{"id":84,"date":"2004-02-04T10:11:43","date_gmt":"2004-02-04T14:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/02\/04\/deficits-intergenerational-warfare\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T01:10:42","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T05:10:42","slug":"deficits-intergenerational-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/02\/deficits-intergenerational-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Deficits = Intergenerational Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a15'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As the powerful ad, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bushin30seconds.com\/view\/01_large.shtml\">Child&#8217;s Play<\/a>,&#8221; made clear (though not to <a href=\"http:\/\/cache.boston.com\/bonzai-fba\/Globe_Graphic\/2004\/02\/03\/1075789103_7287.gif\">Superbowl viewers<\/a>), deficits mean mortgaging the next generation&#8217;s future. As BusinessWeek summarizes:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Meantime, financial<br \/>\npressures on younger Americans are mounting as the price tag of major<br \/>\nexpenses &#8212; education, health insurance, and housing &#8212; rises sharply.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What are the consequences for our generation?\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n  <\/ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Tax payback, when the balance between people collecting Social<br \/>\nSecurity and working taxpayers goes out of whack (&#8220;In 1960, there were<br \/>\n16 workers for every Social Security recipient. Now, that ratio is 3.3<br \/>\nto 1, and by 2030 it will be 2 to 1.&#8221;);<\/li>\n<li>Rising interest rates due to the ballooning deficit will make it more expensive for us to buy homes and goods;<\/li>\n<li>Lower benefits, both from a bankruptcy-bound Medicare\/Medicaid program and from shrinking employer plans.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>It&#8217;s clear to me that intergenerational warfare &#8211; not class, not<br \/>\nrace, not &#8220;culture&#8221; &#8211; is the driving force behind the national<br \/>\ncut-taxes-increase-spending agenda. Not only are we outnumbered, but<br \/>\nalso outvoted thanks to the <a href=\"http:\/\/cloud9.norc.uchicago.edu\/dlib\/sc-43.htm\">generational voting gap<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Put it this way: if you could charge whatever you wanted to your<br \/>\ncredit card, knowing that you would be dead before it had to be paid<br \/>\noff, wouldn&#8217;t you go on a shopping spree, too?\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thanks, Boomers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the powerful ad, &#8220;Child&#8217;s Play,&#8221; made clear (though not to Superbowl viewers), deficits mean mortgaging the next generation&#8217;s future. As BusinessWeek summarizes: Meantime, financial pressures on younger Americans are mounting as the price tag of major expenses &#8212; education, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/02\/deficits-intergenerational-warfare\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[415,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}