It was 2008, and Barack Obama was being carried into office partly by a youth vote enamored by vague promises of hope and change. You don’t need to be an economist or political scientist to understand, after speaking to virtually any young adult American voter, what the meaning of rational ignorance is. But they wanted Obama, and they got him.
I write this as the House chamber is about to pass Obamacare into law. Unemployment stands at almost 10%, likely much higher for young adults looking for their first rung on the economic ladder. With this bill, their chance of employment will only get worse. Making the hiring of people more expensive is not a way to full employment.
I write this as the House chamber is about to pass Obamacare into law, thereby forcing young people to buy insurance at a price that reflects not merely the low cost of insuring the young and healthy, but also the subsidy of insuring older people with mesmerized by hope and change wanted to help. We’ll see how much they will want to help when it costs something more than flipping a switch in a voting booth.
I write this as I listen to Nancy Pelosi give a last-minute talk that, if I looked at the transcript and pretended it was written as an essay in political science class by a high school student, would fail for lack of knowledge of the basic principles of constitutional government. But of course she’s not a dumb high schooler; she’s a clever manipulator of memes, allowing those who listen to her to believe she is following a line of freedom straight from our nation’s birth, when in fact her legislation would likely have been listed among the causes Jefferson gave for justifying a revolt against the mother country.
It is right and just that the young voters of America brought Obama to power. They will be the ones paying for it, in many ways, for many years.