Fiscal negligence at the expense of our children

A driving principle of our country's success is that parents and grandparents have consistently and voluntarily made sacrifices to ensure opportunities for subsequent generations.

But today, public policies cast a long shadow on that tradition.

Last week, Standard & Poor's announced that it was revising the outlook for the U.S. bond rating to "negative." Many blame the rapidly accelerating debt and the enormous interest payments necessary to simply maintain that debt.

But the impetus for the S&P's fears is that the United States is fundamentally unwilling to address the four areas that, along with interest payments, constitute a whopping 82.5 percent of the federal government's ballooning expenditures: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending.

People are appropriately screaming that we are leaving the next generation an unwieldy burden of debt. The real problem isn't the debt, however, but the continued misalignment of spending priorities.

Rather than investing in global competitiveness and long-term opportunities through thoughtful advancements in K-12 and higher education, dollars are increasingly spent on defense or on programs that primarily benefit older generations.

The result is that we are not only handing the next generation unprecedented debt, but concurrently ensuring that the next generation will be ill-equipped to solve the challenges we're leaving them.

We must examine our spending collectively. Like many people, if I choose to have a chocolate chip cookie, I know it requires me to cut calories elsewhere. Purchasing a new refrigerator means I postpone buying that couch.

Our federal government, on the other hand, strives to be everything to everyone. The result is that it fails in its fundamental role to ensure equality of opportunity.

And nowhere does society better propel equality of opportunity than in providing a superb education to every child.

Some respond that we need a strong defense. They are correct. But the United States spends 46.5 percent of the world's defense dollars. The second largest military, that of China, constitutes 6.6 percent of the world's defense expenditures.

How much larger does our military need to be than the second largest military? Do we have to be seven times as large, or is five times as large big enough?