to abandon welfare, pensions, health insurance, unemployment programs, family assistance, and child allowances. Their deficit soon fell by 3.5% of GDP in one year alone (Urresta 51). Sweden’s plan was three times as intense as Congress’ current plan, while cutting spending in half the time. As for cuts, everyone must suffer. As entitlement debates continue, "the interests of older Americans are being protected at the expense of young people," says Neil Howe and Bill Strauss (Rau M- 1). Older Americans have good reason to protect programs that they have paid into for years, but those programs spend an overall per capita amount of 11 times as much on elderly than that spent on children altogether (Rau M-1). The youth are the future of America, and we should protect them too. Currently, poverty in US is 3 times as likely to affect the very young than the very old. By balancing the budget, "interest rates come down, the economy picks up - we will rebound," says Representative James Greenwood (Cloud 3709), and everyone should be happy with that....
