Let’s not dump our debts on youth

OK, we get it. No one wants to see retirement benefits cut, health care benefits cut or have cuts to programs such as Social Security, education, police, fire, post office or even the money guzzling Rail Runner. We get it.

In fact, we want more of these, especially if someone else is paying for them — even if that someone else is someone else’s children or grandchildren.

We have gone from a “tax and spend” policy in congress to a “borrow and spend” policy in congress. Congress put two wars on our credit card — their policy was/is “I was for the wars before I was against them and I never voted to spend money on them.” Congress also expanded social programs and put massive stimulus programs on our credit card.

Our stimulus packages went to bailouts and crony projects like Solyndra instead of to projects that would have strengthened our infrastructure. Now the money is gone and these projects are left wanting.

The best that can be said about all the deficit spending is that it postponed our need for fiscal responsibility. But it did not eliminate it. Now the problem is even worse, much like the countries in Europe who failed to address their deficits.

There is not space today to again address the flawed economic thinking by special interest groups. Their mantra of “don’t worry, be happy, keep spending, everything will be fine” is just not true. You just can’t dismiss the massive $17 trillion of debt the government must pay.

Don’t forget, we (the people) are where the government gets the money to pay the debt.

Half our debt is borrowed from foreign governments, especially China, that we have to pay back plus interest. Do you really want your children and grandchildren to study hard, graduate from college, get a good job and then have their income reduced through taxes, not for more good programs here in America but to go directly to China to pay for what we refuse to pay for today?

We need good fiscal policies that will grow the economy through the private sector, not grow deficits through government spending. We need good energy policies that will support businesses and families; we need good regulations on businesses, not regulations that kill innovation and growth and drag the economic recovery.

In the March 16 edition of the Economist magazine, economists flatly stated that if President Obama and Congress do nothing to curb the unaffordable growth in health and pension spending, America will go broke.

Estimates have these “entitlements” at 17 percent of GDP in 2037. That is the same year your 13-year-old will be 37 years old and will be taxed to pay both the entitlements of their today-50-year-old parents or grandparents, who will then be in their mid-70s, as well as the debts we refuse to pay for today.

Essentially, we will be taxing our children and grandchildren twice.

These are not scare-tactic statements of some doomsday group of the left or right. These are the laws of economics.

If we don’t deal with the issue and the pain today, we will have even greater pain later. Or if you prefer, the 13-year-olds of today will have even greater pain in 2037.