The Can Kicks Back Campaign brought its nationwide Generational Equity Tour to KSU Oct. 15 to educate students about the national debt and how it affects America’s young people.
The event, held in the Social Sciences auditorium, began with a 20-minute screening of “Overdraft,” a documentary describing the causes and future effects of the nation’s growing $17 trillion debt.
“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt,” the Herbert Hoover quote silenced the auditorium of around 250 students as they waited for the documentary to begin.
“Overdraft,” available on public television through August 2014, won several awards, including the Fall 2012 CINE Golden Eagle award and the 2012 Prestige Film Gold Award for Documentary Short. The film includes interviews with politicians Bill Clinton, Cory Booker and Mitch McConnell.
After the screening, students were put into groups, handed a lengthy packet and told to prepare a mock budget for the country while trying to minimize debt using actual U.S. expenditure data. The purpose of the activity was to ask students what they would cut given the social, political and economic consequences of their decision.
“It’s easy to say we’re spending a trillion and a half dollars on Medicare” said College Libertarian President Mike Zeman, “but what happens when you propose a cut?
“From a social perspective, people aren’t getting their Medicare and Medicaid checks and from a political perspective, it’s suicide because those people who aren’t getting their money are not going to vote for you,” Zeman said.
Students faced this daunting task with enthusiasm, and in the end, shared a wide array of results.
Zeman said the majority of the groups came up with plans to cut between $3 and $5 trillion from the federal budget within the next decade.
“We are spending more than we take in,” Zeman said, “and that is not how you have a sustainable government — that is not how you have a sustainable economy.”
The Can Kicks Back is a non- profit grassroots organization intended to educate people and find solutions to the U.S. debt. According to the organization’s website, the group intends to “restore fiscal sanity” and “reclaim the American Dream.”
The campaign was launched by five young people in 2012 and there are currently 100 chapters of the organization in 38 states.
According to the organization’s website, the site has three core beliefs: America’s fiscal path is not sustainable, the debt is a political and moral issue and the youth of America will experience the consequences of the debt. They intend to “kick Washington back.”
The Generational Equity Tour is a five-week tour with 20 destinations. The event at KSU was organized by the Department of Political Science and promoted by Students for Liberty and the College Libertarians.
“It was pretty impressive,” said Zeman, who was introduced toThe Can Kicks Back a month ago. “This is definitely an issue we can get behind.”
Although there is not currently a The Can Kicks Back chapter at KSU, the process of establishing one is in the works.