Despite the Republican pretensions that they are concerned about budget deficits, the new house rules established by the 112th Congress have predictably put us on track for high deficits once again.

The new rule regarding spending dictates that increases in government spending must be directly offset by spending cuts. But it does not require that tax cuts be offset by spending cuts, nor does it require that attempted repeal of the health care reform, which would cost $230 billion over the next decade if successful, be offset with $230 billion of spending cuts elsewhere.

If the new Republican Congress was serious about the deficit, they would set up a rule that required that all spending and lost revenue be offset with cuts. By only requiring that spending be offset by cuts, they hope to make spending increases difficult, while making budget-busting tax breaks for the rich just as easy as they have been.

However, the dollars tacked on to the budget deficit through tax cuts are just as real as the dollars tacked on to the budget deficit through spending. Any approach that does not require offsetting both is simply not serious.

While we are usually pigeonholed into being a supporter of the blue team or the red team, and thus defending each party’s brand of deficit spending, students should realize that both parties are setting students up, and the younger generations in general, to pay back these debts plus interest at some point in the future.

In some cases, one might be willing to undergo deficits for specific reasons, like keeping poor people from dying in the streets, or providing a Keynesian boost to the bad economy.

But in the case of putting tax cuts for the rich onto the deficit, the government is effectively saying that our generation should give up some of our future income in order to give more money to millionaires in the present day.

If we thought about the current political situation in terms of generations instead of allowing ourselves to be dumped into this team rivalry, it would be obvious that these new rules that allow tax breaks without offsets are poised to effect a generational wealth transfer from our generation to the extremely wealthy members of the older generation.

Additionally, the new Congress and various state governments are aiming to cut the wages and benefits of public jobs that many of our current generation will be moving into. After the incompetence and greed of the super-rich created an economic crisis that decreased state government revenue by more than 30 percent, the dominant mainstream narrative now is that workers who had nothing to do with the crisis should pay for it.

If they are successful in this, it will be our generation that moves into these jobs and who will be paying for the crisis with future lost wages.

If we do not begin to realize that nearly every solution being forwarded right now is designed to ultimately put the burden of fixing the situation on us, there will be a rude awakening in the future. Our generation is already poised to become a lost generation, but if these proposed “solutions” go forward, our fate will be sealed.