I was livid after seeing Jim Borgman’s editorial cartoon (June 3) about the Republican war effort on the deficit. An elephant blacksmith with his “Medicare Cuts” anvil is hammering away at a walker, amid scattered dentures, canes and pill bottles left there by three hunchbacked elderly people. The caption reads “WWII generation is asked to make one more sacrifice.”
I think Borgman has it backwards. It’s the post-WWII generations that are sacrificing to pay for the skyrocketing costs of the Social Security and Medicare programs that senior citizens have come to regard as their birthrights. It’s a sad commentary when cutbacks in government are now being referred to as sacrifices by their recipients.
Why does the media insist on depicting senior citizens as destitute people who but for Social Security and Medicare would all be living in abject poverty? An awful lot of the ones I see have money for casino gambling, Cadillacs, golf course homes and winter vacations.
