View AASCU members

America’s Future


Summary

America’s financial future is clouded. Federal debt is rising (and will soon rise much faster). Prior to 1980, our national debt remained relatively small, less than a trillion dollars over a period of 40 years. Since 1980, however, the national debt has soared to almost 9 trillion dollars, an almost 900 % increase in less than 30 years. Now we face a perfect storm that threatens to become a major fiscal crisis. The rising costs of entitlement programs, particularly Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, threaten to take so much of the available funding as to eliminate all other services and operations of the national government; Medicare already spends more than it takes in. At the same time, the United States spends more on defense that all other nations on earth combined. Yet ironically, in the face of these increased costs in entitlement programs and military spending, the American public seems to believe that no one should pay more taxes. These rising costs and lowered political will to pay for them makes a mockery of fiscal responsibility. Rapidly rising spending, deficits and debt are crowding out spending on needed investments in science, environment, infrastructure, and other domestic discretionary programs. Our dismal national fiscal circumstances could permanently weaken America’s ability to respond to the challenges of a new generation and could severely harm our nation’s and our citizens’ future. We must act in a bipartisan fashion to restore fiscal health in order to guarantee that the future for our children and children’s children remains bright.

One way of addressing this fiscal crisis is to engage the next generation, the generation that will have to pay these debts and address a financial system out of control. What might college students do to educate themselves and their communities about the need for a bipartisan solution to the looming fiscal crisis?

This initiative will bring together 9 colleges and universities that are participating in the American Democracy Project (ADP). ADP will form a partnership with Public Agenda to experiment and pilot programs on college campuses that foster increased citizen understanding of our nation’s fiscal circumstances, and the policy options we confront to address these complex issues

Participants

Dalton State College
Emporia State University
Fort Lewis College
Keene State University
Lyndon State College
Stephen F. Austin State University *
The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey *
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Partner Organizations

The New York Times
Public Agenda