Young voters largely ignored

By SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR and JAMES R. JONES

Special to The Washington Post

Idealistic young voters have turned out in record numbers this year — and not a moment too soon. How our next president represents the interests of young Americans will define not only his legacy but that of an entire generation of political leaders.

The standard Washington model for rewarding influential constituencies is an agenda of targeted spending, tax breaks or regulatory measures. Traditional patronage, however, will not suffice when it comes to preparing for the approaching tsunami of retirement and health-care spending.

The Government Accountability Office and many, many others have documented the magnitude of the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid bills that will come due over the next several decades. Even if every dollar of wealth of every millionaire in the United States were magically diverted to pay these costs, 80 percent of the unfunded liabilities forecast for these three programs would remain on the books.

Social Security Advisory Board Chairman Sylvester J. Schieber has found that honoring today’s promises to tomorrow’s retirees could put the living standards of working households on a path of decline by the mid-2020s, according to a groundbreaking study in the Milken Institute Review. Under this scenario, today’s high school students might never experience a year in the workforce when their tax rates would not rise.

Budget deficits

Far more troubling outcomes are at least as plausible. Rather than raise taxes or modify benefits, our leaders could continue to follow the path of least resistance, shifting even greater burdens onto the young and endangering the living standards of everyone else in the process. Brookings Institution senior scholar Isabel Sawhill, writing in this month’s Democracy Journal, warns of “realistic” budget deficits so large that by 2017, annual interest payments on the national debt would total $500 billion — three times the amount of annual war spending in Iraq.

Among the likely casualties of such recklessness would be the very financial markets whose stability underpins the soundness of our private retirement system. And given the growing interdependence of the developed and developing worlds, and the advancing fiscal fragility of our aging allies in Asia and Europe, an American financial crisis could produce aftershocks that would rock the foundations of global prosperity.

Our government was founded on the principle that the legitimacy of law derives from the consent of the governed. Today’s youths and future generations have not been consulted in the writing of our current social contract. Yet they soon may face financial burdens that most voters would find intolerable.

As we approach this vast expansion of spending, precipitated by a combination of aging baby boomers and abnormally high health costs, it is time to consult our young. That is exactly what we hope to do through the Youth Entitlement Summit taking place on Capitol Hill.

The youth activists assembling for this meeting know that although 41 percent of Americans are younger than 30, their political clout is inherently limited. Despite turning out in record numbers this year, voters ages 18 to 29 have accounted for only 13 percent of the presidential primary electorate. In the future, demographics will relegate youths to an ever-shrinking electoral minority.

Fix Social Security

Far from being a classic struggle of special interests, the representation of younger and future generations depends on the informed selflessness of their elders. Older generations must allow Congress to fix Social Security. Much can be achieved through practical changes that need not affect those in or near retirement.

The larger and more urgent task is health reform. In the interests of effective cost control, Medicare beneficiaries in particular must be prepared to embrace sensible limits on the way their health care is provided. Halting runaway medical inflation represents a potential victory for all generations.

X Sandra Day O’Connor served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006. James R. Jones was ambassador to Mexico from 1993 to 1997. They are honorary co-chairs of the Youth Entitlement Summit.