Following a series of speeches by President Barack Obama aimed at garnering support among college students, Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock told The Daily Caller that young people should vote for Obama’s opponent, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, claiming that the current “CEO” of America has “failed” on “every financial front.”
“They’ve [young people] been hit hardest by the recession; 50 percent of college graduates last May are still unemployed today; 50 percent of college graduates last May had to move back in with their parents because they couldn’t find adequate employment; can’t think of a better reason than having to move home with mom and dad to vote for a different president,” Schock told TheDC in Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention on Monday.
“Every dollar of debt is a future tax increase on the next generation of Americans. Debt is not funny money, debt has to be paid back by someone and so every time we pile on a dollar of debt, somebody meaning the future generations have to pay it back. Our debt has climbed at a faster rate under President Obama.”
Schock, 31, said Obama’s efforts to deal with the rising cost of higher education have not worked.
“College costs have skyrocketed despite a ton of money being pumped into Pell grants and the like. Clearly, subsidizing the system as it is now is not the solution,” said Schock.
He also criticized Obama for not working with Congress to pass a budget for the fiscal year 2012 and not presenting a plan to reform Social Security and Medicare.
“Anybody who looks not at the personalities but at the facts, at the cold hard black and white numbers, would be foolish as a young American to continue with the current CEO that we have in the White House who’s failed us on nearly every financial front,” he said.
“He’s been the president for four years and he’s not been able to get a single Democrat to vote for his budget. I mean, what greater repudiation than to be the CEO of the largest organization on earth and not be able to get Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid to be able to vote for your budget?”
Schock, who spoke with The Daily Caller after addressing “Newt University,” a forum sponsored by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan saves the entitlement program for future generations.
“Medicare blows up in 2024, that’s not a Republican opinion or Democrat opinion, that’s the Medicare trustees saying that if nothing is done, Medicare will be completely exhausted by 2024 and we will have to raise the Medicare tax by 47 percent just to make good on current Medicare enrollees,” Schock told TheDC.
“So, that means young people today in twelve years, that will not be on Medicare, young people today in twelve years will have to pay a 47 percent increase in their Medicare tax that they’re paying on their income just to keep the current program solvent with no changes. Social Security goes broke in the next 20 years and again Paul Ryan, House Republicans are the only ones with a solution to save it.”