Ryan Streeter
Perhaps nothing makes the point about the deficit and our debt burden better than the Gallup results that came out today. Fewer people than ever before believe that today's youth will have a better life than their parents. Gallup writes:
Confidence in the traditional American dream -- that each generation can work its way up in the world and have a better life than the previous generation -- appears to be slipping away. Americans are less likely to believe this to be true today than at any time on record, including during the worst of the recent economic crisis.
According to the chart below, this is the first time that less than 50% of respondents said life will be better for today's youth than their parents. Pretty alarming. Look at how confident people were in Dec. 2001, after 9/11. And then look at Dec. 2008, which was in the wake of the financial markets collapse, TARP, and all of that (Obama supporters might say it reflects the optimism of the country after his election, but that's a losing argument since the current figures reflect on him more than anyone).
I fear we are living through something bigger than any of us can comprehend. People may not know the exact math on things like Medicare spending or how many dollars we spend a minute servicing our debt, but they know we are living through a kind of malaise economically that - the longer it takes to refire the engines - doesn't just persist as is, but gets much worse every day.
The good news is that the American public is probably more receptive to radical reform than it has been in a long time. The bad news is that reform may take longer to come than we have time to spare.
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