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  3. We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets better. No one wants to admit this, because it’ s ugly

We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets better. No one wants to admit this, because it’ s ugly

admin2019-09-14  97
问题     We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets better. No one wants to admit this, because it’ s ugly and unwelcome. Parents are supposed to care for their children, and children are supposed to care for their aging parents. For families, these collective obligations may work. But what makes sense for families doesn’ t always succeed for society as a whole. The clash of generations is intensifying.
    Last week, a federal judge ruled that Detroit qualifies for municipal bankruptcy. This almost certainly means that pensions and health benefits for the city’ s retired workers will be trimmed. There’ s a basic conflict between paying for all retirement benefits and supporting adequate current services. Detroit’ s retired workers have swelled, benefits were not adequately funded and the city’ s economy isn’ t strong enough to do both without self-defeating tax increases.
    The math is unforgiving. Detroit now has two retirees for every active worker, reports the Detroit Free Press. Satisfying retirees inevitably shortchanges their children and grandchildren.
    What’ s occurring at the state and local levels is an incomplete and imperfect effort to balance the interests of young and old. Conflicts vary depending on benefits ’ generosity and the strength—or weakness—of local economies. A study of 173 cities by the Centre for Retirement Research at Boston College found pension costs averaged 7. 9 percent of tax revenues, but many cities were much higher.
    At the federal level, even this sloppy generational reckoning is missing. The elderly ’ s interests are running roughshod over other national interests. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs heavily for the retired—dominate the budget, accounting for about 44 percent of spending, and have been largely excluded from deficit-reduction measures. Almost all the adjustment falls on other programs: defense, courts, research, roads, education, or higher taxes. The federal government is increasingly a transfer agency: taxes from the young and middle-aged are spent on the elderly.
    The explanation for this is politics. For states and localities, benefit cuts affect government workers—a powerful but small group—while at the federal level, it’ s all the elderly, a huge group that includes everyone’ s parents and grandparents. As a result, the combat has been lopsided. Political leaders of both parties have avoided distasteful choices. Younger US citizens have generally been clueless about how shifting demographics threaten their future government services and taxes.
    Generational warfare upsets us because it pits parents against children. The elderly ’ s wellbeing partly reflects Social Security and Medicare’ s success: but it also comes at the expense of younger US citizens. We pretend these discomforting conflicts don’ t exist. But they do and are rooted in changing demographics, slower economic growth and competing concepts of old age.
    They cannot be dissolved by pious invocations that "we’ re all in this together". To date, the contest has been one-sided: now the other side is beginning to stir.
Why are the elderly’ s interests above other national concerns in the U. S. ?
选项 A、Because they are respected as parents and grandparents.
B、Because they are too old to support themselves.
C、Because their interests are protected by the law.
D、Because the elderly consist most of the U. S. government.
答案D
解析 根据题干中的关键词the elderly’s interests，national concerns，可将本题定位于第5、6段。第5段第2句指出了题干所述现象，即老年人的利益要高于其他国家利益。但通读该段可知，该段并没有指出出现这种现象的原因，而是在第6段给出了解释，即因为联邦政府几乎由老人组成，削减老年人福利就会影响他们自身利益，故答案为D(因为美国政府成员主要由老年人组成)。A、B和C三项，都不是主要原因，而且原文也没有列出，故排除。
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