HI EM,

IT WAS GREAT TALKING WITH YOU on your birthday last week. This was an important day in your life because now you’re old enough to vote. I didn’t have that privilege when I turned 18 in 1953 because then the voting age was 21.

I have to admit I wasn’t very interested in politics in those days. The Korean War was over, so I didn’t have to worry about being drafted. Besides, the unemployment rate was at a record low of only 2.5 percent. It didn’t seem as if anybody had much to worry about.

All that changed in the 1960s, of course, with nationwide protests against the war in Vietnam. Suddenly everybody, including my generation, became very much involved. That’s why Congress passed the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age to 18. Maybe you already learned about this in your AP government course. I certainly hope so.

Anyway, I’m glad you’ll be able to vote in the next election — especially since you said you would have voted for Romney and Ryan in this one! It’s too bad the Republican campaign managers didn’t understand how important social networks like Facebook and Twitter are to young voters. The Democrats sure did! For 18 months, volunteers in data centers all across the country were dropping Obama cookies into young people’s hard drives and firing out millions of pro-Obama tweets. The Republicans didn’t start doing that until two months ago — way too little, too late!

As you may realize, most voters of my generation get their news from the major TV networks like CBS or cable networks like Fox. That’s why many of us were surprised by Obama’s re-election. We felt sure four years of high unemployment, a $16 trillion national debt, and the threat of the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of this year would force everybody to realize we need a change in leadership.

Like it or not, though, we’re all stuck for another four years with Obama, and for the next two with Democrats in charge in the Senate. It isn’t only the liberals we need to worry about, though. Many “old guard” Republicans in Washington are just as much a part of the problem. Right now, for instance, both Republicans and Democrats are dodging the bullet on how to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” Even though both sides seem to agree they need to cut spending on entitlements, nobody wants to say what they mean by entitlements.

Your grandma and I have been racking our brains trying to figure it out. Most major TV and radio news programs are just as vague as the Beltway politicians. The only newspaper that provides specific information seems to be the Wall Street Journal. On Nov. 28, for instance, a front-page report revealed how wasteful the federal government’s student loan program has become. Right now there is $956 billion in outstanding student loans. Three-quarters of them are so-called Stafford loans. These loans “impose no credit standards and are capped at $57,500 for undergraduates.” In September, payments on 11 percent of these loans were already three months delinquent. Of course, the politicians won’t even identify such student loans as an entitlement because it directly affects young voters. Could it be that’s partly why so many young people voted for Obama?

Student loans aren’t the only entitlement branch on the dying federal money tree. There are many others, including Medicare fraud and the huge but as yet undetermined government subsidies scheduled to be paid to pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers under Obamacare. But I won’t bore you with the details here. We can share information about these topics in future letters.

In the meantime, if you have questions about federal student loans — which, I suspect, you will soon be investigating as part of your own plans for college — I would recommend the Wall Street Journal as a good place to start.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Bruce Robinson is an author and former Benicia resident.

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