The greediest generation.

In the neoliberal manifesto published here in May 1983, I worried about the tendency of liberals to "pull up the ladder," a syndrome perfectly captured by the title of the British film I'm All Right Jack, meaning I've got mine so I don't care if you get yours. For the American labor movement, it meant wage and benefit packages that in some cases were so generous that they threatened a company's prospects for future growth, sometimes even its survival, and thus its ability to hire new workers. The ladder had been pulled up.

I see a similar syndrome in today's seniors. They have their Medicare and they are so desperate to keep it untouchable that they have stopped caring what happens to people who don't have health insurance. I've criticized the Obama administration for its failure to foresee this problem, but the seniors themselves deserve blame. For instance, even sensible senators like Florida's Bill Nelson have been pressured by older constituents into supporting the program known as Medicare Advantage, which provides a few additional benefits to some of its participants but is mainly a source of a huge and wasteful government subsidy to insurance companies.

Charles Peters is the founding editor of the Washington Monthly.