Debt is cheating our children’s future
By Isabel Sawhill
Special to The Kansas City Star
Now that we have all gone through the painful process of paying income taxes, let’s stop and think what tax-paying — and the federal fiscal environment — may be like 25 years from now.
If we think we have it bad, our children and grandchildren face potential tax and financial burdens that will be crippling if nothing is done to reduce our nation’s growing debt.
A recent AARP Bulletin, belying the stereotype of the greedy senior, put two naked toddlers on its cover and superimposed on their backs the grim headline “$156,000 in debt.” That’s the amount that every American child already owes, on behalf of his or her country, if you add our $8.3 trillion national debt, plus unfunded commitments to Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs.
That’s nearly three times the average household’s net worth and about four times the average American’s annual income.
And it’s all because of our fiscal profligacy — or should we say immorality?
We’re the grown-ups who should be taking care of America for future generations. Instead, we’re bequeathing a fiscal mess of biblical proportions.
This is not just an abstraction or a problem that will go away with faster economic growth, cutting government “waste,” or as one focus-group participant recently suggested, requiring the Bush daughters to spend less on designer shoes.
To put it in more personal terms, rising deficits will slow economic growth and reduce the average family’s income by $1,800 by 2014, drive up interest rates (costing the average American an additional $2,000 per year in mortgage interest), and force average taxes to rise by $7,000 by 2030 if we keep our current promises to the elderly.
(The rest is here.)
Special to The Kansas City Star
Now that we have all gone through the painful process of paying income taxes, let’s stop and think what tax-paying — and the federal fiscal environment — may be like 25 years from now.
If we think we have it bad, our children and grandchildren face potential tax and financial burdens that will be crippling if nothing is done to reduce our nation’s growing debt.
A recent AARP Bulletin, belying the stereotype of the greedy senior, put two naked toddlers on its cover and superimposed on their backs the grim headline “$156,000 in debt.” That’s the amount that every American child already owes, on behalf of his or her country, if you add our $8.3 trillion national debt, plus unfunded commitments to Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs.
That’s nearly three times the average household’s net worth and about four times the average American’s annual income.
And it’s all because of our fiscal profligacy — or should we say immorality?
We’re the grown-ups who should be taking care of America for future generations. Instead, we’re bequeathing a fiscal mess of biblical proportions.
This is not just an abstraction or a problem that will go away with faster economic growth, cutting government “waste,” or as one focus-group participant recently suggested, requiring the Bush daughters to spend less on designer shoes.
To put it in more personal terms, rising deficits will slow economic growth and reduce the average family’s income by $1,800 by 2014, drive up interest rates (costing the average American an additional $2,000 per year in mortgage interest), and force average taxes to rise by $7,000 by 2030 if we keep our current promises to the elderly.
(The rest is here.)
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