Who Is Rob Long and Why Should We Care What He Thinks about 20 Year Olds?

Well, another day, and another unknown guy lamenting the horrible things happening to our generation and our supposed complicit behavior.

This rando, some Gen Xer named Rob Long, writes that young people are being ripped off thanks to a "a vast, Madoff-like Ponzi scheme," in which payroll taxes are immediately shuffled off to help seniors pay their medical bills. He can't believe that young people are letting this go and are not more alarmed, Glenn Beck style.

And yet: no protests in the streets. No marches. No student sit-ins. No youth agitation at all, really, except for a couple of College Republicans in blue blazers. What? Are they stupid? After all of that college tuition? Are young people in their 20's just dumb?

I appreciate your phony concern, Rob. But if you're truly advocating for a strong quality of life for Millennials, you'd come to terms with what must be a painful truth for you. Your party, while railing against imaginary deficits in the future, blatantly ignores the fact that many of us are struggling to make end's meet today. One of your party's governors, in the name of fiscal responsibility, cut $30 million from childcare centers. And "after all that college tuition," the Republican House proposes to balance the budget by taking Pell Grants, and therefore the prospects of higher education, away from us at the worst possible time. This is at the same time that we're being crushed by trillions of dollars worth of student loans. Fellow FM writer Karlo Marcelo used a great analogy to frame this reality back when we were debating the stimulus.

Millennials will face new challenges when caring for the Baby Boomer generation as they near towards retirement. What they don't need are unnecessary financial burdens that make it difficult for them to succeed early on in their adult lives. Young people are already saddled with a "burden", and the GOP needs to recognize and respect that reality.

Imagine for a moment that you are trying to traverse a hill. The hill represents how much taxes you expect to pay over your lifetime. One end of the hill is the start (the beginning of your life), the top of the hill is middle-age, and the other end of the hill is, well, six-feet-under. At both ends of the hill, you pay relatively little in taxes, and the top of the hill is when you pay the most in taxes. This is what tax-paying looks like throughout the course of one's life. For some generations, traversing this hill was made easier (but not faster), because the government helped invest in the well-being of the tax-payer very early on in life.

This is not the case with Millennials. The rising cost (PDF) of college and beyond has not resulted in a proportionate increase in services or resources. When you place this fact of rising costs into the context of rising college attendance, the effect is magnified. The share of young people that have attended college has increased 21 percentage points from the 1970s to the present (PDF, pg. 5). What's more is the fact young people with post-graduate degrees on are on the rise, too. What all this amounts to is a more difficult (but not slower) journey over the hill. It's almost as if Millennials have to carry a heavy backpack (read: student debt) and still keep pace with everyone else. Now add to that the fact that the end of the hill for Millennials is much farther away than it is for previous generations due to longer life expectancy.

So, if you're seriously concerned about our collective future, do us a favor: get off your high horse and hop on a time machine back to now and start working on these problems.

Mr. Long, you're not done. Please sit back down. Let me explain another thing. And I'll go slowly, because this might be hard for you to understand:

Millennials. Like. Government.

Seriously, we do. You can see that here, here, here, or even here. According to NDN, a Washington think tank, 58% of Millennials actually favor larger government, as opposed to one that “stays out of society and the economy.” It might be surprising since we've been let down by government so often (especially from 2001-2006 when the GOP ruled Washington), but it's the truth.

And we do protest. Your fellow unknown Ted Nugent also made the mistake of assuming young people don't get mad and act on it, and we provided these examples (these just being a few that one simple Google search turned up):

Students across USA protest over college funding, tuition
March 4, 2010

Dickinson College students protest school's handling of sex assaults
March 3, 2011

Cerritos College students protest proposed summer cuts
May 18, 2011

Half-naked college students protest coal
April 15, 2011

‘Students are not ATMs'; college students protest budget cuts
March 15, 2011

College students, staff protest budget cuts
April 13, 2011

College students protest higher fees
January 12, 2010

Three Arrested at Hunter College Protest
March 4, 2010

College students protest death penalty
March 27, 2010

College students protest PA budget cuts
March 30, 2011

'Ramen' protest highlights community college fee increases
March 2, 2011

California college students protest higher ed budget cuts
April 13, 2011

High school, college students to protest state education cuts
March 19, 2011

PSU students, State College mayor protest funding cuts
April 5, 2011

College students protest HOPE cuts outside State Capitol
March 2, 2011

Vt. college students protest planned cuts
March 16, 2011

Phoenix high school, college students organize Capitol protest
March 4, 2011

Michigan College Students Protest Higher Ed Cuts
March 24, 2011

College Students Protest Voter ID Bill
April 4, 2011

Allegheny College students protest education cuts
March 18, 2011

College students protest strip mine plans
September 14, 2010

Carthage College students protest anti-gay speaker
February 24, 2010

College students protest HB 176
February 24, 2011

Emory protesters arrested during student protest
April 26, 2011

TUSD on image control after student protest cancels meeting
April 27, 2011

Supporters rally for students arrested at SB 1070 protest
November 16, 2010

Thousands of students flock to Capitol to protest SB1070
April 22, 2010

Wisconsin Students Protest Governor's Attack on Unions
February 15, 2011

Zombie protesters lurch for voter, student rights
June 8, 2011

Based on the list above and the little we do know of you, it would appear you're merely grumpy because we don't protest the same things that your Tea Party friends do.

Do us a favor and can the fake outrage. If you're genuine, you'd be doing what you could to keep conservatives from defunding our collective future so that fat cats can keep flying their corporate jets.