Speak Up Memo

The Voice of Young Conservatives THE WEEK OF MARCH 8, 2010

The Outrage

Used and forgotten. In 2008, young people gave Democrats their vote and in 2009Democrats showed young people the door. Well it’s time to tell the Democrats to stopand listen up. From health care to student loan reform, Democratic policies haveconsistently ignored the needs of our generation.

If we want change, 2010 must bedi

erent.

What You Can Do About It

Speak up! As a conservative we must begin to win hearts and minds before we can winelections. The process starts by educating people about what we truly believe. It starts with you in the classroom.

When your friend tells you they voted for Obama, speak up. When you hear someonesaying that Republicans don’t have the answers, speak up. If a professor lectures you onthe need for government health care, speak up.

We’ll arm you with the facts you need to win the argument. It’s your job to carry themessage on to your campus. It’s your job to speak up! By engaging ourselves in thedebate, we’ll spread the message of conservatism – the message of small government,fiscal responsibility, and individual rights – to one campus, one classroom, and onestudent at a time.Over the next five weeks the CRNC will be looking into the growing entitlements that left unreformed will doom this country’s fiscal future. We must realize that government isnot the solution to the problem…it IS the problem.

This Week’s Theme: Social Security

The Promise: “If we care about Social Security, which I do, and if we are ﬁrm in our commitment to make sure that it’s going to be there for the next generation, and not just for our generation, then we have an obligation to ﬁgure out how to stabilize the system. Ithink we should be honest in presenting our ideas in terms of how we’re going to do that

and not just say that we’re going to form a commission and try to solve the problem someother way.” – Philadelphia Primary Debate Apr, 16 2008 The Reality:Barack Obama’s only “commitment” has been to continually ignore theproblem. His recently released budget, which totals $8.5 trillion over the next decade,does nothing to alter the bleak ﬁscal picture of Social Security.Even worse, it trivializesthe problem by proposing a $250 one-time payment to Social Security recipients to helpseniors who aren’t receiving their cost-of-living boost because of the poor economy. 250bucks? Really? That’s his long term plan?Fact 1: The Status Quo is UnsustainableSocial Security was created in 1935 in an e

ort to protect workers from falling into poverty during their senior years. Unfortunately, there is no program to prevent Social Security from falling into poverty as it grows older. A report produced by the Social Security Trustees shows that the program has promised more beneﬁts than it can a

ord to pay. The result: Social Security will begin to run deficits in 2017, a mere 7 years from now, andits funds will be exhausted by 2041. To give you a sense of the pure scope of its failings:between today and 2075, the inflation adjusted shortfall isprojectedto reach $20 trillion. Yes, you read that correctly…$20 trillion. Since the founding of thisnation, thegovernment, with all of its wars, entitlements, and programs has only managed to amass a $12 trillion dollar debt. But Social Security alone will nearly double 234 years worth of our nation’s spending.Fact 2: The Government Isn’t Following Its Own Rules There are numerous reasons for the grip future of Social Security, not the least of which isdemographic changes. But baby boomers have become the scapegoat for thegovernment’s lack of foresight and misrepresentations. Put simply – Congress lied to the American people. In the original rules, set up by the 1935 Social Security Act, each wageearner paid into a personal account from which their retirement benefits would later come. Somewhere along the line those rules got tossed by the wayside, without so muchas a word to the workers a

ected. As Congressman Ron Paulexplained, “Social Security contributions are supposed to be set aside fromgeneral revenues and placed in a trust fund.

The truth, of course, isthat your contributions are not put aside. Over the decadesCongress found itself simply unable to sit on a big pile of money, so