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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

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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.
What do we learn about the generational war?
选项 A、It’ s getting worse and worse.
B、It’ s a fact accepted by everyone.
C、It appeared because collective obligations didn’t work for families.
D、It’ s becoming less serious than before.
答案A
解析 根据题干中的关键词generational war，将本题定位于第1段。该段提到，“我们陷入了一场代际之战，在形势改善前可能变得更糟。没人愿意承认这一点，因为这丑陋不堪，人们避之不及。父母理应照顾孩子，反之亦然，孩子应该照料年迈的父母。对家庭来说，共同义务有效，但是对家庭起作用的事情对全社会却不一定适用。美国代际之战愈演愈烈。”分析选项，故答案为A(它变得越来越严重)。B项和D项与原文意思刚好相反，故排除；对于C项，原文的意思是，共同义务对家庭来说可能是有效的，但对于社会，就未必如此了，可见之所以出现代际之战并不是因为共同义务在家庭中无效，而是因为它在整个社会中无效，故排除C项。
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