Hey, Generation Screwed, Can We Borrow $46.5 Billion Until Payday?

Recently, the Bush administration requested an additional $46.5 billion in funding for Iraq. Now Democrats in the House and Senate (stalwarts that they are) seem poised to go along with it because they don't want to appear soft on supporting the troops before the 2008 elections.

$46.5 billion is $46.5 thousand million. $46,500,000,000.00. The government will not raise taxes (personal or corporate) to generate it. They will borrow it, and pay interest on it primarily overseas. It will come in large part from China.

That's $46,500,000,000.00 stolen directly from America's future. $46,500,000,000.00 that won't be available for education. Or health care (socialized or otherwise). Or the kind of research that gave the United States a global technological advantage for decades.

It's $46,500,000,000.00 stolen directly from Generation Screwed, the generation of people -- most under 40 -- who will bear the brunt of the burden of servicing the debt and repaying the loans. It's $46,500,000,000.00 transferred out of this economy. $46,500,000,000.00 gone. $46,500,000,000.00 that is not coming back.

As unhappy as that sounds, it's chump change, compared to the total amount our elected officials will borrow against America's future in order to fund the fiasco in Iraq. Many experts place that figure somewhere north of $2.4 trillion. $2,400,000,000,000.00. Plus interest.

One would think such wholesale larceny would be somewhat alarming to the entire nation -- especially to Generation Screwed. So far, though, no one -- Generation Screwed or otherwise -- appears to be especially concerned.

Meanwhile, much closer to home and life as we live it, cash-strapped school districts across the nation will go, hat-in-hand to the voters with bond referenda next week. They will ask for operating funds. If they don't get voter approval, programs and jobs will get cut. Class sizes will go up yet again. The next generation of Generation Screwed will get just a bit more educationally short-changed.

The editorial pages are full of letters from indignant taxpayers, obviously Republican, alleging mismanagement and malfeasance up at the school.

Are these people crazy? They're watching Generation Screwed get fleeced out of $2,400,000,000,000.00 (plus interest) and they gripe about paying maybe $100 a year more for local education. This at a time when the same politicians who are borrowing money to fund the war are carrying water for international corporations who want to globalize the work force.

In allowing education to lag like this, they are not only making America poorer. They are making it more difficult for future generations of Americans to compete globally.

Faced with perhaps the most daunting set of financial and social challenges since the Great Depression, We The People appear to, "Got nothing." We have yet to muster an election plurality or protest movement large enough to begin changing course. The vast majority of the country continues to sleepwalk; to go to the mall; to sit on the political sidelines while the heart of the country gets stolen like the copper wiring from an abandoned apartment building.

It's our fault. We're doing this to ourselves. It's us -- one and all.

But, fairly or unfairly, doing something about it is going to depend on how involved Generation Screwed becomes in the political process. And not just in '08. From here on out.

To date, Generation Screwed has been fairly passive. It's only natural. They are young, and getting established in life.

But from protests to caucuses and polling places, the time has come for them to join politically active Gen Y, X, and Baby Boomers in opposing the policies that will leave them (and the generations of Americans who will follow them) poorer and less competitive in a global economy.

Hey, Generation Screwed. Let's go.