Rare News Desk
Since 1983, when Ronald Reagan first used the word “strong” to describe the state of the union, the adjective has become a mindless mainstay of nearly every subsequent address. And, while simple plainspoken descriptions of the direction of our nation are useful, it helps if they are true.
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For much of President Obama’s term, it simply hasn’t been the case that the union could be described as “strong.” Economic growth has been poor, joblessness has been rampant, the national debt has grown larger and the American Dream more distant. A more apt precedent may be Gerald Ford’s State of the Union address in which he admitted: “I must say to you that the state of the Union is not good: Millions of Americans are out of work. Recession and inflation are eroding the money of millions more. Prices are too high, and sales are too low.”
Unfortunately, our president is not that humble. Instead, young adults were bombarded on Tuesday with another State of the Union chockablock with half-baked, reheated policy schemes that come off as picayune when compared to the enormity of the problems. After all, the state of the union for young adults is one plagued by debt, marked by a lack of opportunity and overshadowed by an uncertain future.
The average student-loan debt for new graduates is nearing $30,000 and is increasing by around 6 percent each year. Likewise, the number of borrowers has soared by 70 percent since 2004, going from 23 million to 39 million. The combination of rising balances and growing borrowers has pushed the total student-loan debt to $1.2 trillion, a figure that will erode the purchasing power of young generations for decades.
In a good economy those eye-popping figures may not be too problematic but, when combined with a poor job market, they are often an economic death sentence for young people. The latest figures show that the unemployment rate for Americans under 25 was 13.5 percent – more than double the national rate. And 18- to 34-year-olds represent an incredible 46 percent of all unemployed Americans, a figure that doesn’t even count the 4.8 million who are stuck in part-time jobs despite wanting full-time work.
Obamacare has made the monthly arithmetic of balancing a household budget even more difficult. The bill, which dramatically (and intentionally) shifts health-care costs onto young adults, is causing insurance premiums to soar by as much as 300 percent. Figuring out where to come up with hundreds of extra dollars each month isn’t as simple as giving up your occasional latte, it’s often a question of whether to chance your future on going uninsured.
Decisions like that are the beating heart behind all of these cold statistics. This is not merely a conversation about policies on paper or dollars in a federal ledger; it’s one about young adults amending their dreams — the American Dream — in order to simply pay the bills. They’ve retreated to their parents’ basement rather than purchased homes of their own. They’re spending time in coffee shops and grocery stores to find jobs rather than spouses. And they are doing their best to end their debts so they can think about starting a family or business of their own.
President Obama did nothing to assuage those concerns in his State of the Union address. Confronted with big problems on a grand stage, Obama seemed smaller than ever. He promised to use the next year to discuss some of America’s challenges in coalitions and summits. He mused about making some small tweaks to federal policy, like raising the minimum wage for future federal contractors and building natural gas fueling stations — and he patted himself on the back for a lot of ideas and initiatives he came up with last year.
It’s enough to make you wonder what happened to the president who used his inaugural address to assure us that the “time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interest and putting off unpleasant decisions” has “surely passed.” Where he once warned that the “greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players” he is now offering a bland “set of concrete, practical proposals.” The “audacity of hope,” as he so eloquently put it, seems to have been too audacious for this president to achieve.
So, what we’re left with is a president who is overmatched by circumstances. He can describe the State of the Union as strong only because he dare not push himself into a corner that demands solutions. Young adults hoped for more. They deserved better. Sadly, if this diminished State of the Union is any indication, they won’t get it.
Skot Covert is co-chair of the College Republican National Committee. Follow him on Twitter @skotcovert
