Posts in "Youth Vote"

BenLevine16's picture
By Benjamin Levine at 10:36AM

A Reason to Be Optimistic

A Reason/Rupe Poll (yes, that is why I choose the title for this article -- pun intended) last September showed some very encouraging data about our generation (18-29 year-olds).  The highlights:

  • About 86% favor a "spending cap that prevents it from spending more than it takes in during a given year"
  • Roughly 74% favor a "constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget"
  • 38% favor a decrease in spending with no tax increases as the "best way to reduce the national debt," which is the larger than any group supporting tax increases
  • These young people "overwhelmingly support allowing workers to opt out of Social Security and Medicare at 64 percent and 65 percent, respectively"
  • 38% do not believe they will receive any Social Security benefits when they retire and 44% believe the same is true for Medicare benefits, which "may in part explain their openness to reforming the programs"<--break->
  • 62% are open to supporting an independent or third party candidate in 2012

Read more here
Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 4:31PM

Obama's Anti-Youth Agenda

I stumbled across this Politico article today.  It's definitely worth a read:

President Barack Obama won in 2008 with the vigorous support of young voters. Four years after the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) won voters 29 and younger by just nine percentage points, Obama won them by 34 points — 66 percent to 32 percent.

 

Given how enthusiastically young voters embraced Obama, many assume that his policies have had largely positive effects on America’s youth.

 

But a closer look reveals that Obama’s agenda harms many young Americans in important ways. In fact, many may be beginning to feel that they literally cannot afford to be as exuberant about the man they so easily fell for....

 

Obama constantly told young voters that his agenda was designed with their best interests in mind. We’re doing this “for the next generation” was his mantra.  But two years later, many young people are searching for jobs and finding only a president who increasingly fails to reflect their values and priorities.

Read the whole article here.  (Note:  Bush's policies weren't so hot either, and this doesn't even mention foreign policy...)

Bonnie Kristian's picture
By Bonnie Kristian at 12:39PM

Reason No. 3475 Why the GOP Isn't Doing so Hot with Young People

I feel a little nit-picky making this post, but if you haven't already appreciated these photos, I think you need to.  GOP Chairman Michael Steele had a photo shoot with his interns -- and they wonder why the Republican Party has difficulty getting the youth vote these days.

Here's one of the...best...ones:

image


Read more here