WITH SUCH CONTEMPT

Dear Spike:

Today, we recognize the practice of segregation for what it was – an abhorrent system of discrimination that continued to tarnish our nation long after we abolished slavery. And it is hard to believe that decent people could have ever thought differently.

In 30 years, I assure you, we will recognize laws preventing the legal union of loving partners with comparable dose of historical repulsion. And it will be difficult to understand how good people ever believed otherwise.

And so it is, I believe, that by the time your children are having children, we will have come to a similar conclusion about another practice that we fail to recognize for its obvious iniquity — placing upon our children and their children the burden of our fiscal irresponsibility.

Although it is suddenly en vogue for conservative pundits to wag their fingers at “generational theft,” this is not a problem of the left or the right. The national debt has risen and fallen under Democrats and Republicans alike. It has grown and shrunk — but never disappeared — through bull markets and bear markets, during war and peace, in prosperity and recession. In this republic, we all share the shame of believing that today’s needs — however pressing they may seem at the time — are of greater importance than the needs of our children.

So it was that, before you’d even learned to speak, you were indebted to the tune of $35,000 — the per capita cost of generations of deficit spending for guns, butter and trips to the moon. And so it is that, in the past few months, that debt has soared still higher, most recently with the passage of a $787 billion stimulus bill that, if successful, will create 3.5 million new jobs.

That’s borrowed money, of course. And although you and your children were not permitted to sign for the loan, you’ll be responsible for paying it back — a quarter-million dollars from your generation for each new job for my generation.

In 50 years, I believe, we’ll all recognize these practices as an arrogant and cruel assault from the past upon the future.
Perhaps then it will draw comparison to other errant chapters of our nation’s history. And perhaps we will wonder how decent people could ever have acted with such contempt for their own children.

In the meantime, I’m simply sorry. So very sorry.

Love,
dad