In the U.S., the Democratic Party has become known as the party of compassion, of caring. It is perceived as the advocate of the unsung and downtrodden. It makes an effort to win over demographics that have been historically marginalized or oppressed and champion their causes.
However, there is one crucial group that the Democratic Party has consistently and thoroughly thrown under the bus — the unborn. Don't stop reading this because you think this is about abortion. That is not the main thrust of this article. We also do a disservice to those not yet born by acting in a way that ignores those that will come after us. It is shortsighted and reckless to pursuing policy goals meant to improve the lives of those currently alive without considering that they may have negative effects on the next generation is shortsighted and reckless.
This failure of the left has been brought into sharp focus by the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has amassed widespread enthusiasm and support by claiming that what America really needs is more government services, programs and spending. As evidenced by Sanders’ recent surge against the more moderate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it is a popular message.
And it is easy to see why. We, the 99 percent, will apparently receive more health care, education and Social Security benefits without any additional cost to ourselves — the people who already have more money than they know what to do with will pay for it. It’s a win-win, a no-brainer. At least for those with no more than a rudimentary understanding of economic principles.
It’s been said often enough that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” and that Americans do not really expect the government to pull dollars from thin air. That’s where the promises to make the rich pay their fair share and tax the exchange of stocks come in. Because their candidate promises that this will be an effective solution for paying for the greatly expanded government spending, the dazzled masses can rest in the blissful ignorance of whether it actually breaks even. But non-partisan analyses show that his proposed policies would lead to, at the very least, a $2 trillion deficit over the next 10 years and possibly up to a $15 trillion deficit. To put this in perspective, the U.S. government currently holds $19 trillion in debt from the first 227 years of its existence. Sanders’ proposed spending increases would represent a rapid acceleration in the growth of our already menacingly high national debt.
Because this is the way that countries around the world are currently behaving, not many Americans are truly alarmed by the size of the national debt. But if we were to consider that it now represents more than $150,000 per taxpayer, more than double the debt of only 12 years ago, perhaps we would experience a more appropriate level of anxiety.
It’s only common sense that we can’t go on adding to our debt forever. There will eventually come a day in which we will be asked to pay back what we owe. And it’s not going to be a great day for those future Americans. But since we the living are barely inconvenienced by the mounting debt, we are barely motivated to address the problem. And those who support Sanders are apparently not content with our already-steady rate of deficit spending. They are determined that the government should provide more services than ever before to the current generation, apparently without reference to long-term sustainability.
Sanders’ promises to expand government spending to help even more people overlook the welfare of the unborn, a crucial demographic that is being indirectly hurt by uncontrolled spending. It’s time to consider that the rosy immediate future Sanders speaks of will not be so rosy in the long haul and that someone is going to have to pay for our fiscal irresponsibility. As Marco Rubio warned, “We're on the verge of being the first generation of Americans that leave our children worse off than ourselves.”
I pray that this is not the case, but if we continue to act politically as if the present is all there is and vote for candidates who cater only to the immediate desires of their electorate without considering the long-term effects of their actions, then that generation is not so very far ahead.