America's youth are hurting, their struggles are mounting, many see few options as they are approaching adulthood. The causes are numerous and varied, the solutions evasive and problematic, the families, educators, psychologists, and sociologists attempting to understand and find resolutions to the increasing number of young casualties our society is producing often overwhelmed, inundated, defeated in their attempts. It is easy to blame the breakdown in family solidarity and support that many teenagers experience, or schools for not motivating young students to develop productive interests, economic changes and downturns for not allowing the young early employment opportunities, or the early exposure to media confronting teenagers with negative and harmful role models. The reality is that the problem is systemic and widespread, and should be receiving much more attention in our nation's list of concerns than is presently the case. What is more important to the ongoing well-being of our nation than our youth making a successful transition into adulthood--this should be high among our priorities. If governmental expenditure is any indication, it isn't anywhere high on the list. If media coverage is any indication, it is down on the list also. We hear about the casualties, the high school drop-out rate, the arrest frequency, the serious drug problems, the high unemployment rate among youth, the gang violence, the suicides, the college graduates who are grossly underemployed, the attempts of people like Dr. Phil McGraw or Drew Pinsky to intervene in troubled lives, but what concerted efforts are being made by our nation as a whole to address the problem? The absence of a strong nation-wide push to deal with these concerns suggests, among other things, that there is no effective advocacy group in our nation speaking out for the interests of our youth.
To get anything done in Washington DC, or in state capitols throughout the country, requires interest groups putting pressure on politicians, with lobbyist money and with obvious citizen support, to implement the policy changes and expenditures that realities demand. Powerful interest groups spend decades cultivating this support. The NRA is a clear example, as are the defense industry, anti-taxation groups, labor unions, anti-abortion groups, environmental groups, AARP and other senior advocacy groups, and numerous other strong lobbying interests. The absence of the young having a strong support group speaking for them and their needs on the national level has never been more obvious, as highlighted in the current dilemma over what cuts to make with the sequester-reduction demands. The defense industry had strong advocates protecting their interests, seniors had groups protesting projected cuts and able to place limits on them, but there was relative silence when it came to defending children and youth from major cuts in programs meant to serve them. In 2008, 2.4 times more federal expenditures went to programs serving seniors than those serving those under 18, by 2011 the number had climbed to 4 times more for seniors than for the young, some projections are that this ratio will soon climb to 7 to 1 more expendure for seniors. While not down-playing the needs of our seniors, or the fact that their costs are rising sharply, the stark reality is that the needs of the young are not getting the attention they demand, they lack a powerful interest group making their case, as exists for other groups seeking their cut of the financial pie-chart. No spending can be more important than investing in our future, and doing everything possible to insure the well-being of our youth is paramount in this need.
Many will claim that government can not help our youth, that that is up to families, relatives, churches, local community groups, etc. Government can, however, provide not only strong incentives for programs that aid the youth, but also insure that programs are established to meet essential demands. There has, for instance, been a concerted effort by anti-taxation groups during the past 40 years to underfund public school in many states. In California this led to the passage of Proposition 13 and other low taxation measures, lessening funding for public schools, and the quality of public school education has fallen markedly as a result, from one of the highest in the nation to among the lowest. No rival advocacy group has been established to counter the anti-taxation groups' strength, and the high drop-out and failure rate may be one of the consequences. With the high unemployment rate of late teenagers and youth in their 20's, the reality is often that no jobs exist for youth in their area, the only option is the military, and many reject the likelihood of service in the Middle East, college is too expensive or results in uncertain later job prospects, and life on the streets or escape into drug use are the most readily available alternatives. When similar job prospects existed for large numbers of youth and other citizens during the depression of the 1930's, the government did establish a number of programs to involve people in productive work and give them some degree of livelihood and hope, but in the current push for austerity the administration is failing to go to the mat in fighting for such programs, even though human, infrastructure, and environmental needs for them all desperately exist. As FDR told an advocacy group during the depression that was pushing for a policy change that he knew would be extremely controversial, your job is to go out and create the kind of support for it that will "make me have to do it". No such support group exists for the youth of our country. Occupy Wall Street has made strong public attempts to garner mainstream support, but has been largely marginalized. Many of their causes, though, are the causes that do speak to the growing concerns of our youth, and do deserve mainstream attention and support. Our youth are in need, the time is overdue for going upstream to find out why so many youthful causalties are coming downstream, and begin to resolve some of the conditions triggering the causalties. Our youth deserve it, our future depends on it, will our society rise to the demand?
