Young people love Paul Ryan because he understands themYoung Americans like Paul Ryan because hes the first candidate for national office to understand what they are going through and to produce a plan that will help them in the long run.
When Ryan graduated college in 1992, grads faced a similar tough economy with bleak job prospects the year the Clinton campaign chased former President George H.W. Bush out of office with the mantra Its the economy, stupid.
Kids who graduated college in the 1990s often faced having to get jobs at the mall rather than get that big job they wanted right out of college, not unlike todays Millennials.
The mantra of Ryans generation, aka Gen-X, born between 1965 and 1982, has been Reality Bites because they, like Millennials, have had to face the likelihood they will never see a dime of Social Security or Medicare and that they will likely do worse financially than their parents did for the first time in American history.
Ryans plan fits right within that generational context.
Enter Ryan. While Democrats attack his Medicare plan as radical and portray him as pushing granny off the cliff, young people dont seem to be buying this caricature. Or maybe radical is what they want, Daily Beast columnist Kirsten Powers wrote earlier this week.
While the Obama campaign tries to scare Boomers about the Ryan plan, its strategy to preserve Medicare and other Social Security has proven even more popular among Millennials than among members of Ryans own generation, according to a 2011 Pew poll. The poll found that 46 percent of those under the age of 30 favored the Ryan plan compared with 38 percent of Gen-Xers.Ryans plan wouldnt affect anyone for another 10 years.
Polling following the Ryan pick found that it helped push Mitt Romneys standing among younger Americans up to 41 percent and drag President Obamas rating to 49 percent, according to the liberal PPP group.
I may be in Generation Y, but my parents are solidly boomers born in the early-mid 1950s, and I really hope that debt and entitlement reforms are a huge sticking point for the youth. Im a huge fan of Paul Ryan for precisely this reason, I consider entitlement reform my #1 issue.. The prevalence of Ron Pauls support within the Gen-Y group makes me think that debt and the size of govt is probably a big issue with a lot of us.
And here is Paul Ryan explaining debt and what he wants to do with Medicare--not only to protect seniors now--but to save it for future generations.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwv5EbxXSmE]The Path to Prosperity (Episode 1): America's two futures, visualized - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJIC7kEq6kw]The Path to Prosperity (Episode 2): Saving Medicare, Visualized - YouTube[/ame]