"..let's use our brains instead of our hearts."

Actually, as humans we ill serve ourselves by not taking advantage of both assets; heart and mind. Having said that, Walter Williams is again guilty of being rational.

From his most recent article Ripping of the system:

The quest to allow senior citizens to live off others doesn't stop there. If you're a senior citizen, you might be eligible for property tax reductions, subsidized prescription drugs, reduced fare on public transportation, and all
manner of merchandise discounts. Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against older people. In fact, some of my best friends are over 70, including Mrs. Williams. Let's do a bit of analysis of efforts to assist the elderly, but let's use our brains instead of our hearts.

According to a 2003 Housing Vacancy Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with the Current Population Survey, 42 percent of Americans 35 years of age owned their homes compared to 80 percent of those 55 and older. The bureau's May 2003 report, "Net Worth and Asset Ownership of Households: 1998 and 2000," shows that excluding home equity, the median net worth of householders 35 to 44 years of age was $44,000 and that of householders 70 to 74 years of age was $120,000.

The bottom line is that seniors are far richer than their mid-life counterparts who are in the workforce paying income taxes. They're being taxed to care for those who are not only less likely to be in the labor force paying income taxes but are wealthier than they. That's a particularly perverse form of income redistribution -- until we give it a little more thought to find out who's really being subsidized.