Teacher Gets Youths Fired Up Over Debt : Education: Students are challenged to help find a solution to the federal debt that their generation is likely to have to repay.

The nation’s youths are being challenged to begin a national debate on the trillions of dollars in federal debt today’s politicians would bequeath them.

Frank Pia, an English teacher at Mamaroneck High School, laid the groundwork for the debate by pioneering an awareness program he hopes will spread to every high school in the country.

“If budget reform is going to happen, it’s going to have to come from the little guy standing up and saying, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” Pia said.

Pia, 46, has recruited the aid of congressmen, financial experts and fellow teachers. Most important, he has captured the attention of students.

“Our country has always looked to young Americans for help,” said Cristina Montiero, one of his students. “Our class now believes that one of the best ways we can help America is to publicize this issue through a national debate.”

The national debt has reached nearly $3 trillion--a number Pia says he finds “numbing”--and is growing by $160 million a day, or $4.8 billion a month.

For fiscal 1991 alone, President Bush’s Administration is projecting a deficit of $64 billion, and if the economy falters, some fear that figure could double or even triple.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based group, says the per capita share of the national debt has grown to nearly $12,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Pia and 13 of his high school seniors spent one full year researching government spending, grappling not only with numbers but also with some of the apparent economic mysteries that allow an economy to flourish while nurtured only by a flood of red ink.

As part of their research the students interviewed Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), chairman of the House Budget Committee, who openly warned that today’s politicians are “robbing the future in order to hopefully survive the present.

“We are now the largest debtor nation in the world,” Panetta said. “We depend upon about $600 billion coming in from foreign investors . . . to be able to pay our bills.

“If they don’t show up one of these days to buy our treasury bonds we are in deep trouble, because we depend upon it,” the congressman said.

Panetta told the students that he felt it was incumbent upon them to look at the debt crisis “as the major issue that we have to deal with now.

“This debt that goes out to the future is going to be taken care of by others. You are the others,” he said.

From their year of research, Pia and his students came up with a 62-minute video titled “We’re Not Rebuilding,” which Pia hopes will be shown in other schools.

“The purpose of this production,” he said, “is twofold. First to familiarize both high school students and the general public about the severe problem the federal budget deficit represents to our society.

“Second, to ask every student government association, in every high school in the United States to publicize this issue by sponsoring debates in their high schools and in the communities, regarding the possible ways to reduce this problem.”

The video incorporates the “opposing viewpoint” technique, with students first defining various aspects of the problem, then debating the merits of possible solutions.

“The approach I took with my students during our research was one of examining issues, rather than personalities or political philosophies associated with those issues,” Pia said.

Experts also participated in the video production, supplementing or complementing information presented by the students.

In addition to Panetta, those who participated included Seymour Durst, creator and sponsor of The National Debt Clock, a billboard located above New York City’s 42nd Street that electronically monitors the nation’s debt. The ever-changing numbers are a reminder to passers-by of the constantly growing debt.

Other participants were Rep. Andy Ireland (R-Fla.), vice chairman of the House Defense Burden Sharing Committee and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio).

Pia plans to add another phase to the project, a satellite call-in question and answer session that will be taped and added to the video, extending the viewing time to 90 minutes.

“This would allow teachers to show the tape to students in two class periods,” he said.

In the conclusion of the video, the Mamaroneck students pose six questions that they believe should be the starting point for a national debate:

1. Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to require a balanced budget?

2. How can we identify and then cut wasteful entitlement programs without hurting either Americans or the American economy?

3. How is the defense of Europe, which makes up 60% of our defense budget, related to the defense of the United States?

4. How can we persuade our NATO allies that we can no longer afford to borrow money from foreign creditors to help pay for the defense of Europe?

5. How does the increased foreign ownership of U.S. assets affect the future of the United States?

6. How can we persuade both political parties that they must take mutual responsibility for raising taxes and cutting expenditures?

The last question, Pia said, may be the key to it all. “It is time to quit playing politics,” he said.