# Dead Men Are Running America's Budget, and Their Policies Are Bankrupting Your Kids

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/dead-men-are-running-america-s-budget-and-their-policies-are-bankrupting-your-kids
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501/dead-men-are-running-america-s-budget-and-their-policies-are-bankrupting-your-kids.md
Podcast: [Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff](https://stenobird.com/podcast/economics-matters-with-laurence-kotlikoff-6614501)
Published: 2026-09-11T14:57:29+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/economics-matters/episodes/Dead-Men-Are-Running-Americas-Budget--and-Their-Policies-Are-Bankrupting-Your-Kids-e3omnga
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/e8bfdf7c/podcast/play/125574090/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-8-11%2F431671541-44100-2-b312ff088a23a.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3519

## Resource

What does it mean when the co-founder of America's premier nonpartisan fiscal policy institution tells you that both parties have systematically abandoned the working class, the young, and the American Dream. Not by accident, but by design? Eugene Steuerle co-founded the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam, taught himself economics via correspondence course while serving in the Army, and has spent five decades at the center of every major U.S. fiscal debate. He has testified to Congress roughly two dozen times, received the Paul Samuelson Award for Dead Men Ruling , and has now followed it up with Abandoned , a damning account of how both political parties locked in spending for the elderly and wealthy while leaving everyone else behind. In this episode, Professor Kotlikoff sits down with his longtime friend and intellectual ally for an unsparing conversation about the structural forces driving America's fiscal crisis, who is getting hurt, and what it would actually take to fix it. What You'll Learn: [00:01:01] Why the Social Security shortfall is far worse than the headlines: a 31% immediate cut for all 71 million beneficiaries, or a payroll tax hike from 12.4% to 18.1% [00:14:54] The core thesis of Dead Men Ruling : how permanently baked-in entitlement spending has eliminated Congress's ability to do anything new [00:16:24] Why Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt already grow faster than total revenue over the next decade [00:17:07] The difference between financing consumption and financing upward mobility, and why that distinction explains the working class rebellion [00:32:00] Gene's CBO data: the elderly have gone from most likely to be poor in 1979 to least likely today, while non-elderly families moved in the opposi…

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