Mortgaging Our Children's Future

Although the Center for Strategic and International Studies' primary focus is on global strategic issues, it has long been concerned about the challenge of rising entitlement costs. In 1999, our National Commission on Retirement Policy issued the first -- and still one of the precious few -- bipartisan plans for Social Security reform. The CSIS decision to wade into the debate stemmed in part from its recognition that the aging issue is in fact one of the greatest strategic issues of the 21st century. How America handles it will affect the strength of our economy, the stability of our society, and even our geopolitical stature.

Since then, CSIS' Global Aging Initiative has studied the aging challenge in countries around the world. There are many lessons to be learned. While policy in the United States remains gridlocked, many other countries have moved aggressively on reform -- raising retirement ages, instituting new funded pension arrangements, and indexing public pension systems to offset deteriorating demographics, as Sweden, Germany and Japan have done. Although none have entirely solved their long-term problem, their efforts point the way to elements in a lasting solution.

In the end, the acid test of reform is whether it forces us to make meaningful trade-offs between how much we ask government to spend on ourselves and how much we leave for the next generation to devote to their own goals, whether public or private. For the record, here are the reform elements that I think are essential: progressive benefit cuts in Social Security to close its long-term cash deficit, a system of mandatory add-on retirement accounts to boost national savings and ensure benefit adequacy, and, crucially, a global budget for federal health-care spending.

The failure of our nation's leaders to face up to the issue should be of grave concern to all Americans, whatever their political leaning. Conservatives should be concerned because senior entitlements, if left on autopilot, will impose an unsustainable burden on tomorrow's taxpayers. Liberals should be concerned because they will increasingly crowd progressive spending out of public budgets. And both should be concerned because, as things stand, we are mortgaging our children's future.

Richard Jackson
Director & Senior Fellow, CSIS Global Aging Initiative