Most people are generally aware of the graying of America. Since 1900 the total U.S. population has tripled while the number of elderly has risen eightfold. According to the Alaska Commission on Aging, for the second year in a row, Alaska has the fastest-growing senior population of the fifty states. The number of older Alaskans is increasing at a rate more than four times the national average.

The Juneau Economic Development Council reports that Juneau has aged at a faster pace than the state or the nation. At the other end of the spectrum, the JEDC tells us that Juneau’s K-12 student population is down more than 800 students from peak levels a decade ago. According to current projections, the school district will lose another 183 students over the next three years.

Early this month David Brooks penned a column in the New York Times titled “The Geezers’ Crusade.” He writes that privately, the older generation is very generous with their heirs. He says that politically, however, the old are taking money, freedom and opportunity from the young. The columnist cites a statistic showing the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children and notes that pension costs in many states take money from education.

The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger might say that this is why we need politics: to “compress the ratio” between the $7 spent on the elderly and the $1 spent on the young. We can blame basic demographics for the disparity but in a way, special interest politics has exacerbated the generational inequity.

As a political force, retired people are formidable. They have time to organize, write letters and communicate regularly with each other and their elected officials. Most importantly, they vote in record numbers. According to opensecrets.org, the “Gray Lobby’s” political arm, the AARP, spent $21 million on lobbying in 2009. And according to the Washington Post, at $800 million, the AARP budget is five times larger than that of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. Wikipedia reports the AARP’s membership to be at least 35 million, about ten times the size of the NRA.

Politicians who take on the senior lobby get clobbered in elections. In Juneau, even an offhand comment suggesting our senior sales tax exemption should be reviewed is grounds for removal from office. Former Gov. Frank Murkowski made the tough decision to phase out the state’s $250 per month Longevity Bonus Program. He suffered politically for it.

Brooks says, “It now seems clear that the only way the U.S. is going to avoid an economic crisis is if the oldsters take it upon themselves to arise and force change. The young lack the political power. Only the old can … demand changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren.”

Writing in his blog last week, Andrew Halcro reminded us that Social Security and Medicare eat up 43 percent of the federal budget. He thinks we should “… raise the age for Social Security and Medicare so the programs more accurately reflect the longer life expectancy than when these programs began. Postponing eligibility for a few years and indexing it to life expectancy will spread out the draw on the country's two most expensive entitlement programs which both have solvency issues.”

In addition to enacting reforms, it’s also necessary to increase revenues. But that’s usually in the form of taxation that falls on the working young. Can we avoid generational bickering? Is there a new model for economic growth that in the near term can help forge an economically sustainable future for both the old and the young? Many of Alaska's seniors are the ones who built the state into one that could in turn provide for their retirement. It would be valuable if they and their lobbies could remind us how this first became possible. And when they join the discussion, I hope they bring their grandkids along.