From The Chicago Tribune…
Saddling the next generation with massive debt
By Dennis Byrne
The Boomers are the worst generation.
Certainly, they would never call themselves that. As the title of a 2007 book written by a Baby Boomer brazenly proclaims, they’re “The Greater Generation.” I suppose the Boomer author can be excused for his excess of self-satisfaction, because Boomers are so loaded with smugness that it’s oozing out their ears.
But surely someone who writes a book about them in another 40 or 50 years—Tom Brokaw wrote his book “The Greatest Generation” decades after that generation’s self-sacrifice preserved our freedom—will brand them as perhaps the most selfish generation in American history. That author would accurately nail them for their greedy, miserable selves because he and hundreds of millions of others will be living in the cesspool of debt that they leave behind.
Every time you take a breath, President Barack Obama (he’s on television more frequently than the weather forecast) is pushing through another costly program, rescue, bailout, giveaway—whatever you want to call it—that we can’t afford to pay for ourselves. So, in a magical example of time travel, he—we, I should say—will deliver the bill to the future, with nary a thought of how the future will pay for it.
No need here for a tedious recounting of the huge, impossible debt that we’re passing off; it has been outlined enough, but the figures seem to scare few. Our official national debt, the one you hear occasionally debated in Congress, is a sliver under $12 trillion. Sounds like a lot? Then get this: Our true national debt, when you include every cent of benefits promised to seniors, Baby Boomers and other entitled beneficiaries, amounts to nearly $62 trillion, according to the Northbrook-based Institute for Truth in Accounting. That’s $202,000 for every man, woman and child in America. Our gift to future generations is the shaft. We could talk about how paying the interest on the national debt we now have is one of the largest items in the federal budget, already draining billions from all those education, welfare and other programs so dear to the progressive agenda. But future interest payments will gobble up so many of our resources that we won’t be able to afford new cars, homes and the rest of the consumer cravings that fuel our economy. Our economy will be in shambles.
But wait, that $62 trillion doesn’t even include the other trillions for the sugarplums dancing in Obama’s head. The additional $1 trillion for health-insurance “reform.” An additional trillion or so for the third stimulus package. What else, we can only imagine.
When they write about how the Boomers are the worst generation, my guess is the target won’t be aimed at Obama so much. After all, he’s just the frontman; wind him up and off he goes to another press conference, speech or town hall meeting to tell us how we’re headed for hell if we don’t do what he says. No one can spend that much time doing public relations and devote the amount of time needed to study the consequences of everything that he wants to stuff down our throats. No, someone else is his brain and that’s his own version of Karl Rove—White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel’s cynical proclamation—“you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”—unveils the essence of this administration: its (read: Emanuel’s) lust for power. The unborn be damned. This recession is not the worst since the Great Depression, as the administration and its media acolytes keep propagandizing. It’s not even the worst since the one we survived in the early 1980s without the kind of insane spending we’re doing now.
Truth is, we’ve become so frightened of bad things happening to us that we’ll do anything, no matter how reckless, to avoid just the perception of risk. Our fear of discomfort or sacrifice is contemptible beyond description.
The Greatest Generation gave their lives so that we might enjoy our liberties and prosperity. We show our appreciation by imprisoning future Americans in a dungeon of debt from which they may never recover. Nowhere in the Obama/Emanuel blueprint is there even the slightest suggestion of how future generations will survive this mess. Not that they care, but, more important, there simply may not be a way to lift the burden. Mark this generation down as the most cowardly and irresponsible in America’s history. Mark it down as the Shameless Generation.
Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. He blogs at ChicagoNow.com
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