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June 24, 2005

The Young And The Ripped-Off

It's a good day for the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary ($). Another short article about Social Security, which follows this blog post by Jonathan Swanson, a SSC contributor:

It was just about 35 years ago that the youth movement made one of its most famous imprints on American history when thousands of college kids and 20-somethings marched on the capital in Washington to protest the Vietnam War. The peacenik hippies commanded headlines by burning their draft cards and reciting the memorable chant: "Hell no, we won't go." Well, the youth movement is alive and well in America, but this time the students aren't denouncing war, but taxes -- Social Security payroll taxes to be precise. This Sunday, several thousand college-aged kids (Generation Y) and young professionals (Generation X) will participate in the Storm for Reform protest in Washington on Capitol Hill. Students will be bused in from across the east coast, from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. And how's this for a blast from the past: Instead of burning draft cards, these student protestors plan on shredding their Social Security cards. "Social Security is a miserable deal for today's young people," says event organizer Jessica Colon, director of Fix Our Future.com. "My generation gets the joke that we will have to pay in all this money in taxes, and won't get anything out of it." On a separate track, another youth group, Students for Saving Social Security, will be pounding on Senate and congressional office doors this week and next to demand a modernization of the system. Olympia Snowe's Senate office will be one of the first to be visited. What these students want is large personal accounts for Social Security so they can invest the money themselves. As. Ms. Colon points out, today's youth are equally distrustful of big government and big business. "They're hostile to the idea of someone else controlling their money." The polls support this conclusion. By about a two-to-one margin, young voters support personal investment accounts. Whether the voice of the young will be able to alter the dismaying direction of the Social Security debate is an open question. The political system is heavily titled in the direction of seniors because old people have a much higher propensity to vote than do their grandkids. But at least it's encouraging to learn that not all young people in America today are socialists who get their news from MTV and Moveon.org.

HOUSEKEEPING DETAIL: An SSC reader just emailed me and said that this article is incorrect. Students are going to tear up their Social Security statements, not their Social Security cards. Can anyone verify this? Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal was the reporter on this story.

Posted by Andrew Roth at June 24, 2005 2:43 PM | Print

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