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  3. We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets bet

We are locked in a generational war, which will get worse before it gets bet

游客2024-03-13  47
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. [br] Which of the following is not the reason why Detroit may reduce the benefits for its retired workers?
选项 A、Because there’ s an increasing number of retired workers.
B、Because there are not enough government funds.
C、Because it wants to stimulate the city’ s economy.
D、Because it’ s destructive to raise taxes.
答案 C
解析 根据题于中的关键词Detroit，reduce the benefits，retired workers，将本题定位于第2段。该段提到，底特律城符合市政破产条件，几乎百分之百意味着该市退休人员的养老金和保健福利金将被削减；这是因为底特律退休人员增多，政府无法提供充足的资金，城市经济萎靡不振，如果不提高税收，该市不可能兼顾退休金支付与维持市政服务，而提高赋税又恰恰是自掘坟墓之举，因此只能减少退休工人的福利，A、B和D三项都是原文中提到的原因，故答案为C(因为它想要刺激该市的经济)。
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