Parenting & Family Quote by Carol Moseley Braun

The line is a neat piece of intergenerational jujitsu: it takes the warm glow of “responsibility” and pins it to a concrete policy promise - retirement security - where moral language usually goes vague. Carol Moseley Braun isn’t just talking about pensions; she’s trying to reframe the argument so that preserving entitlements reads less like selfishness from older voters and more like stewardship on behalf of kids who can’t vote yet.

The key move is the phrase “accept our generation’s responsibility.” It implies there’s been evasion, a temptation to let demographic math and political cowardice slide the burden onto someone else. “Actually” does quiet work here, signaling that slogans about family values don’t count unless they cash out in budgets. Then she raises the floor with “no less,” not “more.” That’s strategic: it positions her stance as fairness, not expansion, and it invites listeners who might resist “new programs” to see the status quo as a moral baseline.

The subtext is a rejection of austerity rhetoric that pits age groups against each other - the idea that helping retirees necessarily steals from the young. Braun flips it: failing to secure retirement is what robs the next generation, because insecurity reproduces itself. In late-20th-century American politics, with Social Security’s solvency a perennial target and privatization schemes frequently floated, she’s arguing that the real inheritance we owe isn’t just money; it’s a social contract sturdy enough to survive political fashion.