government

President Barack Obama has told his supporters that the 2012 presidential election will be about two contrasting visions of the nation's future. In his vision, "everyone pays their fair share," so that there is "shared sacrifice and shared opportunities" and the government plays a big part in helping the private sector prosper.

By contrast, the newest Republican candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, pledged to those listening to his announcement speech to free the nation from "the grips of central planners who would control our healthcare, who would spend our treasure, who downgrade our future and micromanage our lives" and to "make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential as possible."

These starkly different messages make it clear that America is now engaged in the fourth debate in its history about the size and scope of government and doing it with all the rancor and heated rhetoric that have characterized each of the previous debates.

The issue was at the heart of the debate over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution when newspaper printing presses were destroyed by those who disagreed with editorials on the issue. Eighty years later, it caused the nation to be torn apart during the Civil War. And 80 years after that, the Supreme Court declared minimum wage laws unconstitutional until a political consensus was framed around FDR's New Deal that not even the court could resist.

Each time the issue of what the nation's civic ethos should be has exposed vast differences in beliefs between generations. And, each time the country experienced a long period of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt before the debate was resolved in favor of a new generation's ideas and beliefs. This historical pattern suggests that the best way to predict the outcome of today's debate is to examine the beliefs and attitudes of America's newest generation of young adults, millennials, born 1982-2003.

In 2012, one out of every four eligible voters will be members of this generation. More than 40 percent of millennials are nonwhite, creating the greatest racial and ethnic diversity in the nation's history. Twenty-five percent of them have an immigrant parent.

The generation was raised on messages of inclusion and equity and has translated those teachings into their political beliefs. A majority of millennials (54 percent) favor bigger government with more services, over a smaller government with fewer services (39 percent), almost the exact opposite of older generations' opinions on that choice. Sixty-nine percent of the generation is accepting of homosexuality and believe that a growing number of immigrants strengthen American society, in stark contrast to the beliefs of their elders.

While older generations are split on the question of government regulation of business, millennials come down squarely on the side of regulation by 51 percent to 43 percent.

While these attitudes suggest which way the debate over the country's civic ethos will ultimately turn out, it is the millennial generation's belief in consensus decision-making and pragmatic solutions to problems that hold out the most hope that the tone of today's political rhetoric will also change.

Millennials believe that collective action at the local level is the best way to solve national problems. Just as their parents set the rules within which millennials were free to exercise their creative energies, millennials look to the federal government to set national goals, even to establish mandates for required behavior. However, in the millennial era, the choice of how to comply with these requirements will not be determined in remote bureaucracies, but by individuals in local communities throughout the country.

In the middle of the vitriol of the current debate, it is easy to lose sight of the possibility of the dispute being resolved in favor of some larger and different national consensus. The millennial generation offers the country that hope. If America is to emerge from its current period of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, it will have to look to its newest generation, for both the behavior and the ideas that can bring the debate to a conclusion that the country can support.

Follow Michael Hais and Morley Winograd on Twitter here.

Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on August 29.

Reprinted with permission from C. Cryn Johannsen at All Education Matters. This is a fantastic piece Sarah linked to earlier today; we wanted to make sure everyone saw it in its entirety.

Yesterday morning few people were aware of what had happened to Kenneth Wright's rights in Stockton, California. Thanks to the hard work of numerous advocates, however, that changed within hours of a local news story about the use of excessive force.

People across the country - and even the globe (my own work was being retweeted by people in Stockholm and London) - learned that Wright's door was broken down by federal agents, he was handcuffed in his underwear, and thrown into a patrol car for 6 hours. Although the initial report from News10 suggested that the warrant for Wright's estranged wife was for her defaulted federal loans, the story quickly changed over the course of the day. (News10 took the story down once it went viral and has provided an updated version that discusses the use of excessive force. There is no mention of defaulted loans. In addition, News10 released the warrant that indicates that fraud was being committed. However, it is truncated and the entire warrant remains sealed).

It is common knowledge among higher education finance experts that the Department of Education's Office of Inspector's General (OIG) conducts search warrants. Moreover, these cases, as Press Officer Sara Gast explained to me in a recent email, are generally related to investigations of "bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds." Such investigations are generally limited, Gast told me, to 30 - 35 search warrants a year. But the general public is not privy to this type of activity. (When I followed up with Gast by phone, she provided me with Press Secretary Justin Hamilton's direct line. As of this writing, a call from Hamilton has not been returned).

While Wright's estranged wife may be involved in fraudulent activity, there are two crucial points about this unfolding story. First, it spread like wildfire throughout the blogosphere because it was fueled by fear. Bloggers on the left and the right picked up on the story, and that led to major media outlets putting out reports, too. There is good reason for why it became so hotly discussed. There is a growing number of indentured educated citizens who are fast approaching financial disaster. Thousands and thousands of them have shared their stories with me over the past 2 years. The use of force by the Department resonated with countless readers. Many of them wrote on Facebook pages and tweeted, "It's scary. What if that happened to me?" . . . "I'm close to defaulting on my loans. Will the Department break down my door?"

We all know that there is no way out of this debt, especially if you fall on hard times. The system has been rigged in such a way that allows companies, like Sallie Mae, to benefit from keeping people in debt. Sallie Mae has $146 billion of federal loans on its books. One analyst said, "They have this cash cow which is the legacy portfolio." Hear that, folks? They are making money off of indentured educated people! Make no mistake - they don't want this 'cash cow' to go away. No one talks about the fact that FFELP is still alive. The administration might have put an end to it, but those loans are still out there and part of these loan sharks' portfolios. So, if you default on any federal loans, you're life is pretty much ruined, whereas the IRS has the power to resolve issues with distressed taxpayers. Both parties can come up with a solution and move on. Student debtors have no such luck. But since we're seen as a 'cash cow,' why would anyone in power want that to change? I'm sure those guys over at Sallie Mae, who live in luxurious mansions on the east coast don't want this to change. Neither do the schools. They all control the money, whereas the rest of us are victims of these hucksters. But I digress.

Second, the use of such excessive force was uncalled for. Why an individual who is being sought for fraud warrants a SWAT team -- as it was originally reported -- suggests how far right this country has moved. Wright must have been traumatized when he was handcuffed in his underwear and thrown into a patrol car for 6 hours. His children, who are 3, 7, and 11, had to have been disturbed by the incident as well.

Moreover, this story has fueled numerous and ongoing conspiracy theories. But the elements of the story, along with a great deal of speculation (which was justified), lent themselves to that. It should come as no surprise since the characteristics of American conspiracy theorists are the same as Christian fundamentalists. Fear is also what adds fuel to conspiracy theorists' fire. (They also the need to simplify complex situations. In addition, conspiracy theorists oftentimes - not always - fail to comprehend systemic issues and place too much emphasis on individual agency. Mind you, I am not suggesting that conspiracy theorists are unintelligent, but I do wish to make clear that I do not identify with this type of thinking).

One thing is clear, regardless of how you think or how you identify yourself politically, the Department is tone deaf and reviled across the board. They are as hated, as I've already stated, as Sallie Mae. I had always thought that, but yesterday's outrage drove that home. If they don't get it together, along with the politicians and self-interested lobbyists in DC, we might very well experience a revolution in this country as well. People don't like it when they feel that their future has been stolen from them. A lot of folks want their future back. DC better start listening . . .

We know what democracy means. We won't settle for economic slavery.

Some quick hits for you as we head into the weekend (or, perhaps, just the end).

• A Washington Post piece asks if college is worth it
• Ezra Klein flags a graphic showing the percentage of recent college grads with jobs, by major.
  

  

• Speaking of college, here are ten reasons to get pumped for life following graduation.
• Nebraska's 4H organization and the YMCA team up to offer youth entrepreneur classes. An interesting partnership and initiative.
• CBS writes up the story we covered yesterday regarding Rockefeller's belief that young people are morally hollow. (Apparently 13 more people like him on Facebook between yesterday and today.)
• New Hampshire is aging.
• The Pope knows what's up--at least regarding the wisdom of listening to young people.
• Two young candidates in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area won primaries this week.
• Young Canadian city council candidate links young people to the local community.
• UK developing youth "underclass"
• The government: Just say no to sexting.
• Young people afraid to call themselves feminists.
• When will the GOP realize they are on the wrong side of history?

CIRCLE has a post today exploring the difference in reasons college youth and non-college youth give for not voting.

Peter Levine notes that data about voting is notoriously suspect given its ambiguity and the potential for people to withhold their actual behavior.

However, we do see that college-attending non-voters attribute their lack of participation to not being home on Election Day, while their non-college-attending, non-voting peers cite a distrust that their vote will carry any impact.

Of course, the question I am left with is how do we get students to believe in the power of their vote, to commit to voting somewhere whether that's at home or at college, and to actually do the deed. In a post on Monday articulating a ten point plan for renewal, Levine puts forth a vision for how we might start this work.

4. Prepare a new generation of active and responsible citizens. People form attitudes and habits related to civil society when they are young and keep them for the rest of their lives. But civic education has been cut in most school systems, and there are too few opportunities for young people to learn through service and extracurricular activities. Congress should revive the small Learn & Serve America program that provides competitive grants for service-learning, eliminated in 2011 after 21 years of work. Congress should also restore funding for civic education in schools (eliminated in 2011), but direct the funds to organizations that test or expand innovative educational methods and rigorously evaluate their impact. Meanwhile, the Office of Civic Education within the U.S. Department of Education should be elevated from its current low status (within the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools) and given a leadership role in coordinating the civic education functions of all federal agencies, including the National Parks Service, the national endowment for the humanities and the arts, the Defense Department, and Homeland Security.

Restoring Learn & Serve America moves us in the right direction, while increasing the power and visibility of the Office of Civic Education sends a message that civic education isn't a joke. We need these steps, combined with many others, to build a foundation for our education system that cultivates civic responsibility among students. The problems in our society are large enough that we need as many people as possible--especially young people-- to be on board and willing to make tough decisions and worthy contributions toward our future.

As the Senate paralyzed itself yet again this week, refusing to allow an up and down vote for a crucial extension of unemployment compensation, Harry Boyte's op-ed in the Pioneer Press this week calling for a new view of government takes on heightened relevance.

The expert-knows-best culture has spread across Minnesota in recent years, weakening civic life. Local businesses have been replaced with giant box stores. Schools have redefined students as consumers. The local YMCA traded community problem-solving efforts for racket ball courts.

But there are signs of discontent with this state of affairs, and the time may be ripe for change. Research by the think tank Demos has found that the liberal customer-service framework does not work, especially with swing and independent voters. When people are treated as consumers, they are likely to become angry shoppers, not citizens concerned with the commonwealth.

Demos also found that an alternative framework of government as a meeting ground to solve problems generates far more positive sentiments.

Such findings suggest rebirth in the Minnesota tradition of citizen partnership with government. Minnesota Democratic leaders as well as Republicans like Anderson and Quie, once understood the importance of such partnership, and saw it rooted in locally owned businesses, VFW halls, farmer cooperatives, union locals, schools and many other settings.

Whether it's in Minnesota or across the country, as long as we sit on the sidelines attributing expertise to many of those in office, who continue to screw things up, we already lose. Boyte notes correctly that Lincoln's "for the people" quote in the Gettysburg Address included "of the people" and "by the people" as well.

In order to build bridges to our government and our elected officials, our generation must figuratively and literally go to where they are. We must root one end of the bridge in their territory by engaging them in conversations, repeatedly contacting their office on important votes.

We must also remember that politics is never a private matter. Ignore the bit you learned about politics being one of those taboo issues not to be touched in polite company. Following this advice ignores the reality that everything in our society is political. We must not be willing to reach out to our peers, just as we reach out to our public officials, demanding their attention on important, public issues.

It is only through these partnerships that we can begin to solve the myriad problems facing us.

The Panetta Institute of Public Policy, located at California State University - Monterey Bay, has sponsored an annual survey of U.S. college students since 2001.

This year's survey results revealed that students continue to be preoccupied with economic worries, though they bear much more positive attitudes this year than they have in the past. The executive summary is below:

• College students continue to express confidence in Barack Obama, and rate his performance much more highly than the country as a whole: 66% approve of his job performance, compared with 48% of the public in a contemporaneous survey. However, Obama’s approval rating has declined 9 points since his 2009 “honeymoon” period.
• While two-thirds (66%) believe that Barack Obama understands college students’ needs, just 21% say the same of Sarah Palin.
• College students continue to lean toward the Democrats as they consider the 2010 off-year elections, but there are clear warning signs for Democrats in this poll. Students are paying far less attention to this election than they were the historic 2008 presidential race (44% now, 82% in 2008) raising questions about college students’ likely turnout in November. Moreover, Democrats’ 12-point margin in the generic congressional ballot is much smaller than the 26-point lead they enjoyed at the same point in the 2006 cycle, and only slightly better than in 2002 (seven points) when Republicans elected congressional majorities.
• Students continue to view the economy as weak (83% say it is not so good or poor), and although they are not yet in the workforce, fully 40% say they have been personally affected a great deal or quite a bit by the economic downturn.
• Students’ confidence in their ability to find an acceptable job after graduation, which declined in 2009, remains low: 36% of college students, including 45% of seniors, are just somewhat or not confident that they will find an acceptable job. The 64% expressing confidence is the lowest level the survey has ever recorded.
• Interest in a government career continues to rise among college students, with 42% now very or fairly interested!the highest mark we have ever recorded. While the recession may have contributed to this rise, there has been a fairly steady increase in this measure over the past nine years.
• The survey reveals a startling gender gap when it comes to interest in an eventual run for office, with men being twice as interested in running for federal office than women (men 36%, women 18%), and also more interested in pursuing local or state office (men 43%, women 28%).
• College students’ support for same-sex marriage continues to grow, now reaching 65%, compared with just 52% in 2004.
• Students support a much more active government than the public as a whole, and they rate government’s performance much more highly. By 51% to 30%, they say government should do more to solve problems, while among the public overall, 43% say government should do more and 48% believe the government is doing too many things.

Students are ostensibly still liberal in their political views according to this survey, but their enthusiasm for participating in the 2010 midterms and supporting the Democratic Party is waning, along with their approval of President Obama. Not waning at all is their concern regarding their ability to find jobs after college.

This poll provides more evidence that the issue of job creation should be paramount for Democrats if they wish to attract college students (and young people) by this November.

Perhaps this is just one conservative know-little's analysis, or maybe it's a sign of a recycled talking point to come.

John Feehery, a political pundit who has experience under former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, writes in The Hill that Republicans might be the best fit for Millennials based on the youth's love of free markets. Feehery tries to make his argument based on the Pew Research Center's recent report on Millennials.

While Republicans may seem out of step with Millennials, especially because their social conservatives have such hostility to gay rights and insist so ardently for traditional values, the free-market principles of the party, which stress a light touch on regulation and more freedom to allow a rapidly changing marketplace to evolve on its own, should work well with younger voters who see all of the opportunities that come from the Creative Revolution.

Perhaps Feehery skipped over broad swaths of the data. The release I read discussed Millennials pro-government tendencies. More than half (the only generation that can claim this) of youth favor government intervention and an activist government.

In case pictures aren't your thing:

Millennials are significantly less critical of government on a number of dimensions than are other age cohorts. This tendency has been seen on a variety of individual survey questions as well as on a three-question index of items from the political values survey; this index covers opinions about government’s effectiveness, government regulation of business and whether the government has too much control over people’s lives.

I applaud Feehery's argument that Millennials should be courted, but his analysis that Republicans have a shot at this generation based on non-existent anti-government views is just plain out of whack with reality. The "creativity" argument is creative, but it's wrong. It'll be interesting to see if the GOP tries to use it in a ploy to attract Millennials. Stay tuned.

Update: Andrew Romano of Newsweek makes the same faulty argument. Notice the lack of data simply discussing Millennials' views on government that I provided above.

The basic idea is less government, more liberty, which is far more consistent than the GOP's current platform—and has the added bonus of being far more appealing to the (largely anti-Bush) Millennial Generation as well. As compared to the average American voter, Millennials are less willing to agree that military strength is the best way to ensure peace (52–42 overall vs. 38–58 for Millennials). They are more liberal in their views on family, homosexuality, and civil liberties (especially as compared to the Silent Generation). And they are identical on questions about whether "it is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can't take care of themselves," which suggests that with old age still half a century away—and with the Boomers threatening to bankrupt the country—they'd see entitlement reform less as a threat than as a precaution. What's more, "while the Democratic Party has a larger advantage among Millennials than it does among the two oldest cohorts, a greater proportion of the party’s support comes from people who do not explicitly identify as Democrats but only lean toward the party." They're Independents, in other words. They could be convinced.

Washington Post education columnist Jim Mathews decided to comment on the sudden controversy regarding President Obama's speech to the nation's schools. Mathews writes that he does not believe it is a good idea, not because of the standard reasons conservatives have stated, but because he believes it would inconvenience teachers too much.

If the president of the United States shows up at a school, as Obama will do at Wakefield, that is different. I also think class can be interrupted to view events certain to make the history books, like the landing on the moon or the inauguration of the first black president. But for most people, watching Obama on TV Tuesday can be done when students get home. Some channels will rerun it. Anyway, I think his speech would work better as an educational exercise in its written form, giving teachers a chance to have students edit it or reply to it. That will mean more writing time, essential if they are going to learn to handle words as well as Obama does.

First, let's be realistic. Are "most" parents going to sit their son or daughter down and have them watch the Obama speech? No, probably not. And if they do, are they going to get much out of it? Again, probably not. Yes, parents have a role to play in their son or daughter's education. But are they qualified to be teaching civics education? This is the kind of strategy we've been relying on the past few decades, as civics classes have been ripped out of curricula in favor of math and science. While young people today are more politically engaged, that didn't happen until 2003/2004. So this strategy hasn't exactly paid off.

So instead of gambling that parents would actually work with their student to get the most educational experience out of the President's speech, the teacher should absolutely have the responsibility of exercising his/her creativity and using the rare moment to educate outside the box. To get to most students today, you don't just place a written copy of the speech in front of them and tell them to respond on their own time to what the President said. In a world chock full of digital media, the written word should be accompanied by some kind of electronic vehicle to get to the heart of the educational material. Standard pedagogy that worked with Boomers isn't going to be effective with young people today. I'd ask Mathews why that teacher can't show the video of the speech in class (I don't think it necessarily has to be shown that day - on their own terms), accompany it with a written copy of the speech for those who do learn better textually, and use it to broach the subject of the presidency, that person's role in America, and perhaps discuss what this president was trying to tell them.

Finally, we come to the matter of role modeling. Our society harps on young students today not having the right role models to look up to anymore. Yet, when the President of the United States tries to offer a positive message to today's youth, it's not good enough.

This whole controversy is nonsense. Whether it's because he's the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, who is trying to do the job we hired him for, or because this is a great opportunity to teach children about our civic responsibilities using innovative pedagogies, I wholeheartedly support those schools who are embracing this rare opportunity.

After posting my piece last night on youth and government health reform, I thought more about the attitudes of young people on the issue. The meme out there is that we consider ourselves to be "invincible," therefore we're not engaging in discussion on the issue. Luckily, in true Millennial form, some young people collaborated, started an organization, and fought back against this "invincible" myth.

But if we're not perceiving ourselves to be invincible, what's going on here? Why the minimal "noise" from young people?

First, let's remember that today's young people don't make "noise." Our generation wants to solve problems, not settle ideological scores, whether that's through technology, multi-tasking, collaborating with others, etc. Our change-making skills are generally different from the Boomers currently running our major institutions. While our conservative elders are best-served to confuse voters of all ages in this debate, many of our older Democratic brothers and sisters don't have the stomach to avoid the false clamors for bipartisanship. As a result, Democrats and Republicans who run the debate continue to yell at each other, while millions of Americans - including too many young people - gamble their already-precarious life savings on not getting hurt or sick. So whether young people are attempting to make change or not, the "chorus of cynics," and in this case, cowards, distracts from anything we would be doing anyway.

Given the sway that lobbyists and special interests still have within Congress and other halls of government, young people unfortunately can't yet enact their brand of change in every institution. In 2008, this was overcome by advocating and voting for a candidate who displayed a mastery of the peer-to-peer tactics, and the pragmatic and "no drama" approach that Millennials embrace. Millennials saw this approach on many issues the first part of this year as well, particularly on pieces of legislation like Serve America, the large expansion in national service through the federal government. But now that the most important issue has appeared in front of us as a nation, young people are missing that refreshing call for collaborative, pragmatic problem-solving. Instead, talking points and yelling abounds. To paraphrase from today's op-ed piece in the Post, "We have the hope. Where's the audacity," Mr. President?

Eight months into the Obama administration, as we mourn the senator from Massachusetts, many of us retain the hope, but we are wondering what happened to the audacity that is needed to move the country in a new direction. In recent weeks, many progressives have expressed concern that Obama's bold plan to reform health care may be at risk. A defeat on this key issue could undermine other elements of his agenda. We don't believe that the president has changed his goals, but we wonder whether he underestimated the power necessary to bring about real change.

If we're going to be successful in getting this done, we need the chief facilitator of the "millions of voices calling for change" to return to his role.

An LA Times article, also published today, discusses the widespread support among young people for government-led health reform. It contained the statistics that are more startling and worrisome every time I read them:

Young people account for 30% of the uninsured population, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research foundation. They are least likely to be offered health insurance through employment benefits -- just 53% of working young adults are eligible for employer-based coverage. And since their incomes tend to be low, buying coverage on their own is usually too expensive.

The problem is still there, and getting worse with each day. Contrary to the conventional wisdom spread by AP writers, the youth of the nation don't feel invincible. Try disgusted. In the midst of a cacophony that, at best, lacks courage, and, at worst, is hate-filled, we simply want to see some semblance of the problem-solving politics for which we voted.

In a post today at Daily Kos, DemFromCT discusses some data from the most recent ABC/WaPo poll (don't even bother reading the article -- youth are skipped over in the analysis), specifically covering health care reform. The post was inspired by a WaPo analysis, found here. What I found to be interesting was the comparison of the 18-29 year old crosstab with seniors:

On the top you can see that youth in June supported -- either strongly or somewhat -- the addition of a public plan to our health care system at a 71 percent clip. Two months later, the number has dropped to 61 percent. Much has been said in the blogosphere over the last week regarding the fading of Obama's base, the youth vote included, so this drop -- especially with President Obama on vacation the last week -- isn't surprising. The GOP has been able to run with the death panels meme without being challenged by the media, and until the last week or two, the DNC and OFA sat on their laurels, watching HCR opponents turn town hall meetings into a mush consisting of hyperbolic warnings of America ending and disruptive and undemocratic tactics.

But even with all of this, according to this poll, youth aren't changing their mind about the benefits of health care reform. Responses to a question not published in DemFromCT's analysis but published instead in the WaPo write-up show that 18-29 year olds, when presented with a chance to evaluate whether or not government-inspired reform of the health care system would help or hurt, still believe that it would be a positive development -- their response didn't change over the course of two months. Seniors, though, disagree. 48 percent of those polled believe that government health reform would harm the system, up from 39 percent in June. Furthermore, the percentage of senior respondents strongly feeling reform would do more harm than good surged seventeen points.

The bottom question in the initial set asked whether or not the health care system would lead to improved care for the respondents in particular, and the affirmative responses from June to August nearly doubled among Millennials. 15 percent believed their health care would be better in June, with 28 percent answering the same way two months later. The "betters" seem to draw both from the "worse" and "same" groups. Seniors, again, differed from youth. More seniors believed that health care reform would lead to worse health care.

So, as on many current political issues, there's a generation gap. While both young and old are at least feeling queasy about the public option -- much thanks to GOP/insurance industry-led obstructionism and timid Democratic leaders -- the two groups begin to diverge from there. Elder voters, already feeling lukewarm about Obama, do not believe health care reform will benefit the system or their own health care. Youth, meanwhile, still widely support government-led health care reform, while maintaining a belief that, in the end, the government will get it right.

Youth can still serve as a base to Obama. The big question is whether or not Obama has any nerve left to ratchet up the debate, and whether or not Democratic members of Congress have the chutzpah to strongly support a public option. There is a still-formidable cohort of young voters waiting to see some political courage from Obama and the Democrats.