On Borrowed Time: How the Growth in Entitlement Spending Threatens America's Future

Transaction Publishers

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Entitlements represent one of the largest and fastest-growing portions of the federal budget. They are regarded as sacrosanct by lawmakers, yet many people see them as one of the greatest threats to the American Dream. This volume argues that by sacrificing the future in order to pay ever-larger federal benefits through programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions, entitlement spending has become a crushing burden to American workers. Peterson and Howe destroy myths surrounding entitlement spending. They show that the bulk of it does not go to the poor. The majority of the elderly are not needy and dependent. Entitlement programs, not defense spending, consume the largest share of the federal budget. In short, we cannot balance the budget without reducing entitlement spending. In a country that demands critical investments--improving public education, alleviating poverty, increasing professional opportunity--growth in entitlement spending is unaffordable. On Borrowed Time is an important and timely book that will be mandatory reading for policymakers, politicians, economists, and a general public concerned with its financial future. "This book should be read by everyone who wants to understand how government spending can be controlled."--Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University "A powerful analyses and policy prescriptions which will challenge every thoughtful person coping with the dilemma of providing humane, but cost effective, entitlements."--Michael J. Boskin, Professor of Economics, Stanford University Peter G. Peterson is chairman and co-founder of The Blackstone Group. He is chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, founding chairman of the Institute for International Economics (Washington, D.C.), founding president of The Concord Coalition, and co-chair of The Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprises. Neil Howe is a partner and co-founder of LifeCourse Associates, a Virginia-based consulting firm and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A historian, economist, author, and speaker, he is the co-author (with William Strauss) of several books, including Generations, The Fourth Turning, and Millennials Rising.