Gore, Bush use “˜don’t care’ attitude to avoid issues

  David Rigsby Rigsby is a second-year
political science student who plans on voting. You should too. You
can reach him at [email protected]. Click
Here for more articles by David Rigsby

It always hits me that I’ve been living in a bubble when I
find myself learning about current events from the opening
monologues of Jay Leno and David Letterman. This is very
frustrating because I take keeping up on the news seriously.

Like many Americans, I have been paying extra attention to the
national election. The neck in neck race for the White House has
kept me on the edge of my seat and even the three ill-formatted
debates have kept me interested in who’s going to be our next
head of state. My only wish is that more of my peers shared the
same enthusiasm that I have.

Many of my friends here don’t plan on voting or
aren’t even registered to vote, not because they
“don’t care,” but because they feel that
they’re being ignored by the major candidates. In fact, voter
turnout for 18 to 24-year-olds is projected to be at an all time
low for this upcoming election. After hearing this I wonder why
this is going to happen. This generation is supposed to be one of
the brightest and most go-getting groups ever, and yet most of us
are still unconcerned with politics.

The real answer to this problem seems to be that politics are
unconcerned with us.

Politicians use low voter turnout to justify their lack of focus
on young voters. They view it as a strategic move to appeal to the
people that vote: parents with children and the elderly. However, a
correlation between voter turnout and campaign tactics is not the
same as causation. Perhaps the reason the youth in this country are
not voting is because they’re not included in the
candidates’ agenda.

  Illustration by CASEY CROWE/Daily Bruin There are plenty
of issues out there that interest young voters. Topics such as
pollution, crime, education, abortion, taxes and yes, even
retirement all spark some interest. But the simple matter is that
these issues are not being sold to my generation by the two
candidates that have had the loudest voices in this election. We
get brushed aside and are rarely directly addressed, for fear of
losing votes from those moms, dads and old folks.

An issue all students here from all political spectrums have a
vested interest in is college tuition. While both Al Gore and
George W. Bush want more grants for low-income students and support
various financial aid programs, they spend most of their time
speaking to parents with children not yet in college about these
issues.

Bush plans to let parents put up to $5000 a year in an account
and make tax-free withdrawals for educational purposes. Gore would
make $10,000 of college tuition tax-deductible, and allow $2,500 a
year in tax-free education savings. While both offer similar
amounts of money, neither of them are directing these proposals
toward college students.

Both candidates have very extensive tax proposals which confuse
me if I begin reading them too deeply. Many young voters like
myself feel the same way; they don’t have the time or energy
to research how new tax proposals might or might not benefit them.
Older voters have just as busy lives as the younger ones, but they
have the luxury of being catered to by campaigners.

In Gore’s tax proposal, he targets cuts that would benefit
people who are paying for childcare or college. Gore makes it very
clear that his cuts are aimed at lower and middle class families,
not young independents. Bush is just as guilty of ignoring the
young voter in this sense, but unlike Gore, he does not make a
strong effort to include the poor and middle class families. The
wealthy would benefit the most from his proposal, however many
middle class families would receive more than $1000 in tax
cuts.

Other important issues that will directly affect young voters
are retirement and social security. At this point, most of us
probably think that these are the least of our concerns. We all
hear about how the system is going to go bankrupt by 20XX without
some sort of change. But decisions will be made in the next few
years that will directly influence how the upcoming generations
save for their retirement.

Gore’s plan plays it safe by keeping the current social
security system and revamping it with the new “Retirement
Savings Plus” entitlement, which involves invested
accounts which might reach six figures for middle class families by
the year 2020. Bush’s plan could pay off even more, but it is
riskier by allowing younger workers to invest one sixth of their
Social Security taxes in private accounts. This could either mean
big nest eggs or cut benefits depending on the direction of the
stock market. Both of these plans will have a direct effect on my
generation, but they are being sold to an older audience.

The decisions that will be made and the plans that will be
implemented in the next four years will have consequences for all
Americans, young and old. These policies will be decided upon by
the population that goes to the polling booth.

The youth of this country who want to be active in the
democratic process will have to continue to actively research how
policy will affect them, because they aren’t being addressed
directly. Those potential young voters who don’t have the
inner drive to actively search will have to bide their time, until
they find a candidate that will speak to them.