You are confusing your generations. The people currently in power are 50-70 years old, ie born in 1940-1960. They were children during the WWII era and Eisenhower administration, and had nothing to do with the Bomb, the Apollo program or interstates.
For example, Feynman, one of the "young kids" of the Manhattan project, was born in 1918.
So, it's the Baby Boomers, the _children_ of the Greatest Generation that did all those great government infrastructure and technology buildouts, who are holding us back from being able to do those great things again? My mistake, then!
But then it begs the question: Why do they want to do that?
I really have a problem with the labeling "Greatest Generation". It seems misplaced given the entire history of the USA and the constant struggle to be better. It also shows a pretty horrible sense of history about the founders, and it forgets that the whole point is to make sure the next generation is greater than the current.
If the next generation isn't "greater", then the USA is in decline and the one who didn't enable their children to be greater shouldn't be held up as greatest.
I believe, and think I do so based on reasonable evidence, that the "Greatest Generation" was in fact particularly good, and the Baby Boomers were quite possibly the worst cohort in the US of all time. Gen X was probably on par with the Greatest Generation in many ways, and Gen Y/Mill are too soon to tell, but certainly appear better than Baby Boomers.
While I might not push the "redact the boomers" button (maybe...), it would pretty much fix all of the major problems in the US. Their outsize numbers have imposed a lot of costs on society, so even if their politics and economics weren't also destructive, they would have seriously stressed medicare and social security. Couple that with that seems to be the worst of both conservatism (lack of investment) and liberalism (lack of discipline), and they're a serious threat.
I guess my central thesis is if generation n didn't teach/push generation n+1 to be better than them, then they failed at continuing the chain and don't deserve the title.
I think Wilson and FDR's group did more damage to the future US generations than the Baby Boomers did.
For example, Feynman, one of the "young kids" of the Manhattan project, was born in 1918.