Amid the ongoing debate about today's pressing economic problems, far too little attention is being paid to the implications of current economic policies for the future. Laurence J. Kotlikoff shows in this alarming and important book, that if current policies are left unchanged, unborn generations of Americans will pay significantly higher taxes - at least 20% higher - than we do today. Furthermore, according to Kotlikoff, these policies could have devastating effects not only on the next generation but also on the baby boomers themselves, whose economic future is critically dependent on sound management of the Social Security system as we become an older society. In this searing indictment of conventional economic policy, Kotlikoff demonstrates that our nation has lost its direction by sacrificing long-range economic responsibility for short-term budget gimmickry. In Kotlikoff's proposed new fiscal measure, called generational accounting, already widely admired by key figures in government and public finance, he offers an entirely new way of assessing the government's economic actions as they affect current and future generations. By providing a long-needed discipline for economic policies that typically focus on immediate benefits, and ignore the lasting consequences of government behavior, his proposal enables policy makers as well as the public to see who pays, and when, for what the government spends. Senator Bill Bradley, in letters to the Comptroller General of the United States, and to the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, has recommended that the United States adopt generational accounting. Says Bradley, "Generational accounting forces us to confront the future implications of current policies in a systematic way, by imposing a longer-term perspective on fiscal policy." Kotlikoff boldly articulates the point that many Americans already intuitively understand: the deficit number usually cited is an arbitrary accounting figure manipulated by public officials to serve their political objectives but has no real economic content. In failing to give a proper account of its fiscal actions, the government, Kotlikoff shows, has left citizens completely uninformed as to how they will fare overtime, as changing demographics continue to work their effects on the public pocketbook. Kotlikoff warns that unless greater accountability in the making of economic policy is introduced, America faces the danger of declining into a society of injustice and intergenerational resentment.

Generational Accounting

Business & Money

KOTLIKOFF

Economics

Free Press

MACROECON INTEG APPR W/3.5 DK

AUERBACH

International Thomson Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by KOTLIKOFF. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by KOTLIKOFF