Yes the same because the economy languished. In other words the two are correlated inversely.
The ratio of education expenses to GDP rose because the GDP was not rising fast. The real GDP was rising slower than the realistic cost of education. The difference is in the debt load on the local state and federal levels.
The policies of taking away federal support for localities and states to save money on the federal level and cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations messed up all aspects of our economy.
The Interstates were started quite modestly. And cheaply. The original vision (and funding via the gas tax) was for 40,000 miles of interstate roads costing $25B. We ended up spending over $125B just on “official” Interstatesn over the next 40 years. We now have over 160,000 miles of limited access roads, feeders, beltways, and arterial collectors designed and built on the model and have spent well over $1T - most of that paid by yes, Boomers.
The changes in airports, from Denver to Pittsburgh, and including lots of local airports followed a similar trajectory. The idea that this all happened in the ‘50s and when the Boomers came in is just poppycock.
Another instance of not being able to interpret data correctly, and a fundamentally ignorant conclusion follows. Boomers slightly voted that way, but a far better predictor of votes is: gender. By far more determinative. Also race. Also income. Also ethnicity. Also religiosity. Also geography. It’s possible to conclude that Boomers vote a way you don’t like (and it’s very modestly true), but that factor is one of the worst predictors you could have found. Congratulations on letting your preconceived bias show so blatantly. Bravo. (PS: the youth vote, tiny as it is, has been “unrepresentative” for as long as there has been a youth vote. It was in the 60’s, and I’m pretty sure Nixon wasn’t their choice.)
You can rail at Boomers all you like, and as a group we have many faults, but I suspect you will be finding exactly the same ones in the groups that follow, and have fallen for the myth of “The Greatest”. They were good, not perfect. Boomers have been good, not perfect. Millennials show no signs of being better, nor do X, and it is wayyyy too soon to speculate about Z. Period.
$1 in 1950 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $12.32 today, an increase of $11.32 over 73 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 3.50% per year between 1950 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 1,131.52%.
Did some math the first 40k miles cost in today’s dollars $308 b. The rest was in effect done at a slightly lower cost.
The boomers did not pay for it. Most boomers do not have the money to pay for it. Corporations and the wealthy of all ages paid for it. And those two groups made more than $1 tr off of it very purposely.
Yet it lays in decay because the boomers want tax cut after tax cut…they do not get those tax cuts in real terms but the people who want the roads for industry get those tax cuts in a big way.
What have you done lately? Seriously there are voting blocks and then there are special interests. The special interests get what they want. The voting blocks are mostly uninformed. The boomers are standing in the way as just about everyone else can see. En masse. Not individually.
You just said somethings about voting in 1970 for environmentalism and the boomers “got it done” sort of stuff. So when is a group old enough to be counted as a major voting block. You got the 1980 data for the 1970 argument. Are you following what you write?
Definitely a spirited defense for the indefensible. Money needed for the nursing home stay.
Very generous of you.
No one is railing at the boomers. We want things done for the US economy. There is a group of
That are often more likely to be boomers than the next generations by percentages…and we want them to act as if we are all the same…American citizens who want a larger wealthier Great American Middle Class. In other words what their parents wanted in the 1950s for their children. As opposed to $31 tr in debt and outsourcing because taxes on the wealthy are higher…high for the wealthy? No…a percentage no one else really pays…but easy to pay for the wealthy. Particularly as the country is rebuilt.
Rebuilding our economy is the only way we can afford to mitigate climate change. We have $31 tr in debt and climbing otherwise. The climbing is okay if the GDP is growing much faster.
It goes beyond that. This isn’t just about policy disagreements. The majority of Boomers have latched on to a philosophy that is antithetical to a democracy. The Boomer generation votes for politicians who try to shut down the government or threaten the debt ceiling if they don’t get their way. The majority of Boomers support politicians who try to undermine the legitimacy of the vote. The majority have adopted culture wars as the foundation of their political positions with the aim of dividing rather than uniting. The majority choose dogma over science.
For all their claimed patriotism the Boomers are probably the most anti-American generation when it comes to the totality of their beliefs about the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
I have a lot of conservative friends locally. I am called locally a communist by many of them. We have a lot of fun. Down and dirty laughs…etc…the guys are all somewhat successful.
The majority opinions among them happen to coincide with their age. It is white male dominance if not superiority.
WilliB if you want to opt out of equality you can. I get you are not doing that but know who is against you. It is not the younger folks en masse. It is the largest voting block made up of our generation.
No one here is being immature and discussing hitler.
The interesting thing is how on one side of this discussion things are really simple so the other side must be “lazy”. It is the other way around.
It is interesting how younger people can be called lazy but the older generation is not listening. People want economic opportunity. Our generation wants to avoid that de facto for lower taxes.
In California between 1968 and 1975 I attended a local junior college and several state colleges. The two years at a junior college were were FREE (yes, I know taxpayers were paying for it). The state college system at that time was costing me about $350 per quarter. Reagan did away with that. Maybe it was unsustainable anyway, but I think it was a great thing to have higher education available to so many.
Back when I worked for Arm not long ago (a British tech company), my European co-workers were all amazed, and not in a good way, about how expensive college is in America. (ditto for their feelings about our health care system).
There are better ways to do many of these things. But too many feel those thins are un-American in some way. My parents (pre-boomer, but only just barely pre-boomer) are those types of people. Anything Europe does cannot possibly be better than what we do. Even when it clearly is.
When patriotism gets in the way of actually solving problems, then it becomes a problem itself.
It would be cool if you could get over yourself. And, you know, use data. From Pew Research:
Voters in the youngest adult generations today, Generation Z (those ages 18 to 23 in 2020) and the Millenial generation (ages 24 to 39 in 2020) favored Biden over Trump by a margin of 20 percentage points, though Trump gained 8 points among Millenials as compared with his 2016 performance. Generation Xers, those ageed 40 to 45 in 2020 divided relatively evenly (51% to 48%) as did Baby Boomers. Only among members of the Silent Generation ages 75 to 92 in 2020 was Trump clearly favored (by 58-42%).`
I will leave this thread now, because clearly I’m dealing with people who don’t accept reality - which is ironic, given that’s the accusation they’re hurling at politicians with whom they disagree.
Good one. The richest group in history doesn’t have the money to pay for it. Who do you think drove all those cars in the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s? Who do you think paid those income taxes then? Sheesh.
What have you done lately?
You mean other than the publicity funded Big Dig, birthing the internet, the Hubble and the James Webb telescopes, decoding the human genome, creating GPS, landing Pathfinder and Rover on Mars, finding medical treatments for AIDS, kickstarting autonomous vehicles through DARPA, expanding the social safety net and rolling out the first universal health care in US history? Not much, I guess.
You forgot creating the chips that powered the PC and cell phone revolutions that allowed that internet thing you mentioned, to spread so that people could gather confirmation-bias data and spend endless hours arguing.
Probably a good idea, Goofy. It’s been nice checking in.
You could also turn this around and ask the young generations what they’ve accomplished that is so darn great. The semiconductor and Internet revolution beginning in the 1960s revolutionized business. I just wish the taxation laws had been a little different.
All of the boomers I knew said the rich were paying the taxes not them. That is why taxes should not go up on the rich. Great logic…sarcasm…
If imagination were dollars. If only. What universal healthcare? The ACA? Why keep getting people in office to cut the subsidies on catastrophic care and up the premiums to unaffordable? It was never universal. Where did you get that?
Because, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, a significant number of people, somehow, convinced themselves that making the rich richer will be beneficial to them.
DesertDave used to say he never got a job from a poor person. I say he did get a job from, if not poor, certainly not wealthy, people: his customers in his surplus store.
Kinda hate to break it to you, but a business to business sale is still a sale to a customer. Remember: There ARE businesses that do not sell directly to consumers. GM and Ford are two such companies.
