Uncommon Quotes: Generational Unrest
By Bethany Stotts | May 8, 2009
If you care about fiscal responsibility and aren't young in years, Chris Hayes of The Nation argues you don't really care about the effect of rising national debt on your children.
Last night at the launch of 80 Million Strong Hayes said:
"A lot of people like to talk about the debt we're passing onto our children--and there is reason to be worried about the debt--but the people who are saying that tend to be old people and they tend not to actually care that much at the end of the day about the debt that they're going to pass onto their kids. They actually care about what we're spending the money on..."
Therefore, he argues, now is a time for youth to stand up and fight for the health of the economy they will inherit. "So for those two reasons this age cohort is kind of on the sort of maximal leverage point of the conversation about what economic future the country's gonna look like," he later said, "and it's incredibly important, incredibly important that those voices get heard because otherwise there's another cohort of people that are going to deign to speak for you and what they're going to say is not necessarily gonna be actually in your interest."
Bethany Stotts is a Staff Writer for Accuracy in Academia, and can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
2 Comments | Post a Comment
Re: Post 1;
Remeber - - the existing national debt was just over $4 trillion on Clinton’s last day - - and it was tripled by Bush 43 and was in the neighborhood of $12-13+ TRILLION - BEFORE Obama ever took office.
And - it’s estimated that the ‘ending costs’ of Bush’s Iraq adventure and the continuing health care costs of the wounded down the road - plus G.I. benefits - will add another $2.5 TRILLION to the Bush 43 deficit. So - - Bush 43 is DEFINITELY good for some $10 TRILLION of the current national debt. (Keep in mind, on Carter’s last day - the national debt was just about $800 BILLION - it’s been increased more somewhere around fifteen-fold since then - and MOSTLY by Reagan and Bush 43.)
May 10 at 9:39 pm | #1 | Link
“... the debt that they’re going to pass onto their kids. ...”
NEWS FLASH!
It isn’t old people who are passing on debt, Hayes. It’s CONGRESS and OBAMA! (Granted there are a lot of old fogie lifers in Congress, but they don’t represent the majority of Americans, young OR old.)