Are young people (under 30) happy with the Obama's economy the last 4 years?

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No, but the alternative is to vote for the party whose policies would funnel trillions of dollars more from the young to the old.

If anything, it's the Democratic party that wishes to preserve programs that funnel billions upon billions of dollars from the young to the old (Medicare and Social Security).

No, because everyone will get old. What the Republicans are trying to do with the Ryan plan is exempt everyone older than 55 from cuts, while anyone under that age has to bear the burden. Either the cuts should be effective immediately (only exempting those already on traditional medicare), or payroll taxes should be cut for those under age 55. I have no desire to subsidize people in their highest earning years just so Romney can win a goddamn election.

[Sbane]

No, but the alternative is to vote for the party whose policies would funnel trillions of dollars more from the young to the old.

Are you not aware that the Democrats created Social Security and Medicare?

And most Republicans favor maintaining these programs - but only for olds, of course. Those of us who aren't from the entitled generation that comprises most of the Republican base are expected to pay for them while accepting draconian cuts in what we can expect. That's neither financially nor politically plausible.

Most of the cuts that Republicans propose would disproportionately affect young people. I'm talking about diminished funding for education, healthcare for people below retirement age, and infrastructure improvement. A reasonable system of accounting for government spending would treat many of these forms of spending as investments, and prioritize them accordingly.

Republicans are campaigning on a platform of spending cuts that affect primarily the young and poor while promising increased government largess for their supporters (Boomers, defense contractors, and the upper-middle to upper classes). Even if their policy promises were legitimately fiscally conservative, there is plenty in them for young people to dislike.

Already subsidized loans have been cut for graduate students. How much in farm aid has been cut, which subsidizes a disproportionately Republican voter base?

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Arguing with Krazen is a waste of time. You laid out some very good, nuanced points and he responds by saying he doesn't really care what you think.

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The only thing the government needs to do is provide stability in the tax code. This go to the edge every two years (debt ceiling debate, the impending fiscal cliff) and passing tax code changes with reconciliation that can be changed after 10 years is highly unproductive.

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If we do give out way more services than we are giving out now, I think a VAT would be fair to institute. The effect it could have on the economy, since more than 2/3rd of the economy is consumption, is what worries me more.

[Sbane]

No, but the alternative is to vote for the party whose policies would funnel trillions of dollars more from the young to the old.

If anything, it's the Democratic party that wishes to preserve programs that funnel billions upon billions of dollars from the young to the old (Medicare and Social Security).

No, because everyone will get old. What the Republicans are trying to do with the Ryan plan is exempt everyone older than 55 from cuts, while anyone under that age has to bear the burden. Either the cuts should be effective immediately (only exempting those already on traditional medicare), or payroll taxes should be cut for those under age 55. I have no desire to subsidize people in their highest earning years just so Romney can win a goddamn election.

a) The average life expectancy is only 78.2 years (38th in the world I learned today). This would imply that there is a sizeable portion of the population who doesn't make it to 65 for one reason or another. In short, not everybody gets "old" (for the purposes of this topic).

b) Regardless of how many people "get old" or not, that doesn't answer the question of why we have two massive programs (so massive that we've created an irreparable dependency on them)  that redistribute resources from the young to old, by design.

FWIW, I agree with you on the fine points of the Romney/Ryan plan, especially regarding the Payroll Tax (which I would prefer to be dramatically reformed).

Ok fine, not everyone will get old. But generally most of us will live to be more than 65 years old, and in many cases much more than that. The reason we have these programs is because old people cannot work, and so the rest of us must support them. I support social security and it's not really the one causing our problems, it's medicare.

I think we need to switch to a national health insurance service for all with means tested subsidies. Perhaps a bismarck model with 4 or 5 competing not for profit institutions trying to provide services at the lowest cost. This will also allow much more pressure on providers to lower cost. Something we also need to go towards is paying providers based on outcomes rather than services provided. So they get paid for taking care of x numbers of patients from different populations, and their payment would be based on that. Right now there is no reason for doctors not to order endless tests. Also institute tort reform of course.

[Sbane]

Pretty much agree with what you said. I wouldn't overemphasize what a President can do to fix the economy, but currently the government could provide a stable tax regime which would let businesses make decisions. Right now many are too afraid to hire because they don't know how much in taxes they might be paying next year. I am not saying we shouldn't raise taxes, but if we do it shouldn't be through reconciliation so it becomes a political football every 10 years, and certainly no more of this kick the can down the road for 2 years like we saw with the debt ceiling deal. And you need to combine that with reforms that lower spending so we don't need to raise taxes in the future.