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Commentary:
Borrowing Your Financial Well-Being from My Generation
By Hannah McMunn
There is an ancient Native American proverb that says, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
I’m only 16 years old and I know my perspectives are simplistic and unsophisticated. But it does not take great insight to see that your generations have borrowed your financial wellbeing from my generation. The huge national debt and continuing annual deficits -- incurred to maintain benefits for your generations – are going to be left for my generation to pay.
Federal Reserve Bank policies on inflation -- and inflation they may not intend – will push my generation into higher tax brackets through bracket creep. Furthermore, deductibles available to your generations probably will be closed or reduced for mine.
We see politicians and experts addressing ways to save Social Security. One method that seems popular and probably inevitable is the “means testing” of Social Security benefits so that higher income and/or net worth retirees will receive lower payments – but my generation is not reassured when we hear that these changes will not affect your generation’s current recipients.
We see corporations and labor unions establishing two-tier salary and benefit scales, and my generation is not comforted to learn that these changes will not affect your generation’s current employees.
These are examples of the added challenges my generation will face in paying off that burden.
It is time to stop borrowing your present wellbeing from my generation, to come together politically, and to define and implement meaningful policies to reduce the future burdon on my generation.
*Hannah was 16 when this article was written during the spring of 2011.
© 2011, IRAKids.com. All rights reserved.
Borrowing Your Financial Well-Being from My Generation, by Hannah McMunn (age 16), expresses the concerns of her generation with being left the burden of paying off our national debt – which financed the wellbeing of her parent’s and grandparent’s generations. She notes how higher taxes, fewer deductibles, “means testing” of Social Security benefits, and “two-tier” wage and benefit scales – as well as other factors -- will impose even greater hardships on her generation. She urges policy makers to come together politically in order to define and implement policies that will begin to reduce this growing burden on her generation. (This commentary is provided courtesy of IRAKids.com.)
This commentary may be reused freely for educational purposes and may even be reprinted in other print publications (e.g., credit union newsletters) to to share the concerns of Hannah’s generation. This commentary may not be sold or included in a publication that is to be sold. This commentary may not be loaded on other websites, but the abstract may be used and/or the articles may be summarized on other websites. In all cases, the author and the IRAKids.com website must be credited with authorship, and links should be provided back to the IRAKids.com website. For other uses of this article, please contact IRAKids.com.
For additional articles on Roth IRAs for Kids, which may be reused according to the “Guidelines” noted above, please see Articles by Hannah on Roth IRAs -- for Free Reuse Elsewhere.
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