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.

Comments

[rmwarnick]

I agree with the point you are making, but I think the $2.4 trillion estimate includes the interest.

[jqcitizen]

Actually, the interest on todays national debt of 9.1 trillion dollars is 1 billion dollars per day.

[Wilson33]

Since I am under 40, I can speak, I have NO PROBLEM paying this money when the time comes. It is necessary.

And your scare tactics are weak. Are you paying for the mistakes of generations past? Do you REALLY feel that pinch?

No, you just spread fear to get your agenda across.

[joebaggadonuts]

Thank you Wilson for speaking up. Thank you for taking responsibility for continuing this stupidity. It makes me feel so much better to know that there is someone to actually blame for this mess we are in besides our Misleader in Chief and his loyal followers.

Thank you for supporting continuous world warfare and the destruction of my once great nation on the alter of Baal, burning with oil it hopes to steal from the Arabs and Persians who don't already kow tow to the House of Saud. Now I know whom to blame.

God forgive you.

[WIpatriot]

You have NO PROBLEM paying this money when the time comes?

Bestill my heart! All is well.

[kevinabt]

Why not pay for it now then, if there is no problem.

[CitizenE]

Fine for you. Then why aren't you arguing right now for a war tax?

[Jen326]

Ah, the 24% has now officially been represented.

[fn0rd]

(puts on Halloween mask)

Hey kid, wanna see something *really* scary?

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PSAVERT/

Our personal savings rate just went negative for the first time since the Great Depression, and...

http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/resfi.htm

The house you were going to pay off all those bills with? Yeah, not so much.

[RegKipling]

Observant post. [Raises hat]. We've had years of the business mandarins telling us how the US economy is roaring ahead. Sometimes the sound of collapse can be mistaken for the sound of bustle. But then again, we've had years of non-news from media whose primary interest is garnering eyeballs to sell to hucksters.

[kevinabt]

That savings rate is interesting. Considering that I save 10-30% of my income that must mean there is someone else out there spending 10-30% more than what they earn and going deeply into debt.

The changing housing prices is mostly a readjustment which is causing the cost of the houses to come more in line with their actual worth. The inflated prices were just covering up a real economic decline. Everyone seemed to think that their real estate was very valuable and that somewhat offset the decline in actual production in the country. These lower prices don't cause the country's assets to be worth less, it just means that now people KNOW what they are actually worth.

[kilnwmn]

Never enough $$$ to do something for the citizens of the US, but plenty to send to Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, you name the country....our people deserve health care, education, safe infrastructure, community safety...

Oh, but a couple more million for S-CHIP is "too much"...letting middle class kids whose families can't afford medical insurance get healthcare is NOT a move toward "socialized" medicine...it's just giving a future generation the health they need to grow up...

Don't Bush's oil cronies have enough of our $$$ yet??? Not to mention Cheney's funneling fund to his old companies...

The citizens and especially the children of the US deserve much, much better than the current regime is willing to give...in fact, they give nothing if it isn't directed toward their own pockets!

[TucsonEd]

WAAAA!!! HOW did this happen??? I remember Dubya saying that the Iraq war was going to be paid for with Iraqi oil profits!!!

Seriously if I had any grand kids I wouldn't sleep at all. I have a 32 year old and I feel really bad for him and this mess we're in.

I used to feel bad for myself cause of medical issues which will cut my life short, now I'm grateful. Although I probably won't be able to afford my medical care.

[RegKipling]

Chump change? Didn't this administration take a $5.4 trillion surplus and in less than eight years turn it into a $7.7 trillion deficit? That's $13.1 trillion worth of Good News to the explosive growth of China.

[nomoredead]

...and what have we got to show for $13.1 trillion ? Nothing.

[WIpatriot]

Got Lead?

[True]

Being 28 I feel the pain acutely.

But I wouldn't take it as a foregone conclusion that the United States will even exist in the form we now know it in the future.

[RegKipling]

Wait until you're 68...

You make a good point. The US role will likely undergo some very radical (and painful) changes in the not-too-distant future. India is already outsourcing its outsourced contracts back to the west. [Tip: follow the money and it accumulates in the biggest piles with the middlemen] China is doing splendidly and if she calls in her loans to the US she will have a very potent voice in determining US policy in the future.

But hey, we're all human beings underneath these masks of selective avarice and apathy. I'm so glad we can't infect other planets yet - we're too immature to leave the Earth creche.

[tao53nyc]

Maybe we just need to have a Going Out of Business sale. The government in this country (at every level) owns about 1/3 of the land and hundreds of billions worth of other tangible assets that could be liquidated for cash.

Let's just do a big national Chapter 11, and then pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.

We pay our elected Reps and Senators $3 mill a year, but if they don't balance the budget every year they get nothing. We pay them an outrageous salary so there will be competition for the job, and under the presumption that they won't be "tainted" by outside money. All election fundraising must come from individual Americans, corporations are not allowed. PACs are illegal, lobbying organizations aren't allowed within 30 feet of an elected official, under penalty of 20 years imprisonment.

Any Federal borrowing must meet even more stringent due diligence standards than any other loan applicant - particularly when it comes to collateral - they can't base repayment terms on the ability to tax into the future.

I don't know if any of these ideas will work, but damn, what we have now is seriously broken, and if we keep doing what we're doing we're just going to get the same results.

[JoeBlough]

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.

Well, that's sort of the whole point. Tie up all tax revenues in war and debt and the Republicians can starve off and kill all entitlement programs. That's benn Bush's plan all along.

[joebaggadonuts]

The end game for this "plan" is either fascism or revolution. Good thing he thought ahead and bought some South American real estate.

[WIpatriot]

Um, we HAVE been having a going-out-of-business sale. What do you think foreigners with all those dollars are doing with them? Why, they're buying up American businesses.

[HamletsMill]

Spot on!

[Ben Dixon]

That 2.4 trillion dollars for the that you bemoan is chump change compared to what we in Generation Screwed will be paying to cover Social Security and Medicare for the Baby Boomers. Just a little perspective there.

[BC33]

WHAT???? You can't really believe that??!!

[mikegoodyearaz85338]

What's wrong with you? What do you have against senior citizens? And lets not forget healthcare for the poor little kids too. "Generation Screwed" a like the sound of that.

[tgood]

Ben seems to forget the baby boomers are the reason he was even born. LOL. Excuse me. We are the parents and grandparents of the younger population of today. Are we supposed to just jump on the funeral pyre after we've spent most of our 60 plus years working, paying taxes and supporting this country? I'm a baby boomer who is still working despite serious health issues--and I don't collect Medicare by the way--so anyone who refers to "baby boomers" with a sneer needs to educate themselves a wee bit before waving about their ignorance.

[leftcoastindy]

Your perspective is rediculous.

If you're talking about the excess we may have to pay above what we will receive after we retire, no one knows for sure, but the range is 11 to 12 figures. (10 billion to 900 billion) I'm thinking medicare is in the low 11 figure range.

You are suggesting 14 figures. Over 500 times what we should end up spending.

[ammitusen]

well, Generation Screwed, at least Social Security and Medicare will be going to American citizens and not just to the stockholders in Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex and the other mega corporations that the politicians favor. not only will you be paying for GW's war debt, Social Security and Medicare, a trashed education system and failing infrastructures but you'll be wallowing in toxic pollutants and you'll be lucky to find some shriveled veggies at the store because of water shortages, depleted soil and the bees are dying out. oh well, not my problem, really. i'm over 50 so won't be here when the shit really hits the fan. i'm one of them silly old hippies that spent a lot of time and energy trying to stop wars and preserve the Earth's Eco systems but to no avail since corporate profits trumps Love, Peace and Flower Power. i did my part and i'm still trying. where are the up and comings? there's been far too few to pass the torch to. too busy at the mall, i guess. and Xbox is just so cool!

[Jen326]

I appreciate any work you've done in your life to try to prevent the situation we find ourselves in today, but I'm disappointed to see your contempt for the following generation which has had virtually no say in the events that have shaped our current lives and futures.

Don't you feel for a us even a little bit? Do you have any idea how overwhelming it is to be told your whole life that you live in the richest and most powerful country in the world, where you can do anything if you just go to school and work hard, just to graduate from school to find crappy jobs, corrupt politicians, global warming, wars to fight (that you don't understand and are pretty sure are immoral), a future full of food shortages, droughts, floods, disease, and poverty? All the cards stacked against us and we have zero representation in our government. Zero, zilch, nada. No one in DC is under 30, and it shows.

So how exactly are we supposed to fix it, with no representation? Run for Congress? I don't have that kind of money. Plus, we're too young to be taken seriously. Protest in the streets? Bush and Congress don't care. Write on the internet? Doing it. Got any other worthwhile ideas, because I'd love to hear them.

[WIpatriot]

No worries, Ben, just dump the bills on your kids and you can enjoy the good life, too!