Weekly Writers Round-Up: How the Pension Crisis Hurts Millennials, Anti-Speech Lobbying Laws, and the Problem with Free College

Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Apply now for the Spring 2020 class!

Why millennials should care about government pensions — even if they don’t have one by Jen Sidorova (Spring 2019) in the MarketWatch
Public pensions are not exactly a burning issue for millennials. In their minds, they won’t be retiring for decades, and pensions won’t affect their lives anytime soon. That line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s currently a public pension crisis that doesn’t just affect retired government employees, but also young people in the workforce — both in terms of their future retirement plans and current salaries. Millennials, tune in…

Ending your right to petition the government as we know it by Luke Wachob (Fall 2018) in MassLive
If you hear the word “lobbyist” and imagine a villain, you’re not alone. But the truth is, lobbying is a vital constitutional right.

The First Amendment protects your right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The Supreme Court has said the right to petition is “among the most precious” liberties and implicit in “the very idea of” government. It’s inseparable from the freedoms of speech and assembly…

Klobuchar And Buttigieg Are Right About Free College For Rich Kids by Preston Cooper (Fall 2015) in Forbes
At last Wednesday’s Democratic debate, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar set herself apart from her more left-wing rivals with the radical notion that the federal government shouldn’t spend scarce taxpayer dollars on college tuition for rich kids. “I think that we have an obligation to be fiscally responsible, think big, but make sure we have people’s backs and are honest with them about what we can pay for,” said Klobuchar. “And that is everything from sending rich kids to college for free, which I don’t support, to kicking 149 million off their current health insurance.”

Another relative moderate, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, recently tweeted: “Instead of providing free college tuition for the children of millionaires and billionaires, I will open doors of opportunity for Americans who choose not to go to college with massive investments in apprenticeships, workforce training, and lifelong learning programs…”