[gregatragenet3]

I thought they were embracing socialism because their parents after supporting them as adults for six to eight years (or longer) are starting to tire of it; and the government looks like the next best place to look for free handouts.

This is what happens when you have a generation where everybody gets an award.

[cafard]

By "supporting them as adults for six to eight years (or longer)" do you mean through college and graduate or professional school? If so, have you compared the costs of higher education (yes, inflation adjusted) in 1975 and 2015? A lot of us boomers contributed a good share of the costs of our colleges, but that was not because we were rugged individualists and hadn't received trophies at the end of every soccer season; it was because it was a lot more doable.

(And some of my college was paid for by Social Security survivor's benefits from a deceased parent. The first year of the Reagan Administration saw recipients cut off at the age of 18: I would have had subsidies cut off after one quarter of school, not three years. If having received this makes me a fellow traveler, so be it.)