Parents, wake up. Your children need you to act. Grandparents, listen closely. Your legacy is in jeopardy.
Like a malevolent birthright, each child and young person alive today will see dramatically higher taxes coupled with massive cuts in services in order to fund programs for which they did not vote or have representation.
Today, our federal debt and future unfunded commitments for things such as Social Security and Medicare breaks down to $435,000 per American household, while the average income tops out at $46,000 – a 9-to-1 debt to income ratio.
Taxes at all levels of government already consume a staggering 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That means 30 cents of every dollar is collected by the government. Even this bloated figure cannot keep pace with spending. Accordingly, our national debt continues to swell every second.
Thankfully, efforts are under way to bring attention to America’s growing “birth tax.”
In November, I had the opportunity to attend the “Fiscal Wake-Up Tour” in Seattle. This was one of a series of public forums set up by the Concord Coalition to get the message of fiscal responsibility out to the American people.
The nation’s comptroller general and a keynote speaker of the tour, David Walker, says deficits will be unparalleled in the future should we fail to make key changes now. “We are devastating opportunities for the younger generation.”
Over the next 25 years, our nation will experience an unprecedented demographic shift. Those 65 and over will swell from 12 percent to 20 percent of the population, while the percentage of working age citizens will shrink. This means that one of the main drivers of economic growth – an expanding workforce – is in jeopardy.
Even more alarming, the ratio of workers paying into Social Security and Medicare relative to the number of people drawing benefits will fall by one-third. There is no plan to pay for this except running up the national debt.
How did we get so muddled up? Entitlement mentality and fiscal irresponsibility have been the main drivers.
On paper, balancing the budget is not a difficult feat. Politicians know how to rein in government spending, just as they know how to manage their personal spending. But like a 16-year-old carrying daddy’s credit card, the consequences of mismanagement seem remote but the short-term rewards are immediate.
The last thing any politician wants to do is go on the campaign trail proclaiming an end to the free lunches baby boomers have grown accustomed to.
Nevertheless, debt is not a painless alternative to taxes. Putting off payments shifts the burden from one generation to the next, only with the certainty that it will be far greater.
The inescapable reality is that politicians and voters are creating and expanding programs with someone else’s money. This is not about ideology; it is mathematics. Our current rate of spending is simply not sustainable!
Now is the time for Americans to wake up and fight to leave our children a positive fiscal legacy. Repealing America’s growing “birth tax” by demanding fiscal responsibility from our elected officials is a legacy our children and grandchildren will thank us for.
Amber Gunn is a policy analyst for the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Economic Policy Center (www.effwa.org).
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