Regarding this and Steuerle's comments about "the very undemocratic impact of our generation's promises to ourselves on the tax burden of the next", it seems like the famous Intergenerational Compact is finally beginning to take a beating in some quarters.

Even a legal authority, Sandra Day O'Connor, just had an article in the WaPo saying that for a contract to be valid it must be fully agreed to by both sides instead of being imposed by one on the other -- yes, even if it is a "social contract".

But the problem is, all these appearances before Congressional committees and words in WaPo op-eds don't reach the people who are driving the politics of the matter -- which is why McCain and Obama aren't merely mute on all this but actually are promising more tax cuts and more entitlements that would make things trillions of dollars worse.

Some years back Gordon Tullock, IIRC, suggested that since economics (unlike say physics and chemistry) is applied through politics, the publishing requirement of professional economists should mandate a certain number of op-eds written for tabloid newspapers, and educational appearances at local political clubs and the like, and dealing with the all the rough feedback. Instead of only making presentations to each other that the political decision makers ignore while responding to the tabloid-reading voters and political-club influence dealers.

Now, I'm no professional economist but I have gone over to the AARP.org message boards, and I have given them links to the S&P report saying the US credit rating is on course to fall from AAA to "junk" in just the 10 years 2017 to 2027 ... to the CBO report on the 50% income tax increase (even on SS benefits!) needed by 2030 ... that dropping such a huge burden on the young is unfair ... and all the rest. Plenty of them.

And I can tell you that their response, in a polite description, is to go uniformly frothing mad. I mean, into a rage of name-calling anger. If you want to feel like you've had your "blood shed" in a discussion, try that.

And I submit that every economist who is really seriously concerned about this issue should try that.

Because all the Congress critters who hear all the alarming numbers in testimony are on their bottom line going to respond to that instead, just like they always have. They are going to think to themselves, "Yes, yes, these numbers are very bad, very alarming -- but I'm not going to get myself unelected this year, so we'll just have to put off dealing with it until to later ..." Like they have since 1994 or so.

IOW, there is going to be no political progress until at least some people at AARP and in like groups admit there actually is a problem to deal with.

So I am absolutely deadly, morbidly serious -- PhD economists who strongly care about this should go over to the AARP.org message boards and like forums to try to figure out some way to frame these issues so they, over there, grasp and understand and admit the problems -- to see if there is some way to turn at least part of the crowd away from the rabid denialists over there. Because that's what's necessary to get any real political progress before the very last fiscal gun-at-the-head minute, IMHO.

That's going to take one whole 'nuther kind of explaining, believe me, because citing commissions and CBO, GAO, S&P and the rest just doesn't cut it. And if you do go try, when you come back you'll really feel like a bloodied band of brothers.

But in the end, that's the audience that has to be reached and at least partly turned. IMHO, FWIW.

Plain talk and practical examples will get you further than wonkish charts and numbers.

Ask them what they think the economy will be like in 5 or 10 years. Will the grandkids have jobs with benefits? Will the grandkids have the same job for 30 years, with a nice pension? What is happening to our economy, and what is making us less competitive in the global economy? Are healthcare costs a factor?

Can we afford these deficits? Are we good stewards of the future? What can and should we be doing to build economic vitality?

Let's hope this legislation is adopted. I've been advocating something (more or less) like this for a long time. When I started blogging last year, it was one of my first posts: My 5/1/07 post http://www.redstate.com/blogs/brooksrob/2007/may/01/providing_cover_for_...

I share all the hopes and worries of those who have posted comments on this thread already. In a few weeks I'll be speaking at an AARP forum with the economic advisors of the presidential candidates, so I'll guess I'll be experiencing up close and personal what Jim Glass warns about. I'm hopeful that it will go well, but I hope there will be plenty of folks in the audience who can give me moral support! In my one month at the Concord Coalition, I've come to realize that trying to stay in the center can start to feel like a very lonely place. We have the conservatives accusing us of wanting to close the fiscal gap entirely by raising revenues, just because we talk about the need to raise revenues above their 40-year historical average as share of the economy. And we have the liberals accusing us of trying to sabotage Social Security because we argue that both Social Security and Medicare are on unsustainable paths--i.e., because we want to more adequately fund these entitlement programs. I thought this would seem like just common sense math to people, as MinnesotaMom suggests, but alas, it seems that any time one speaks a compromise, centrist viewpoint, the folks on either extreme accuse you of moving to the opposite side.