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 Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found pension costs averaged 7.9 percent of tax revenues, but those of many cities were much higher: 17 percent in Chicago, 15 percent in Springfield, Mass., and 12.9 percent in New York. Health benefits add to costs.

At the federal level, even this sloppy generational reckoning is missing. The elderly’s interests are running roughshod over other national concerns . 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.