As a student, I am all too familiar with debt. I am borrowing money from banks, the government and my family right now to pay for a college education that I hope will be a lucrative investment. But it is worth it because I have faith that later in life, I will be able to pay off these debts and live a comfortable lifestyle. So in this case, and in the case of many of my classmates, debt is good because betting on our futures is a winning bet. One of the first things you learn in international finance is that life is intertemporal and that deficits now mean that we are borrowing against our future. And anyone who has seen The Godfather knows that all debts must be paid back eventually. I am fine with the debt I am taking upon myself because I know I will be able to pay it off, but what about the debt that others have dumped on me without my consent? The national debt is roughly $9 trillion, the cost of the war in Iraq and ongoing occupation is roughly $460 billion and the cost of bringing America’s infrastructure up to passable levels – according to the American Society of Civil Engineers – is $1.6 trillion. Add to that the incalculable cost of stopping global warming or dealing with the disasters to follow; the massive costs of adjusting to a less energy-intensive society that will result from the eventual oil supply’s peak and decline; and the trillions of dollars we will pay into Social Security and Medicare for the baby boomers, and we rack up a staggering bill. How are we, as a generation, going to pay for this? We can fob some of it off onto others. A sudden, massive withdrawal from Iraq could cause a regional war whose aftermath could be handled by the United Nations, nearly freeing the American taxpayer from footing that bill. However, since the U.S. government provides a great deal of the U.N.’s funding, this would be more like refinancing the loan, not avoiding it. We could cut spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare or the military. But suggesting any of those three is not politically feasible for anyone who likes being reelected. Even if spending in these fields was cut, some expenses will inevitably have to be paid. Also, we will have to either pay to fight global warming and wean ourselves off of oil and other fossil fuels, or we will have to pay to clean up society after droughts, flooding, forest fires, heat waves and sea levels increase. Shifting subsidies from the coal and oil industries to the development of solar, wind and geothermal energy would be much cheaper than dealing with the effects of global warming. We cannot afford to borrow against our future. The effects will be felt in our lifetime. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment of 2004 predicts that in 2050, when I am 62, the Arctic Ocean could be ice free. According to the 2006 article in Time Magazine “Feeling the Heat,” more than a million species could be driven to extinction by the time I am 62. There are many problems in this country and in this world that need to be fixed but are being ignored right now. Our generation will be forced to deal with these issues because we will feel their effects and will not be able to ignore them any longer. Our generation will have to pay a great price for the spendthrift nature of the baby boomers. The question is: How big will this bill be? Will the boomers clean up after themselves, or will they leave it to us to roll up our sleeves? Our grandparents had no choice but to fight to protect freedom and democracy and so they are revered as “the Greatest Generation.” If the boomers do not better manage our nation’s resources, our collective inheritance, we too will have no choice but to fight. Ours will not be a war against fascism, but a war against the toxic and neglectful legacy of our parents. I hope that some of these issues are cleared up by the current generation of leaders. Current research in renewable energy generation and railway and roadway renewal will yield dividends for us down the line. But when I see that President George W. Bush’s proposal for a $145 billion economic stimulus plan is built on cutting taxes to rejuvenate the economy while ignoring infrastructure investment because it would not pump money into the economy fast enough, I think that maybe they just do not care seriously about our future. Not only does this plan, which has bipartisan support, not update our seriously outdated infrastructure, but it will also increase the budget deficit that our generation will have to pay back through high taxes. The problem with taking financial lessons from the boomers is that they seem to think they can run up an astronomical debt while making no plans for its eventual repayment. If I did not pay back a friend from whom I borrowed money, he would get very mad at me (as he should). We are the ones who are lending to our parents’ generation, we are the ones who are not being paid back and we are the ones who should be getting mad. We are going to have a heavy financial burden in the future, unless the current leaders start paying off their own debt. Too bad we cannot hire a collector to ensure our loan gets paid back. Carter Lavin is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.