For most of the last 30 years I've heard politicians say that taxes must be lowered more and more, otherwise their children and grandchildren will face economic ruin from all that national debt. Turns out that all those low taxes had two effects: the rich got richer -- Mitt Romney's children and grandchildren are doing great, thanks! -- while non-wealthy young people got crushed by the consequences of pushing off national investment. When allied to the great increases in lifespan during the same period, as well as tax and development policies that explicitly favor the homeowners of the past rather than the workers of the present, we now have a historically-anomalous situation where the incomes of peak-age workers are shrinking in relation to those of retired people.

And yet, even now, it would be difficult to get policy makers to change these policies. 

It seems like Sanders and Trump would make more national investments. 

Perhaps their popularity is in part a reflection of that.