Why Bankrupt America Needs a Third Political Party

From Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff:

The Republicans and Democrats have done a terrible job of managing our country and economy, transforming the American dream into a nightmare. They’ve squandered our youth and wealth in endless wars we couldn’t win, and spent six decades running an intergenerational Ponzi scheme, racking up huge official and unofficial debts for our children to pay. 

By some measures, the U.S. is now in worse fiscal shape than Greece. True, our official debt is a much smaller percentage of economic output. But our unofficial debt is much larger. The unofficial debt includes primarily the obligation to pay 78 million baby boomers roughly $40,000 a head each year of their very long retirements in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. To get our overall fiscal gap under control, the U.S. must cut spending or raise tax revenue by $20 trillion over the next decade, far more than either the president wants or the House Republicans seek.

Full must read op-ed at Bloomberg.