It’s time. There are millions of young people that do get it. The debt is destroying their future. The Millenials have the numbers. The majority voted for Obama. They considered him the lesser of two evils. But there are many who realize what is at stake. They are organizing and making themselves heard. They are aligned with David Walker. That’s a good start.
Meet the millennial deficit hawks
Posted by Suzy Khimm on November 12, 2012 at 3:31 pm
A group of young deficit hawks is making it their mission to warn the Millennial Generation about the dangers of an out-of-control deficit through a new organization called the Can Kicks Back. “The debt is now the top of line issue for most young people. We believe it’s the most important issue,” said Ryan Schoenike, president of the group. “Not addressing this issue leads to a lower situation — higher taxes, less jobs, more debt.”
The Can Kicks Back, which officially launches today with an event at George Washington University, is joining the chorus of outside groups calling for a bipartisan “grand bargain” using Simpson-Bowles as a starting point, achieving at least $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. In fact, both Alan Simpson and Erksine Bowles are on the advisory board for the group, along with former comptroller general David Walker, a prominent deficit hawk whom some members of the group tried to recruit for a presidential run in 2012.
The group is launching a grass-roots effort to get Millennials to call members of Congress to push for a grand bargain, pushing the message through online advertising and partnerships with groups such as Fix the Debt, which has rallied CEOs. (The name “the Can Kicks Back” is a reference to the criticism that lawmakers have simply “kicked the can down the road” on the deficit.) Led by twenty- and thirtysomethings, the effort has the potential to put a more youthful face on the anti-deficit movement, which has often been identified with octogenerians like Alan Simpson and Pete Peterson.
But their warnings are similarly dire: If we fail to curb the long-term deficit, the Can Kicks Back says that “taxes could be as much as double current rates,” that it will be “difficult to support a family” and that “future investment” in education and R&D has already been cut to pay off our current and past debts.
As Schoenike acknowledges, Millennials are less inclined to see deficit reduction as a priority as compared to other age groups, and they’re more concerned about government action to fix the economy: 41 percent of Millenials think that reducing the budget deficit is more important than “spending to help the economy recover,” while 55 percent think that economic stimulus is more important, according to a 2011 Pew study. That seems to reflect the ongoing struggles that younger Americans are facing in a weak economy: The unemployment rate for 18- to 34-year-olds is 10.8 percent, compared to 7.9 percent for the general population.
The Can Kicks Back claims that achieving long-term deficit reduction will create “4 million jobs” by eliminating uncertainty within the business community. But it isn’t stressing short-term stimulus to achieve job growth. “We don’t have a particular opinion that we need stimulus now, or that we don’t need stimulus,” Schoenike said. “We’re not saying we can’t spend money, but eventually someone’s going to have to pay for this stuff.”
Maddie's Mom says:
And I think David Walker is aligned with Ross Perot.
Excellent.
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13th November 2012 at 9:48 am
Eddie says:
Good show.
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13th November 2012 at 9:52 am
AWD says:
Hilarious. These kids have no future, little or no job prospects, huge student loan debts, and almost half are living with their parents. They are at the bottom of the political power pile, nobody gives a shit about them, and they are worried about the deficit? And they voted for Obama? They are part of the problem, not the solution.
Nobody else gives a shit about the deficit, especially the criminal politicians and the MSM. As I’ve stated a hundred times, Obama is going to raise welfare spending by another 30% in his second term, after already raised it more than 30% his first term. That’s a 60% increase in welfare spending in 8 years. He’s signing up more and more people for the FSA, his legacy to whatever democrat tries to run for office in 2016, a sure win, a lock, with 30% more people in the free shit army.
These stupid shits voted for Obama, who is giving away more free shit than any president in history, redistributing, socialism in reality. They need to pull their heads out of their asses and go after the culprit. Nothing else will work.
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13th November 2012 at 11:13 am
Thinker says:
Smart kids. There’s another group petitioning to be allowed to “give back” their university degrees in exchange for wiping clean their student loan debt.
These kids get it. None of this will be granted, but at least they’re drawing attention to the massive fraud committed against them.
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13th November 2012 at 11:21 am
DaveL says:
“Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.” -Ben Franklin
Shame that so many can’t understand this.
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13th November 2012 at 11:27 am
Administrator says:
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13th November 2012 at 11:34 am
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
+1000 AWD:
That all sounds very nice, ya buddy, the Millennials saying “solve this problem NOW”. Too bad that means at least a 50% drop in ALL federal spending, with the corresponding drop in GDP that will entail, with the corresponding economic contraction that will occur on top of an EPA gone wild that will make all energy, food and water prohibitively expensive.
Oh, and there is that little thing called the death of the USD, forgot about that.
These mush brained stupid shits voted for Obama in droves.
Fine. Let them experience the terrible economic pain they voted for when Mommy’s SS check or retirement income halves, when Mommy can’t pay the electrical bill cuz it’s doubled due to Obama’s War on Coal, when Mommy has to sell the house where they’ve been living in the basement due to all taxes doubling to pay for the welfare state, no more trips to Starbuck’s in Mommy’s car, and let me know how that grocery bill at Whole Foods is workin’ out for ya.
I didn’t even mention the debt servitude these kids are gonna face with their $100K college loans for a degree in Gender Studies, trying to pay that off with a minimum wage 29 hour/week job, thanks to Obamacare.
Hey! Mebbe they can work off their educational debt by joining Obama’s little private army of brownshirts, yeah, that’s the ticket!!
Of course, that brownshirt strategy worked out so well for the Hitler Youth.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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13th November 2012 at 11:39 am
AWD says:
That’s even more hilarious. Trade your diploma back? OMG. We don’t like the baby, can we stuff it back up the vagina into the uterus and hope it goes away? Youngsters are victims of a scam (higher education), and want to go back in time and undo it? They were dumb enough to go into debt, and, like all entitled parasites, want the government to fix their problems?
Meanwhile, they’re driving Toyotas, Hyundais, pissing their money away on Chinese-made icrap, and a hundred other products made someplace else, shipping $500 billion out of the country every year, and wonder why they don’t have jobs. They obviously didn’t learn shit in school, except how to comply with diversity training and how to be politically correct, and that it’s cool to expect the government to solve their problems. Never mind the tattoos and piercings, Uncle Obama will fix everything, that’s why they voted for him. Ooops, Obama doesn’t give a flying fuck about youngsters. We are so doomed.
Case in point. This dumbshit voted for Obama, twice:
“a woman is seen playing the part of an ecstatic 2008 Obama supporter interviewing her 2012 self. The 2008 version is overtaken with hope and change, while the 2012 introduces her to some harsh realities about what that turned into (Dad couldn’t get his asthma meds, she‘s now living in Mom’s basement because she can’t find a job, the green jobs program was an utter failure, America is not popular in the world, and there are tax hikes).”
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13th November 2012 at 11:56 am
sangell says:
If GDP was a valid measure of economic well being why the horror tales over having it shrink a bit?
For example US GDP in 2000 was about $10 trillion. In constant dollars in 2011 it was about $11.5.
Life in the US in the year 2000 was not hellish. Its true we did not have the internet on our cellphones and our TV’s were thicker boxier affairs but they worked but are iphones and flat screen TV’s and monitors really worth 15% of our GDP? Has the massive increase in government spending and accumulated debt improved our lives at all? To be honest, I’d rather return to my year 2000 standard of living complete with my Nokia cellphone and my bulky TV and be rid of 11 trillion in government debt, get 3 or 4% interest on my savings and not worry that the whole goddamn financial system is near collapse!
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13th November 2012 at 12:20 pm
AWD says:
When the student loan default rate goes North of 50%, Obama will mandate forgiveness, and will also mandate Federal “work study” programs for those who default. The “work study” jobs will be as follows:
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13th November 2012 at 12:27 pm
Eddie says:
Hating on some other generation is like pissing your pants. It gives you a warm feeing intially, but ultimately it’s counterproductive…and it, uh, stinks.
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13th November 2012 at 12:40 pm
AWD says:
The mood of the country continues to blacken. A simmering anger boils beneath the surface of an everyday façade of normalcy. The middle class majority is being squeezed in a vice, with the rich powerful plutocrats on Wall Street and in Washington DC stealing their hard earned net worth through financial scams, the gutting of our industrial base and a tax system designed to benefit those who write the laws on one side and the parasitic willfully ignorant underclass that is sustained only through the extraction of taxes from the working middle class on the other side. Our society has become a hunger games tournament, with the few benefitting while the many scramble to survive. The stench of class warfare is in the air. The generational resentment and rage is palatable as the Millenial generation has taken on a trillion dollars of student loan debt at the behest of the Federal government, Wall Street and older generations, only to graduate into a jobless economy. The generational contract has been broken, as the older generations will not or cannot leave the workforce due to their own financial missteps. Younger generations are being denied entry level positions, even as the older generations expect them to fund their retirements and healthcare. This presidential election will only exacerbate the anger, disappointment, bitterness and fury among the populace, no matter who wins.
~ Strauss & Howe, 1997.
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13th November 2012 at 1:21 pm
Thinker says:
Rather prescient, wasn’t it?
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13th November 2012 at 1:32 pm
Administrator says:
AWD
Those are the words of Admin, not Strauss & Howe. That dude is one helluva writer when he puts his mind to it.
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13th November 2012 at 1:33 pm
Thinker says:
LOL.. no wonder it made so much sense, Jim!
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13th November 2012 at 1:47 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
They are trying to straighten the drapes while the house burns down around them.
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13th November 2012 at 1:48 pm
Bob says:
It was “Hell no, we won’t go!” in the 1960′s.
In the 2010′s it will be “No way, we won’t pay!”
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13th November 2012 at 6:56 pm
Novista says:
For fuck’s sake, AWD
Is there any group you won’t bitch about? You read the article (I guess) and instantly you see yet another monolith — another ‘they’. Like they, the boomers, they, the obese, they, toyota et al, they, the Chinese. You reckon Schoenike, a first-wave Millennial, voted for the big O? I’d say you’re FITH.
I’d venture a guess that all the first voters in 2008 lost their naivete in the last four years, which is why the vouth vote was down 4% for Obama in 2012 compared to 2008. And there were likely some Millennials in the 12 million more non-voters. And yeah, some of the 60% probably were more in the camp of voting against Mistuh Etch-a-Sketch.
How many of the young Ron Paul enthusiasts went for Obama? Reckon?
You’ve wiped out most of the U.S. population with your vitriol … “all those negative waves” … so
Get fucked!
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13th November 2012 at 9:26 pm
BrentB says:
Well, the big spending on the Romney campaign failed to get the wall street crown direct control of the white house. Will this alternate approach work?
The people and money behind this crowd – same as the earlier crowd.
Want Pete Peterson to run the country? The Koch brothers? Joint kick the can and you can help directly.
But don’t expect any progressive solutions. The only solutions that will be proposed are those already approved by Wall Street and the big money boys who bankroll Romney.
Or, perhaps it would be easier to skip the middle man and join the Republican Party.
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13th November 2012 at 2:05 pm
randy says:
All bulshit…
Propaganda to disguise the fact that the rich (the very small minority of america) want to keep their tax cut…
They crashed the markets last time to keep them, now a lame duck democrat has nothing to lose by taxing them bastards back to the rate republicans (and everyone else) paid when the great Reagan was president…
Surprisingly, Obama never spoke about reagans capital gains tax rates, after watchin the republicans bring out reagan evry time they wanted to play the “lets move back thirty years” philosophic thinking…
After watching the republicans support Mcain and Sarah, then watching them twist themselves up supporting the mormon flip flopper (interesting that both mormon and muslim begin with an M…) my heart sings a little song as they self-sabotage, killing ever ounce of credibility with ever breathless support of the right to life….
Ahhh you americans….you make me laugh…
How can anyone in their right mind vote for Bachman….unbelievable…
Everybody in the republican primary beat Romeny at some point, yet the media had us believe that Romeny was a real challenger…
Frickin morons…
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13th November 2012 at 2:32 pm