USA - Our grandkids are destined to inherit double-digit trillions in federal debt from us.

How to Reduce the Debt Burden for Future Generations

By Steve Conover
Our grandkids are destined to inherit double-digit trillions in federal debt from us. But that might not be much of a burden to them at all — if we start paying attention to the right things today.

The federal debt is increasing at an alarming rate, and its burden to future generations is a legitimate, growing concern. The rhetoric of both partiesacknowledges the supposed virtue of “paying down the debt”— but, curiously, neither side has acknowledged an equally valid alternative. In truth, reducing the federal debt is merely one of two financially legitimate alternatives; not only that, it is the impractical, inferior alternative.

Why is a focus on paying down the debt an inferior way to reduce the debt burden? Mainly because it would require fiscal surpluses — which are not in anybody’s projections (... and they shouldn’t be, for reasons explained in my previous piece on the Balanced Budget Amendment). Let’s face it: our grandkids are destined to inherit double-digit trillions in federal debt from us. But that might not be much of a burden to them at all — if we start paying attention to the right things today.

If we are serious about reducing the debt burden we’ll leave to the next generation, it’s time to acknowledge the only practical choice available to us: making it easier to pay the interest on the growing federal debt. The easier it is, the less of a burden our grandkids will inherit.

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