Not this year

The President has brought this on himself.  Only a handful of my students know that his health care bill will allow them to remain on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.   An equal number are offended that it taxes their families’ high-end health insurance.  FDR and LBJ reshaped America by sending legislation to Congress. Obama wimped out by asking Congress to formulate a health care plan.  Medicare for all, with an honest admission that taxes would be raised, would have been widely understood.  Obamacare is incomprehensible.

And the rest of the President’s program?   Students have no clue that the President’s return to Bill Clinton’s direct student loan program will save them from gouging by bankers.  But it will not relieve millions drowning in debt under the old regime.  The average American student graduates with $25,000 of college debt.  God forbid they marry a classmate. Child bearing and home purchases will be deferred as never before.  We have created  the largest debtor class since indentured servants were brought to America in the colonial period.

The economic recovery program has scarcely touched college students.  One of my students said to his seatmate: “I really need to find a job bad.”  His classmate:  “Good luck, I’ve been looking for a month.  Even McDonald’s has a job freeze.”  But bonuses of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s banker friends remain monumental. 

And who can explain to young Americans this administration’s rush to court to defend “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Like a large majority of Americans, students think gays and lesbians should be allowed to fight for their country.  Mr. Obama and his Attorney General have forgotten that the Truman and Eisenhower Justice Departments, in Brown v. Board of Education, refused to defend school segregation in the federally governed District of Columbia.  Why should this President go to court to defend injustice?

There will be no surging youth vote for Mr. Obama’s party this year.  The President has brought it on himself.

David Adamany is the Chancellor and Laura Carnell Professor of Law and Political Science at Temple University. Dr. Adamany has voted the Democratic ticket in 26 successive elections since he became eligible to vote in 1958.