But a new group forming in Washington, D.C., wants to put those programs firmly on the 2008 agenda. Emphasizing the need for benefit reductions, especially by senior citizens, may put the group on a collision course with AARP.

Americans for Generational Equity—which adds up to the handy acronym of AGE—was a 1980s think tank that warned America could go broke paying for programs for the elderly. It is being relaunched now that some believe its prediction is coming true.

This year, entitlements will devour 46 percent of non-interest federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office projects that they will account for 68 percent by 2030.

AGE, which has landed former Watson Wyatt Worldwide executive Sylvester Schieber as president, will sponsor research, host forums and try to forge bipartisan policy consensus. The organization's message might also resonate in the business world because a federal benefits implosion could make employers' pension and retiree health care programs the country's only safety net. With the diminishing number of company-paid retirement plans and the paring back of retiree health care, that's a frayed net already.

AGE's goal is to embed one thought into the minds of voters: The baby boom generation is likely to be the first in history to leave the subsequent generation poorer, thanks to those skyrocketing entitlement costs.

"We're going to be a moral voice," says Paul Hewitt, former deputy commissioner for policy at the Social Security Administration and the organization's executive director. "If we can't leave the next generation better off, we don't deserve these benefits."

The group also is speaking for Generations X and Y, who tend to sit on the political sidelines, Hewitt says. AGE will "make sure the voices of the younger generations are heard in the debate because they don't vote," says Hewitt, 54.

Individual corporations have not signed up to join AGE, but James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, is on the board of trustees. The council represents more than 200 large companies.

AGE's approach may put the group up against AARP, the potent senior lobby. AARP often makes the case that it is protecting the benefits that older Americans have financed with their taxes.

"You would think these older people would care about their grandchildren, but that doesn't seem to be the case," says Laurence Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University who is working with AGE.

The key to a dialogue about reducing entitlement spending is helping Americans see the connection between abstract trillion-dollar figures and their everyday lives by talking about "income security policy," according to former Sen. David Durenburger, R-Minnesota. Durenburger is an AGE founder.

Income security encompasses everything from personal savings to home equity to health insurance, he says. If Americans start to think earlier in their working lives about how to provide for their own retirement by putting more money into such vehicles, they can be less dependent on government programs-which might not be there for them by the time they reach old age anyway.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.