and Patrick Locke for helpful comments. The opinions expressed herein are those of the

1Introduction Federal fiscal policy tilted considerably toward providing a financial free ride to retirees during the latter half of the 20th century — a tilt that continues to this day. In doing so, it threatens to place increasingly heavier fiscal burdens on young and future generations. The rationale usually proffered for adopting a fiscal stance favoring current generations is that future ones are likely to be much more productive and will enjoy higher incomes and living standards than those of today’s generations. Hence, young and future generations appear as a fount of wealth that can be extracted via the political system: These generations can be taxed (mostly without representation) to the benefit of today’s older generations. From this perspective, today’s children and future generations may be said to possess a “public-finance value ” for today’s older generations. They can be made to contribute more out of their future incomes to fund large and growing federal spending commitments toward existing generations. These commitments mainly arise from federal obligations to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits to today’s retirees and olde