other, and the only solution occurs at least starting with discipline: no budget passes unless its balanced.
SS was a good program at the time. The problem is that GAAP accounting was never used, so those at interest of collecting (in power, especially this current crop of politicians) have no benefit of changing this to become a GAAP system, thus equate current collections with future benefits (not today's benefits). If we made it GAAP, no one would tolerate forgoing all of their working day's earned wealth being transferred directly to the same generation that won't pass education funding for their children at the polls. Furthermore, their constituency (due to population size) is quickly becoming dominated by baby boomers, so they are naturally representing themselves, not our future generations. Countless people will suck SS and medicare dry who already have the means to privately fund their retirements. How about limiting this generation's withdrawals from SS to match the total of their contribution (at least if means tested) ?
Prop 13 in California is the perfect example of voters deciding to short change their state in tax collection for the benefit of personal greed at the expense of public schools. After prop 13 hit, the funding and quality of public schools in California (which used to be amongst the best) fell down attrociously. Its been this way for almost the past 30 years. And I have friends who are baby boomers who give me first hand experience to concur my point. Don't tell me we spend enough nor have education enough as a national priority when statistics like this come out.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20080331-2101-highschoolgradrates.html
You are just in denial of your generation's selfish misdoings if you argue otherwise. Likewise, even in Ohio where I grew up, I experienced countless ballot initiatives year after year fail to pass which would give appropriate funding to my public school systems because greedy seniors were more concerned about minimizing their expenses than caring for the future of our children. No such thing as sacrifice. Even to the preceding generations (depression era/ WW II), your sacrifice as citizens shouldn't have ended merely by your participation in the war (Korean, WW II).
As a parent to be, I've decided I'll never vote or act in such selfish ways with regards to the generations that follow me. If you want to talk about 'patriotic', I acknowledge the best way I can be that is by never short changing the young generation coming ahead (who have no say in the matter) of the opportunities I had in education. That is the definition of freedom ... giving an opportunity to become enriched and succeed, and is the only thing that possibly elevates an American.
Let me add something reductionary maybe worth testing out. The boomers are the spoiled children of the depression era parents (who wanted to give more to their children at any expense?) This condition of American spoiltness never faded, and end up with generation after generation apathetic and only self-concerned. As result, we've lost a sense of community, mutual intergenerational respect, etc. Its a sad state to be in, and was fuel to motivate me to make the original post of this thread.