Generation Indentured (Published 4-14-10 by The Oregonian)

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said, "Every generation needs a new revolution." If steps aren't taken soon, the Baby Boomers will turn our nation's youth into a generation of indentured servants. 

In regard to cross-generational government debt, Jefferson wrote: "We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independent nation to another." 

Oh boy, would he be irked. For the sake of brevity, let's run down a few facts from the Congressional Budget Office: 


 This year, the federal government spent $1.67 for every dollar it collected. 


 Current CBO projections have the debt growing at a faster pace than the economy for at least the next decade. 


 By 2020, yearly interest payments on the debt alone will cost America $900 billion. 


One CBO estimate pegs the debt to become 200 percent of America's GDP by 2035. 


U.S. debt is at $12.6 trillion, with $107 trillion in unfunded future liabilities. 

That last point regarding the unfunded liabilities is the most striking. These include future obligations to entitlement programs. Who will pay for all of this? The Baby Boomers will to a certain extent, but as they retire, they will leave behind a mountain of debt and an uphill fiscal and economic battle for future generations. 

If the rallying cry for our nation's revolution was "No taxation without representation," why do we allow children to inherit government debt? How can we ask future generations to make sacrifices that we ourselves are not willing to bear? 

I believe morality to span religion, culture, society and, yes, generation. One wonders if the budget deficit is also a values deficit. Do we hold present times on a pedestal of egocentric importance, casting the future into the gutter of insignificance? 

It's easy to blame politicians for appealing to our instinctual focus on the near term, or the television media for obsessing on the present in order to garner higher ratings. 

But in the end, those who are accountable are the ones who have let themselves be led by the nose, and have done so for decades. The Baby Boomers have acquiesced to a fiscal policy of "wait and see what happens." It's not a Republican or Democratic thing. Both parties have painted themselves as responsible but have shown no regard for the financial well-being of future Americans. 

Now, if I seem too harsh on Baby Boomers for pillaging my generation's future, I'd be more than happy to write a piece criticizing my own generation. I fear, however, that all the newspapers in the country combined lack the logistical resources to publish such a lengthy critique.