However, there is one candidate who's addressing the matter Robert Samuelson raises:
Our children face a future of rising taxes, squeezed -- and perhaps falling -- public services, and aging -- perhaps deteriorating -- public infrastructure (roads, sewers, transit systems). Today's young workers and children are about to be engulfed by a massive income transfer from young to old that will perversely make it harder for them to afford their own children.
No major candidate of either party proposes to do much about this, even though the facts are well-known.
That's precisely what got Fred Thompson into the race, and he does speak forthrightly about these matters all the time. Here's his white paper on Social Security, for example.He frames it as a moral issue:
those who are too small or those who are yet to be born do not have a seat at this table as we kick the can down the road and wait for somebody else to take care of the problem, when it'll be much worse and much more difficult to take care of, when those benefits for the retired people start being slashed or those taxes are raised substantially on young working people who will be funding these programs, just as they're going out and getting married and trying to start their own family. That's not right. That is a moral issue, too. And we have to blow the whistle on this irresponsibility, and that's exactly what I intend to do. (Applause.)
So I have talked about Social Security. People don't like to talk about things like that. Politicians don't because it's dangerous. They say it's the third rail of politics. I've set out what I consider to be kind of a modest proposal where we could start, along the line of responsibility and start doing the right things before we have to hurt anybody; instead of waiting until we have to hurt everybody; instead of waiting for this blessing of longer life to turn into a curse for the next generation. We can't do that--pit one generation against another. If you can't tell the truth, you shouldn't be running for president of the United States. (Cheers, applause.)
