We sure need new blood, but we also need some fairness in the treatment b/ the elderly and the young. Big money is being lavishly spent on keeping the elderly happy at the expense of education for the young. Ironic since the young represent a better future, but why? Simple. Because the former votes and the latter can't.:confused:
(The article is a bit old, but if the situation has changed, it has been for the worse)
"Expenditures for the elderly at all levels of government exceed the amount spent on children, age seventeen and under, including the total amount spent on public education, by more than three to one."
One solution I see, without "upsetting" the elderly, is giving parents the choice to raise the children in coops--away from the bureaucrats who got this jungle upside down...
Though you can provide the elderly great benefits without incurring in big waste, like bloated medical expenses. But, hey, what can you expect our politicians to do other than like the ostrich when they smell trouble?

Politics and the Elderly: Toward a Sharing of Resources
by Harold E. Fey
Inequities in the distribution of what have come to be called "entitlements" need to receive more attention in American society. The disproportion of public funds paid to the elderly as over against payments and services to children is a scandal, but almost nobody is scandalized. A look at the facts and a little speculation concerning the consequences of the disparity are in order.
In the discussion that follows, my indebtedness to Philip Longman's Born to Pay: The New Politics of Aging in America (Houghton Mifflin, 1987) is substantial. Longman identifies the key fact by quoting a 1977 study by economists Spencer Spengler and Robert Clark: "Expenditures for the elderly at all levels of government exceed the amount spent on children, age seventeen and under, including the total amount spent on public education, by more than three to one." Noting that "the disparity is much larger today," Longman states that "Social Security pensions and Medicare pensions have become much more generous while welfare and educational programs for the young have been cut. " He adds: "At the federal level, the disproportion is about ten to one. "
Public apathy explains the inadequate emphasis that the presidential candidates gave to education in the recent campaign. Neither candidate acknowledged that the U.S. is falling behind other industrial democracies because our educational standards have slumped, particularly in mathematics and science. Our nation is suffering and will suffer more from our comparative neglect of our children. Neither the public nor the government takes seriously the findings of several national commissions which have deplored this neglect of the younger generation.
Reasons for the disparate treatment of the old and the young include the simple fact that elders vote and children do not. Entitlements for the elderly have become the sacred cow of American politics. Officeholders and candidates threaten entitlements at their peril. One of the most powerful lobbies in Washington is run by the 29-million-member American Association of Retired Persons--which Newsweek recently described as "the big gray money machine."
(snip)
The importance of equal treatment of the young has been raised by several educational and financial groups. In 1981 the National Commission on Excellence in Education was appointed by Secretary of Education T. H. Bell. Eighteen eminent persons studied the problem and reported in 1985 that "our nation is at risk." The commission did not mince words:
Our once unchallenged pre-eminence in commerce, industry, science and technical innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. . . . The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur?others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments. . . . We have done it to ourselves--squandered the gains made after Sputnik, dismantled our educational support systems.
The tone of grave concern runs throughout the report, yet its impact on our government has been negligible.
This commission, which included the president of Yale University, teachers and officials of leading educational organizations, did not regard our situation as hopeless:
We do not believe that public commitment to excellence in educational reform must be made at the expense of a strong public commitment to the equitable treatment of our diverse population. The twin goals of equity and high-quality scholarship have profound and practical meaning for our economy and society, and we cannot permit one to yield to the other in principle or in practice. To do so would deprive young people of their chance to live and learn according to their aspirations and abilities. It also would lead to an accommodation to mediocrity in our society or to the creation of an undemocratic elitism.
more...
http://www.religion-...e.asp?title=211