Entitlements

After electing the President to office young people haven't exactly been the bastions of recipients of bills passed this past year, nor has there been a whole heck of a lot of outreach from the White House. But tonight the President outlined a few things we have reason to be excited about.

First was a little shout out to clean energy and creating jobs for those who are being good stewards of our land.

"We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities, and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. And to encourage these and other businesses to stay within our borders, it's time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America."

The Energy Bill is coming up in the next few weeks, and this is the end all be all bill for our generation. It will be because of this bill that we curb hazardous waste, stop despicable practices in creating electricity, and forever mandate that our country lead the way in clean technology to save our planet for Millennials and our children. If, at the same time, we create a ton of jobs for Generation Unemployed, then I say bring it on and lets pass this Energy Bill NOW.

Second, is a little help with the cost of college tuition, better schools, better education, and maybe... just maybe some hope for employment.

" The idea here is simple: instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success. Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform - reform that raises student achievement, inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans, from rural communities to inner-cities. In the 21st century, one of the best anti-poverty programs is a world-class education. In this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than their potential.

When we renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we will work with Congress to expand these reforms to all fifty states. Still, in this economy, a high school diploma no longer guarantees a good job. I urge the Senate to follow the House and pass a bill that will revitalize our community colleges, which are a career pathway to the children of so many working families. To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer-subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. And let's tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only ten percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after twenty years - and forgiven after ten years if they choose a career in public service. Because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college. And it's time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs - because they too have a responsibility to help solve this problem."

Associate Rich Williams from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Higher Education issued a statement on the higher education issues addressed in President Obama’s State of the Union address, saying

"We are thrilled that the President renewed his commitment to a greater investment in higher education, even as he proposed a three-year freeze on many other funding areas.

Time and again, America has seen the college educated strengthen the nation’s social and economic fabric. Investment in education is proven to strengthen the economy. We applaud the President for reaffirming that investment in the education of our young adults is essential to the country’s recovery and long-term strength.”

I will say, however, one of the best comments I saw came from Natasha Chart who said on twitter in response to the "best anti-poverty program was education" that perhaps a better one would be "supporting living wages for high school graduates." I couldn't agree more.

While the President championed higher education from four year to community college level, there must be an increased focus on helping youth who do not go to any institutions of higher learning and instead rely on their public high school education to prepare them with basic skills necessary in today's entry level jobs. Further, lets help these young people who want to work full time but still seek training at trade schools and technology institutes without being overburdened by out of touch FAFSA requirements like parental tax records for youth that are on their own (just to name one).

The comment from the president recognizing the plight of rural youth and their often sub-par education was also notable. So many children in rural areas lack adequate education, because school districts can't compete with good salaries, sexy locations, or other things to entice new teachers. If "the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than their potential" then its time for our government, specifically the Secretary of Education to understand the differences between rural youth and inner city Chicago youth.

Pay-Go made an appearance:

"So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans. And when the vote comes tomorrow, the Senate should restore the pay-as-you-go law that was a big reason why we had record surpluses in the 1990s."

This has recently been stalled in the Senate so the President called them out. Here's the thing about pay as you go... when you have distribution of federal dollars that only goes to those with the biggest and best lobbyist or the elected official who has the most power - it rarely makes it down to the little projects.

While the President mentions specifically entitlement programs and the "Fiscal Commission" modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad I can promise you that not a dime of Social Security will be touched. If other entitlement programs like Pell Grants and the GI Bill have to be slashed completely on the "pay-go" model they will be to accommodate for things like Social Security and Medicare... simply because young people don't have the lobbying power to ensure otherwise. Pardon my cynicism, but its true, the lobbying force of seniors is just too strong.

In a response in the Federal Times Gregg Carlstorm says of the spending freeze

"Experts say the spending freeze is unlikely to have a significant impact on resources at most agencies. But John Palguta, vice president for policy at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, said it could lead to some cuts in staffing and training.

"There's a psychological impact," he said. "As soon as you tell federal agencies their budgets are frozen, they go into worst-case planning mode. They stop paying for training. They say, ‘Let's see how many jobs we can get away with not filling.' ''

Palguta said federal managers should also be concerned about one big unknown: pay increases. Agencies with frozen budgets might still have to accommodate federal pay raises over the next three years — which means they'll have to find cuts in other areas."

If the purpose is to create jobs in the upcoming year, cutting federal jobs with agency funding freezes and forcing people into the private sector might not be the best strategy. That said, I'm not an economist, so what do I know. I personally believe in curbing spending, considerably, but I think there are better places to do that while preserving people's existing jobs.

Perhaps we could sell that Bridge to Nowhere up in Alaska, or export some of our Reality TV, maybe the President could call on Conan to start a new national TV channel and the advertising dollars go to pay for agency budgets, heck reducing the number of troops in Iraq alone could seriously curb spending...

Another thing that our generation should be happy about is a renewed sense of inclusion from Washington that finally ... FINALLY ... we value all people equally ... or, at least, we're going to try to, or... maybe just ask people to try to.

"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; that if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else. . .

This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. We are going to crack down on violations of equal pay laws - so that women get equal pay for an equal day's work."

One key way that we can help create more jobs in this country - or preserve the living wage - is by guaranteeing that all Americans that want to can serve in the US Military and that all women will earn equal pay for equal work. Both of these issues are ones that Millennials support overwhelmingly and it is high time that we set an example of civil rights to the rest of the world.

So, on the whole, a little good, a little iffy, nothing too shocking from the cheap seats. I want to be hopeful, I want to remain steadfast in my excitment for policies that impact our generation, but I'm also still crushed that I don't have a public option for my health care, so take with that what you will

State of the Union for Youth - By the words:
Youth (0)
Young (2)
Students (5)
Generation (3)
Children (or child) (5)

I've been getting a little bit of pushback from the piece posted yesterday about entitlement spending, right wing orgs funding youth groups, and the weekend conference "Exploring the Millennial Generation’s Return on Investment" hosted in part by Mobilize.org. Mobilize reminded me that AARP was also part of the funding for the conference - which in turn reminded me of the Newsweek article one of my favorite writers, Robert Samuelson, posted this morning all about how AARP wants to screw young people.

Screw is an awfully powerful word... perhaps undermine is more accurate. It isn't surprising that the AARP co-sponsored the entitlement conference because they very strongly support entitlements. The problem is that they don't want young people to have them, they just want us to pay for the Baby Boomers to have them.

Samuelson talks about the $1.3trillion spent on programs that take care of primarily older generations. These were created during the New Deal to take care of older people, the result has become that an entire culture of older people now live independently in swank facilities or in their own homes when they age, vs. years ago when they moved back in with their children who took care of them. Spending like this is also why we saw such a significant decrease in the poverty rate among the elderly since the 1960's as Social Security spending increased.

"Now comes the House-passed health-care "reform" bill that, amazingly, would extract more subsidies from the young. It mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of that for younger Americans. That's much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old. Spending for those age 60 to 64 is four to five times greater than those 18 to 24. So, the young would overpay for insurance that—under the House bill—people must buy: Twenty-and thirtysomethings would subsidize premiums for fifty-and sixtysomethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.)"

The Newsweek piece says this is in large part due to the insurmountable lobby from the AARP on this bill. The push has been schizophrenic with loving ads about "future generations" but Samuelson says turns behind close doors to screw the young with their pants on... er... um, undermine us.

"For example, the House health legislation improves Medicare's drug benefit. That would help the half of AARP members who are over 65. The other half, those between 50 and 64, could benefit from the skewed insurance premiums.

Although premium changes would apply mainly to people using insurance "exchanges," the differences would be substantial. A single person 55 to 64 might save $3,490, estimates an Urban Institute study. By contrast, single people in their 20s and early 30s might pay about $600 to $1,100 more. For the young, the extra cost might be larger, says economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Hudson Institute, because the House bill would require them to purchase fairly generous insurance plans rather than cheaper catastrophic coverage that might better suit their needs"

Let me be clear, I don't mind paying my fair share, a percentage based on what I'm make for a living. Indeed, when I'm in a position where I'm making a good living, I don't mind paying a little extra, I do take issue with paying 4 times my share. Samuelson remarks this comes at a particularly difficult time for youth with our unemployment rate at nearly double the national average and average college debt over $20,000 post-graduation. But this is what happens when you don't have anyone lobbying on your behalf and a multimillion dollar organization lobbying on behalf of older Americans.

And lets not pit the young against the old - I take care of my grandfather as much as I can afford to, and sometimes he takes care of me. When he gets even older, I'll be the one shouldered with him 100% because he has nothing other than Social Security to take care of him. And when my mom is older, she'll have savings to take care of her, but her 401k took quite a hit with the rest of them.

The point is, I don't mind paying for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - I like these programs. The AARP should be ashamed of pitting my generation against theirs and shouldering us with everything when there are far more able bodied people to contribute - like .. oh the corporations that got a tax cut in 1983 when Social Security got looted the first time and shifted to the shoulders of youth. But wait - the Chamber of Commerce has a pretty substantial lobby as well, so again it moves to those who have no one to speak for them on The Hill.

It shouldn't be an either/or game with the AARP; they are building enemies rather than allies. Both generations want Social Security and both want health care - why can't we each agree that the people that should be shouldered with paying for it are the super rich who can afford it - or better Lou Dobbs - and the corporations who have been given more loopholes in tax code that you could drive a Metro train through.

Oh, forget it, we are getting screwed. Until we have a lobby as powerful as the AARP we'll continue to get undermined as a generation. Even after electing the President we've showed that we don't matter nearly as much as organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the AARP when it comes to his policies. I think the only solution other than unmaking the power of lobbyists, is to develop or own lobby that can be as persuasive as the others. Sadly, its the only way today to be effective in enacting policy that is more fair.

That and go full on single payer health care.

This morning I got an email from myImpact.org announcing that they'd received support from the Peterson Foundation and Mobilize.org for a social media project they intend to do. This was announced at the Mobilize.org event "Exploring the Millennial Generation’s Return on Investment" a conference announced earlier this year when Mobilize announced their $1million grant from the Peterson Foundation.

William Greider wrote in The Nation earlier this year about the Looting of Social Security, describing very specifically the plan among Wall Street and Banking elites who are pushing the idea of fiscal responsibility as part of policy. Fiscal responsibility is a well tested phrase that everyone can get behind - because everyone agrees that our country should be responsible with its money. . . but Greider says that this is a backdoor swindle on anyone who has paid into Social Security

"These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud."

His piece is extensive, and outlines the ways in which the rich want to use funding for Social Security to cut taxes to corporations and upper-income wage earners and a huge tax increase imposed on working people that he says is similar to the 1983 tax

"the payroll tax rate supporting Social Security--the weekly FICA deduction--was raised substantially, supposedly to create a nest egg for when the baby boom generation reached retirement age."

There is a kindred spirit in young people with this message, because since the 1980's the Millennial Generation has heard a consistent message about Social Security being too small to support the Baby Boomer Generation. Most young people don't think it will be there for them (Disclaimer: It will be), so this is a great group of people to begin organizing around "entitlement reform" to unmake Social Security and bait the young against the old to screw us all.

The article received a response from the Peterson Foundation itself directly targeting the idea of "entitlements" and "fiscal responsibility." But, Greider responded to the letter saying

"if you read his letter closely, he more or less confirms what I wrote about the establishment's assault on Social Security and other entitlement programs.

"I said they want to loot Social Security. He says it's already been looted. I said they are trying to evade the regular processes of representative democracy. He says Congress is "broken" and so cannot be trusted to make sound decisions in a timely manner."

Mobilize prides itself in being an "all partisan" organization, rather than a non-partisan organization which is what many youth groups are. When they promote progressive values I personally celebrate it, when they promote right-wing ideas, I will not. I had no idea that myImpact.org was also aligned with this kind of ideology, and I was so disappointed to receive the email from them this morning celebrating the Peterson Foundation's involvement, and accepting donations from them.

But this is the second problem, there's no funding for the youth movement. If you've read Mike Connery's book Youth to Power then you've read about the major donors that invested 5-10 years ago, respectively, in progressive youth outreach, young voters, and organizations that promote the civic participation and dedication of the Millennial Generation.

I'm sad to say that those donors have almost entirely dried up. Many are funding different projects, some have gone more partisan, some have gone less partisan only funding organizations that do voter registration and civic engagement but not issues, and others have simply stopped giving either because of the economic recession or a lack of interest.

The result is a ton of youth organizations doing groundbreaking work in states and across the country that can't get funded or whose budgets have been slashed so considerably that the outreach has suffered. The funders that are still active in the youth movement, those rare loyal leaders, are so few that we as a community are wrestling over any dime we can get.

So when there is a major foundation like Peterson willing to bankroll the entire organization with a $1million check, an organization must choose whether or not to sell their soul to keep the doors open.

This will continue to be the standard until we as a progressive movement decide to invest in our future. Right wing groups specifically invest in their youth with leadership training, job placement, think takes, and candidate recruitment. Connery wrote on Talking Points Memo last year about the trend beginning in the 1970's when the

"Young America’s Foundation, the most well-funded conservative youth group, with an average annual budget of around $9 million, was revitalized, and new organizations like Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, which has trained upwards of 50,000 conservative activists on an average annual budget of $7 million, were getting their start.

Within the Republican Party itself, the College Republicans also experienced a revitalization at this time. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of College Republican chapters climbed from a nadir of 250 during the Johnson administration to over 1,100 by the time Reagan was in office.

By 2003, there were over a dozen leadership and training nonprofits in the conservative youth movement, and they receive upwards of $48 million a year in funding from 75 different conservative foundations. More importantly, their was not cyclical (ie election-based), but steady, providing a measure of stability on which to build and sustain their operations for years. Together, these organizations train hundreds if not thousands of conservatives a year, almost the entire cost of which is subsidized for the trainees."

I'll say it again, if we don't invest in our future today, there won't be a future to invest in, and more and more youth groups will be forced to accept compromising donations from conservative groups looking to creatively make inroads to the progressive movement. Social Security will be just the beginning of the end.

YPNation has announced in a recent release that will host its inaugural event at 8PM Wednesday, Oct. 28 at George Washington University's Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration that will engaging Young Professionals across the nation in a live Webcast on what it says is "America's unsustainable fiscal trajectory."

"Marc, Nicola and Ethan bring three distinct viewpoints to the table," said YPNation President & Publisher Michael Eisenstadt. "They and the rest of our dynamic team of leaders are committed to establishing common ground, building consensus, and finding ways for Young Professionals across the country to work together to solve the very unique challenges and opportunities ahead. YPNation is leading the national conversation among Young Professionals and the event will highlight our commitment to fostering a discussion respectful of diverse opinions."

Ethan Pollack was also one of the panelists at the Better Deal conference talking about how young people shouldn't worry about social security because it will be there for us, better explaining the national debt, and encouraging us not to believe the hype we hear about entitlement programs. One interesting factoid he said is that the Peterson Foundation gives huge grants to organizations the push such hype and fears about the debt and Social Security not being available for youth. He encourages youth to read up and think for yourself.

I will also note that I was the only person in the room that said I believe Social Security would be there for me. My reasoning was in large part due to the AARP lobby's power in Congress... rather than numbers...

Enjoy the short video as well as the discussion at YPNation's forum.

Continuing our coverage of attempts by conservatives to wage generational warfare on the issue of entitlements, I'd encourage everyone to read this opinion piece by Robert Kuttner in today's Washington Post. As the President's suddently-low-key entitlement summit is underway today, Kuttner skillfully pulls apart the disingenuous arguments of so-called deficit hawks and tries to drive a stake into the heart of the "generational theft" meme:

The deficit hawks' story also contends that we are sacrificing our children's future by too much (deficit) spending on the elderly. In fact, today's young adults are already falling out of the middle class because of the high costs of the investments we don't adequately finance socially -- child care, college tuition and health insurance. But fiscal conservatives seldom call for increased investment in the young. Today's young, of course, will be tomorrow's retirees, and they will need social insurance, too.

The overall bottom line? The economy we bequeath to our children has everything to do with getting growth back on track and almost nothing to do with imagined future deficits.

Also worth checking out today is a new project of Demos and the Century Foundation: The Fiscal High Road. It's a data-rich site meant to push back on the misleading arguments and generational claims made by the Petersen Foundation and other "entitlement reformers." Here's a quick slideshow they put together explaining the status of three distinct programs - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - that are often disingenuously lumped together under the term "entitlements."

As an aside, while I think this slide show has some great graphs and data in it, and I'm glad to see Demos and the Century Foundation pushing these ideas, they might be better served repackaging this data in a short video/animation (like this) rather than as a Power Point presentation.

If you've been listening to the Republicans lately, you could be forgiven for thinking that Democrats are nothing more than socialists in capitalist clothing, looking to steal bacon-flavored lollipops from babies and redistribute that candy to appease pork-hungry interest groups.

What else are we to make of these statements by prominent conservative pundits and Republican party leaders? (emphasis mine)

Michelle Malkin:

Barack Obama has dubbed his behemoth fiscal stimulus proposal the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." But if truth in advertising were required of White House plans, only one title would fit the trillion-dollar-plus-and-growing bill: The Generational Theft Act of 2009. [...]

Moreover, despite Obama's earnest-seeming pledge to block all earmarks, there will be an inevitable lard-up of the stimulus. When has there not?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled openness to the plan over the weekend as long as the GOP gets nominal input and kabuki hearings. The lard-up will guarantee that future capital is diverted to superfluous pork projects ("green jobs") and away from productive private enterprise. Instead of basic roads and bridges, infrastructure spending will go to bloated unions overseeing pie-in-the-sky construction projects like the $30 billion-plus high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which California officials fully expect to be funded.

Minority Leader Boehner:

Between the “stimulus” spending package and other spending ambitions held by the Democratic Party, “it seems likely that the deficit for this year will approach $1.7 trillion,” American Enterprise Institute scholar Kevin Hassett notes. “If your family income in 2006 was between $75,000 and $100,000, the extra taxes that you will have to pay at some point in the future [as a result of the additional borrowing by Congress] add up to about $14,000,” Mr. Hassett says.

The hundreds of billions of dollars Washington is borrowing to finance this pork-barrel monstrosity will come from our children and grandchildren. This is not “stimulus” – it’s generational theft.

George Will:

It is said that the negligible Republican support for the stimulus legislation means that bipartisanship is dead. But what can "bipartisanship" mean concerning legislation that concerns almost everything?

John McCain probably was eager to return to the Senate as an avatar of bipartisanship, a role he has enjoyed. It is, therefore, a measure of the recklessness of House Democrats that they caused the stimulus debate to revolve around a bill that McCain dismisses as "generational theft."

John McCain:

While I'm touched by the GOP's new-found concern for our youth, I'm curious as to why such concerns never materialized over the last 8 years as a Republican President turned record budget surpluses into the worst deficit in American history. President Bush achieved that legacy - aided by Rep Boehner and Senator McCain - by failing to invest in American infrastructure, turning a blind eye to the self-destructive practices of Wall Street and the banks, and championing massive tax cuts for the rich such that economic disparity in America is now greater than it has been at any time since The Gilded Age. Forgive me if I find it disingenuous that two figureheads of the party that turned a blind eye to Bush's tax cuts and spending policies, and enabled this new "Gilded Age," are now crying "generational theft."

Of course, such claims also ring hollow for historical reasons. About a decade ago - right before Bill Clinton started to create record surpluses in the budget - Republican lawmakers and conservative activists issued a similar war-cry on behalf of future generations:

The story of "generational conflict" begins with a handful of strategists and their organizations, the media sources for the myth of Generation X. The first of these was Americans for Generational Equity, or AGE, an organization that demonstrates that with proper funding, it's possible to launch an unsubstantiated idea and see it turn into the standard media view.

AGE had three adept founders and leaders: executive director Paul Hewitt, who continues to direct campaigns to privatize Social Security from his base at the right-wing National Taxpayers Union; research director Philip Longman, who recently published an anti-entitlement tome called The Return of Thrift; and Sen. Dave Durenberger (R.-Minn.), who later pled guilty to theft of public funds.

AGE was the first organization to put political muscle and public relations clout into promoting the notion of "future intergenerational conflict." Their thesis was two-fold: resources devoted to the elderly come at the expense of children; and young people will eventually mobilize against the elderly to reclaim their share of the pie. They immediately found media willing to cover these claims (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 1/13/86).

As we all know, the 8, 9, and 10 year-olds on whose behalf they claimed to speak cast their first ballots last November, and they resoundingly rejected such conservative philosophies.

The facts of the matter are simple. We're facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the question on the minds of most economists isn't "how big will the deficits be," rather, it's "will the stimulus be big enough to plug the gaping holes in our economy." The economic recovery package isn't $800 billion in pork or wasteful spending, rather it is a stop-gap to save jobs, and a mid- to long-term investment in the future our citizens, our infrastructure, and our economy.

In its final form, the stimulus package will:

• Modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of 2 million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. The plan will also double American renewable energy-generating capacity over three years.
• Make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized, reducing medical errors and saving billions in health care costs.
• Equip thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries.
• Expand broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
• Enact the largest investment in America’s crumbling roads, bridges and transit systems since the creation of the national highway system.
• Invest in high risk-high reward science-based research and innovation, and bring it to market—to invent the technology the world uses, and prevent and cure deadly and costly diseases.

As for the economic well-being of "future generations," as my coblogger Karlo ably described in his post earlier today, there are plenty of provisions in the final package that will help give today's youth, and tomorrow's, a leg-up: providing them with more education and employment opportunities, a cleaner environment, a more efficient health care system, and less personal debt as the price of entry to a middle class life. Here's a look at just a few such provisions:

• $19 billion, including $2 billion in discretionary funds and $17 billion for investments and incentives through Medicare and Medicaid to ensure widespread adoption and use of interoperable health information technology (IT).
• $1.1 billion to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, NIH and the HHS Office of the Secretary to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different health care services and treatment options.
• $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, including $39.5 billion to local school districts using existing funding formulas, which can be used for preventing cutbacks, preventing layoffs, school modernization, or other purposes; $5 billion to states as bonus grants for meeting key performance measures in education; and $8.8 billion to states for high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education and for modernization, renovation and repairs of public school facilities and institutions of higher education facilities.
• $13 billion for Title 1 to help close the achievement gap and enable disadvantaged students to reach their potential.
• $12.2 billion for Special Education/IDEA to improve educational outcomes for disabled children. This level of funding will increase the Federal share of special education services to its highest level ever.
• $15.6 billion to increase the maximum Pell Grant by $500. This aid will help 7 million students pursue postsecondary education.
• $3.95 billion for job training including State formula grants for adult, dislocated worker, and youth programs (including $1.2 billion to create up to one million summer jobs for youth).
• $4.5 billion for repair of federal buildings to increase energy efficiency using green technology.
• $11 billion for smart-grid related activities, including work to modernize the electric grid.
• $6.3 billion for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Grants.
• $5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program.
• $2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy research.
• $2 billion in grant funding for the manufacturing of advanced batteries systems and components and vehicle batteries that are produced in the United States.
• $6 billion for new loan guarantees aimed at standard renewable projects such as wind or solar projects and for electricity transmission projects.
• $1 billion for other energy efficiency programs including alternative fuel trucks and buses, transportation charging infrastructure, and smart and energy efficient appliances.
• $21 billion in COBRA premium assistance provides a 65% subsidy for up to nine months to help workers who lose their jobs keep health coverage.
• Child Care Development Block Grant: $2 billion to provide quality child care services for an additional 300,000 children in low-income families who increasingly are unable to afford the high cost of day care.
• Head Start & Early Head Start: $2.1 billion to allow an additional 124,000 children to participate in this program, which provides development, educational, health, nutritional, social and other activities that prepare children to succeed in school.
• $555 million to expand the Department of Defense Homeowners Assistance Program (HAP) during the national mortgage crisis.

To be sure, this will not be the last time we hear Republican's express concern about "future generations." This will come up again when we begin to debate Social Security and Medicare reforms, and conservative activists already used this meme to make a play for young voters during the election. We're going to continue tracking how the GOP uses this meme throughout the year.

Speaking of conservative talking points aimed at scaring youth about future debt, MSNBC's First Read is reporting that the Peter Petersen Foundation is set to launch a $1 million ad blitz about the need for entitlement reform:

As the Senate debates an economic stimulus plan whose price tag could come close to $900 billion, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation -- a non-partisan group created to bring awareness to the nation's rising spending and entitlement costs -- is launching an ad campaign [pdf] to urge the Obama White House and Congress to address long-term fiscal challenges.

That campaign began today with a print advertisement in the Washington Post and Roll Call. "Today's economic crisis is just the tip of the iceberg," the ad says, with the picture of a gigantic iceberg. "We must also focus on a much larger yet less visible threat: the $56 trillion in liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care obligations (that’s $483,000 per U.S. household), and the dangerous reliance on foreign lenders, that threaten our ship of state."

Tomorrow, Peterson Foundation president Dave Walker -- along with Sens. Kent Conrad (D) and George Voinovich (R), and Reps. Frank Wolf (R) and Jim Cooper (D) -- will hold a press conference to announce the group's full plans for a $1 million-plus advertising campaign.

Petersen has long been an opponent of entitlements and a promoter of generational warfare narratives. Most recently, his foundation was behind the production and distribution of IOUSA, a scare-tastic look at America's debt and entitlement programs that was thoroughly debunked as one-sided and misleading by the Center for Economic Policy Research.

Entitlement reform and debt will be the wedge issues that Republicans try to use to divide the Millennial Generation and the Democratic Party. This new ad blitz by the Petersen Foundation is probably laying the groundwork for those arguments.

Here's three things worth looking at, but not really meriting a full blog post:

• Kay Steiger at Pushback reminds us that today is veterans day with this excellent post about three major veterans issues.
• The Center for American Progress takes note of Millennials' pro-government philosophy and concern with the economy. There's no new data here, but this report does pull together the most relevant strands from a variety of reports they issued earlier in the year. It's a good Cliff's Note/summary of all that work.
• Black Youth Vote is prepping for a conference in D.C. this week to "train young leaders and activists on how to impact public policy and hold elected officials accountable." BYV is a strange group to me. They're never very high on my radar and I don't know a thing about what they did this year. They are very disconnected from the other threads of youth organizing - at least the ones that I'm familiar with. Yet they always pop their heads back up now and again. Maybe they need a better communications team.
• The Center for Economic and Policy Research has done a good job debunking the anti-social safety net film IOUSA. Here's their latest effort.

It's common knowledge that Social Security is "the third rail" of politics, but this year it is doubly true for youth organizations. We're in the middle of what may be the most important election in our lifetime and Democrats stand a damn good chance of not only winning the Presidency, but of capturing sizable majorities in both chambers of congress that could virtually guarantee a progressive policy reformation not seen since the New Deal or the Great Society.

In election after election, young voters are choosing Democratic candidates over Republicans by large margins. On issue after issue, young voters hold progressive stands on how to solve the problems that affect our nation. Except on the issue of Social Security.

A recent report by the Center for American Progress and Demos found that 74% of Millennials are supportive of plans to privatize social security compared to 41% of adults over 60. That's the bad news. The good news is that this is less about their ideology than their particular stage of life. It's common for younger voters to feel less secure about social security (and their prospects for receiving it when they retire), and thus be open to more ideas as to how best we can "fix" the perceived problem.

Here's some more good news: according to that same report, compared with previous generations, Millennials are more open to the government spending money to stabilize social security. It's not that Millennials aren't progressive on Social Security - at this point they aren't anything except looking for an answer, and not even very hard at that. According to a February Rock the Vote poll (pdf), only 4% of Millennials rank Social Security as the most important issue that will determine how they cast their ballot.

Nevertheless, it is the one sole chink in the armor that conservatives can exploit if they want to make inroads among youth. John McCain is already out on the stump exploiting this, speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue of privatizing Social Security. You can bet that there will be even more attempts by Republicans to scare young voters about the program's long-term fiscal stability as we get closer to the election.

That's why it's really disheartening to see youth organizations like Mobilize.org, Rock the Vote, and the Roosevelt Institution engaging conservatives on the issue and providing ideological cover to conservative groups who want to privatize the social safety net that has served us so well for so long.

On Monday, June 16th, these and other youth organizers, along with a number of conservative and "nonpartisan" policy types, will convene in Washington for the Youth Entitlement Summit. The name alone - entitlement - should ring alarm bells as a conservative frame, as should the leading sponsor organization, Americans for Generational Equality (AGE) - a conservative outfit that has promotes "intergenerational strife" and argues for the privatization of social security. Founded in 1986, it closed up shop in 1990 only to reopen it's doors - and PR machine - in 2006.

The conference claims "non partisanship," and a spirited discussion of the issues, but if that is really true, why are there no progressive economic luminaries like Jared Bernstein addressing the attendees? Why is the Center for American Progress and the Economic Policy Institute nowhere to be seen in the list of partners? Instead, the agenda boasts scholars from the Brookings, Heritage and Hoover foundations and the panels all take on the frame of "X program in crisis." Hardly a fair and balanced representation of the issues.

We're on the verge of the first progressive majority in decades. Social Security's problems - to the extent that it has any - are minor at best and decades in the future. There is no rush to fix this "problem," and if we can all wait another 6 months, the solution we find is likely to be much better or all Americans. Collaborating with conservative idealogues, even sitting at the table with them at this point is pointless at best and damaging at worst -- to the coming electoral wave and Democratic support among young voters, and to setting the agenda when we have a Democratic government in 2009.

Youth organizers beware! Stay off the third rail of politics and don't play the conservative's game. We have nothing to gain by engaging them on this issue until AFTER the November election.