Greg Jayne’s claim that boomers have ruined our country misses the mark (“Boomers making country go bust,” The Columbian, Nov. 17). Blaming boomers for Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump? Their election and policies were engineered by wealthy oligarchs who saw the opportunity to lower their own taxes. Those taxes were what paid for transportation infrastructure, the space program, public schools and universities. The oligarchs would love to have boomers as scapegoats to absolve them of their never-ending greed, as they grow their political and economic power without caring what it is doing to our nation. Since 2009, 95 percent of economic gains have gone to the 1 percent.
Boomers were betrayed by the arrogance of old men who sent them to Vietnam. The wealthy avoided it, some protested it, and those less fortunate died in it. The powerful continued to deny minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community their rights, while telling soldiers they were “helping to keep our nation free.” Lumping a generation together and dumping the nation’s ills upon them ignores history.
Perhaps most voters, not just boomers, do not want to pay more for vehicle tabs because they are already taxed heavily, or their rent just went up, or they are living in their car.
