Youth rebellion
If Barack Obama is a socialist* does that make Robert Samuelson a radical? Writing in today’s Washington Post , he calls on young voters to “get mad” at their politicians for selling out their interests to the old.
You’re being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they’re ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You’ll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. There’s the expense of decaying infrastructure — roads, bridges, water pipes. All this will squeeze other crucial government services: education, defense, police.
I tend to think that Samuelson is right, and that within ten or fifteen years we’re going to see the era of ever-increasing education budgets come to an end, as revenue is diverted to entitlements and more and more instructional funds are diverted to teachers’ pensions and retiree health costs. That could lead to some promising developments–greater efficiency in k-12 education, more pressure for reform–but more likely it will just lead public schools to get even worse than they are today.
Samuelson fingers the AARP as public enemy number-one, lobbying as it does for the needs of seniors over everyone else. Which makes me wonder: won’t the teachers unions throw their weight around to ensure that education budgets don’t feel the pinch? After all, they always say that they are working on behalf of “the kids.” But they have their own generational warfare problem, because their most important and powerful constituencies are retired teachers and those nearing retirement age. Which is why we hear the NEA and AFT calling for tax increases rather than pushing for education spending over Medicare or Social Security. If they really were “for the kids,” I suspect their position would be quite different.
* By the way, the fact that this socialist isn’t voting for Obama seems to bolster the he’s-not-a-socialist case.
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October 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Uh-huh:
And if a former Hillary supportin’ Dem doesn’t vote for Obama does that make him not a Democrat? And if he isn’t a Democrat or a Socialist (or even a Liberal!) what exactly *is* Barack Obama? I mean, besides someone that will pour still more wasted money into education, of course.
(Note: I certainly won’t contest that it’s pretty much impossible to tell what Barack Obama is other than a chimera or an illusion.)
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Since when did being for progressive taxation make someone a socialist?
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Well of course Barack Obama’s not a socialist. He’s definitely a, uh, say, how would someone be characterized who’s in favor of large-scale appropriation of private wealth for public use?
There’s got to be some other word besides “socialist”, right?
How about “liberal” or “progressive”?
June 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
The right’s use of the “socialist” label is just repackaged propaganda of the old “liberal” taunt used effectively by Ronald Reagan. Labels are meaningless but are used effectively when negative connotations are planted with the label. Any politician who supports the concept of social security is to some extent a socialist. I wouldn’t vote a crazy who does NOT believe in social security as an institution.