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I really like old people. I haven鈥檛 always. I used to prefer the company of middle-aged people. Before that, I liked young people.

Despite my newfound affinity for old people, I am rooting against them in the two class-action lawsuits that were filed on their behalf this past week, one in the city and one in the county. The lawsuits allege that old people aren鈥檛 getting a fair shake in their property tax freezes.

According to the lawsuits, the county鈥檚 property tax freeze does not apply to the portion that pays down government debts while the city鈥檚 freeze only applies to the city鈥檚 portion of the tax bill and does not include the portions collected by schools and the sewer district.

Aren鈥檛 you being a touch greedy, old people?

I understand that you鈥檙e on fixed income status, but for most of you 鈥� certainly for me 鈥� that has always been the case. The boss fixed your wages at a certain number and that was that. Maybe you got an occasional cost of living increase, but unless you were an entrepreneur or a salesperson working for commissions, you were on a fixed income.

The folks who most need tax relief are young families. Kids are expensive. You old people should know that. Now that your kids are grown, you don鈥檛 have to worry about babysitters or summer camps or college funds. All that is off your plate.

Speaking of plates, do you remember how much teenagers eat? You鈥檙e past that, too.

Plus, if you鈥檙e worried about property tax, you have a house. Houses are much more expensive today than when you bought yours. Many young people cannot afford a house.

I happily acknowledge that I am in a better financial position than many of my peers. For instance, I drink fresh-squeezed orange juice. Yes, it鈥檚 more expensive, but it tastes so much better than the other stuff. I don鈥檛 go to Walmart. I can afford Target. In fact, my wife once insisted I go to Mister Guy鈥檚 and I bought a pair of pants. They were damaged the first time I washed them. I took them back.

鈥淵ou washed them?鈥� the clerk said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e linen.鈥�

I didn鈥檛 beat myself up about that. I can laugh off a pair of ruined pants.

When the county first approved property tax relief for old people, I wasn鈥檛 going to apply for it, but I can be a hypocrite. I鈥檝e lived long enough to earn that right. My application is pending.

But I am afraid these two class-action lawsuits are taking things a step too far. We don鈥檛 want help pay for the debt that we have incurred? We don鈥檛 want to pay for the schools our children attended? We don鈥檛 want to pay for sewers?

I am afraid younger people are going to get really angry at us. Even without our property tax freeze, we are leaving them a much worse world than we inherited. Many old people were born shortly after World War II when this country did some special things. We rebuilt Europe to make the world safe. We built an interstate highway system. We went to the moon. We had money to do all that.

The tax-and-spend politicians of my youth have given way to the cut-taxes-and-borrow crowd. Our national debt is exploding. More and more of our money will go to service that debt. Less can be spent on other things. Meanwhile, the world is warming. Our government is dysfunctional.

There is an easy way to get even with us. The politicians can do to Social Security what they just did to Medicaid.

I recently received a press release from Congresswoman Ann Wagner鈥檚 office. 鈥淲e have strengthened Medicaid,鈥� she declared.

It鈥檚 true. By requiring people to apply and reapply online, they will cull the herd. Hundreds of thousands will fall off the rolls.

In President Trump鈥檚 address to Congress in March, he spoke of Elon Musk鈥檚 investigation into Social Security. Waste and fraud is what he found. The president said that 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149 were still on the rolls. So were 1.3 million from ages 150 to 159. One person is 360 years old.

Fact-checkers from the mainstream media tried to refute the numbers, but checking facts is a loser鈥檚 game these days. We live in an Orwellian time in which truth is a moving target.

If we decided to cut fraud by making people reapply for Social Security every year, old people would be stymied. Truth is, we are stymied easily.

Little things trip us up. Like passwords.

I try to keep mine simple. My go-to password is Incorrect123.

That was a gift from above. I needed a password for my computer. I couldn鈥檛 remember it. I would type it in and a message would flash: Your password is incorrect.

That made things easy. If I forgot my password, my computer would remind me.

But these machines are designed by younger people with more agile minds. My computer would not allow me to have a password of Incorrect. I needed numbers. OK, 123.

Sadly, few things are that easy. Every day is a challenge. My daughter got me three tickets to a baseball game. They鈥檙e on your phone, she said. My friends and I went to the game, but we couldn鈥檛 find the ticket no matter how hard we shook my phone. We asked three women for help. 鈥淒o you have an app?鈥� one asked.

鈥淚鈥檓 not sure,鈥� I said.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 know what an app is?鈥� one of the women asked.

I felt like a witness being cross-examined in a competency hearing. My own.

So it would be easy to fight waste and fraud by making old people apply every year or even every two years for Social Security. We cut the number of Social Security workers and we make the old people go online. In the parlance of Congresswoman Wagner, we could strengthen Social Security.

But old people vote, is what you鈥檙e thinking. The government wouldn鈥檛 dare go after Baby Boomers, the demographic lump in the snake鈥檚 belly. That lump is getting smaller. We鈥檙e dying off. The younger old people who are replacing us are better at this 21st century stuff.

Those of us in our 70s can鈥檛 afford to alienate the young people. These class-action lawsuits will come back to bite us.