IT SEEMS the Rock the Vote people have decided to make it their perpetual task to take something old and decrepit and pass it off as cool to America's youth. In the fall, their project was John Kerry, an effort which proved disastrous even though Kerry was, like, totally fetch. The new project is Social Security, and we can only hope that in their effort to block reform, Rock the Vote is just as unsuccessful as it was in the November election.
One has to wonder, how dumb do the people behind Rock the Vote think our generation is, that we will mindlessly support a doomed entitlement program because a vacuous famous person says it's cool? On the group's Web site, they say young people should oppose reforms to social security because "Social Security is retro chic."
Retro, as in George Gershwin retro, seems to be the way to go. On the new "Rock the Vote" Web site you can buy a retro 100 percent cotton T-shirt (polyester didn't exist when Social Security started) emblazoned with "I 'heart' Social Security."
While we wait for the "I 'heart' Rural Electrification" T-shirts to debut, it would be good to think about what kind of Social Security would be best for today's workers just starting out. I often hear people lament the fact that poor Southern states voted for Bush, wondering aloud, "Don't they realize they're voting against their economic interest?"
I feel the same way for college students eager to vote for politicians who sell them short in order to curry favor with special interest lobbyists, like the lobbying behemoth, the American Association of Retired People.
The AARP is waging its own half-baked campaign to stop Social Security reform including a television ad with a plumber, who, upon inspecting a bathroom sink, says, "Yep, looks like the drain is clogged. Only one way to fix it. We're going to have to tear down the entire house."
The Annenberg Political Fact Check calls this ad misleading because, rather that comparing to a small problem with a drain, "the whole house is crumbling from within."
So, the AARP argues against reform by acknowledging that, yes, Social Security may be crumbling, but it's not going bankrupt until 2047.
Perhaps this resonates with members of the AARP, who, come 2047, will have long ago cashed in their last Social Security check. But for those of us set to turn 65 after 2047, it is little comfort that we will spend our entire working lives paying into a system that's set to disappear almost exactly when it's time to retire.
Rock the Vote lists another one of its reasons to block Social Security reform "that money had damn well better be there when you need it!" It's funny that they think the best way to guarantee that it will be there is to hand it over to politicians. In contrast, Bush's plan to allow workers to have some of he money in a private account is a better way to make sure it doesn't disappear. The account doesn't have to be risky; the money could go into a money market fund, or an array of low-risk bonds or stocks, which over the course of a person's entire career will provide a much better return than the negative returns promised by Social Security. In addition, for those who trust the federal government more than themselves, the program would be optional. Still, Rock the Vote is lobbying hard to prevent America's new workers from having this option.
If only Rock the Vote could go even further into the past, and enlist the "retro-chic" band that played on the deck of the Titanic as it sunk, it would be a fitting representation of the direction Rock the Vote wants to take America's youth.
If anything, the current Social Security situation highlights the need for political involvement from youth. Young people have much lower turnout in elections than their grandparents, and there is no lobbying organization to counter the gargantuan AARP juggernaut. The most prominent groups purporting tospeak for young people are ones like Rock the Vote -- groups who toe a certain ideological line without regard to what's actually in our interest. The result is that young peoples' interests are largely ignored by those in power.
The current Social Security debate should spur youth involvement, because of all the people affected by the debate, we have the most to lose. Regardless of the outcome of reform, it's practically a certainty that old age benefits will change little for those already or about to be retired. But our generation stands to lose tens of thousands of dollars and risk an uncertain future by tacitly supporting a broken system. Instead, young people should lobby for solutions to the Social Security problem that promise the brightest future for new workers -- a modern system that all of us could heart.
Herb Ladley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com
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