Senior Interest Groups

Senior citizens ("seniors," hereafter) are generally considered those aged sixty-five and older in the U.S. population. According to Day (1990, p. 3), this demographic "has grown twice as fast as the rest of the population" over the past two decades and its growth will reach "even higher proportions" as the "baby-boomer" generation reaches this age group. Over the past century, organizations that represent seniors have proliferated and thrived in American society. As Day (1990, p. 3) reports, there now exist "�more than one thousand aging-based groups in the United States at the national, state, and local levels," which is not including thousands more local chapters across the nation.

Historically and at the present time, seniors have enjoyed more political influence and have benefited more from government programs and services more than other "in-need" groups. However, while polls demonstrate seniors are a "popular" and "legitimate" recipient group with Americans, an attitude is growing that "the elderly are too powerful, and their programs too immune to the budget cuts necessary to eliminate federal deficit," (Day, 1990, p. 3). This analysis will argue that the elderly have not grown too powerful nor their programs too immune from budget cuts. Rather, the powerful interests groups purporting to represent seniors are often those who are too powerful and too immune to political influence.

Perhaps the reason powerful interest

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ts inception in 1965," (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). A mail campaign to seniors, orchestrated by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, convinced seniors they were being fleeced through higher premiums. As such, a "storm of protest swept Capitol Hill," with 195 members changing their votes the next year resulting in an appeal of the law, (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). In actuality, the seniors organization and the mailing were spearheaded by James Roosevelt, eldest son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which resulted in an attack on legislators that caused Senate Minority whip Alan K. Simpson to declare, "We're not confused; we're terrorized," (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). We see in the above example that seniors are powerful en masse to legislators, but that throughout history more often than not groups purporting to represent them are powerful interest groups with an agenda in their own right. This was evidenced in 1983 when seniors once more besieged legislators in protest that help repeal a new law that had required taxes on interest and dividend income. Instead of Roosevelt's organization, this time the powerful banking lobby orchestrated one of the largest and most powerful senior organization

Category: Government - S