There is a moral issue behind most of the public policy issues at the federal, state and local levels, and even in the private sector: generational equity. Almost every decision, non-decision, deal and trend of the past 25 years has provided no reductions in benefits, or even more benefits, for older generations, while imposing additional burdens and sacrifices on younger generations, those who will be working and paying taxes, and in need of public services and benefits in the future. One finds generational inequities in the Social Security system, in government financed and subsidized health care, in public employee union pensions and other retiree benefits, in the wages and benefits of older and younger generations in the private sector, in the financing of maintenance of the public infrastructure, in energy and the status of the natural environment, and in the tax code. These are in addition to soaring on-the-books federal, state and local debts. In some cases a diminished future for younger generations has already arrived, and in some cases it is coming. And no one, not the Democrats, not the Republicans, not “liberals,” not “conservatives,” seems willing to point this out.
