Elderly Spending as Political Choice

Rising per‑capita transfers to the elderly combined with an aging population is not a mysterious macro problem but an explicit distributive choice that receives little celebratory political ownership. If citizens accept this reallocation, policymakers should declare it and weigh the tradeoffs openly instead of letting it function as an implicit constraint on other social goals. — Framing elderly transfers as an explicit political choice clarifies tradeoffs in budgets, reorients debates on fertility, housing and antipoverty programs, and demands accountability about who wins and who loses across generations.