Our Children's Future

A recent article in the New York Times about the plight of Detroit (click here) got me to thinking.  I sure hope that our children take better care of their children's future than we have taken of our children's future.  You might ask, "what does the plight of Detroit have to do with my children's future?"  Well, the quote from John Boyle at the end of the article sums it up nicely:  “Detroit is a microcosm of what’s going on in America, except America can still print money and borrow."  Detroit is indeed a microcosm of what is going on in America.  From coast to coast and from local government on up, we have made promises that were unsustainable.  We should have known that they were unsustainable when they were made.  After all, a little basic mathematics, including an understanding of exponential functions, is all that is necessary to know that continuous growth in public sector wages, pensions and taxes cannot be sustained.  That was then, and this is now.  Now it is time to pay the piper.

We have created a society which our children cannot afford.  And, what is worse, we continue to make the same mistakes at every level of government.