It would be impossible to list all of S4's successes since 2005, but we are grateful for all of the recognition and support that we received. Perhaps most important, S4 proved the conventional wisdom wrong. Young people do care about the future of this country, and by banding together, we can make a difference. And when all else fails, it helps to have an ostrich costume or two.

Here is a quick update of what S4 leaders are doing today:

• Jonathan Swanson, Jeremy Tunnell and Marco Zappacosta: Thumbtack.com, a marketplace for services
• Jeremy Tunnell now runs his own User Experience consulting business
• Patrick Wetherille: Harvard Business School; Gazelle.com, electronics recycling
• Nicola Moore: IHS

Thank you again to everyone who helped make S4 a success.

Personal accounts!

Conveniently, part of the answer came just one week later in the June 8 edition of Newsweek.  I can't find the graphic online, but if you'll turn to page 6 of the magazine, you can see that 57% of all letters to the editor received in the week prior to publication were regarding Samuelson's article.  An article about Iran generated the second-highest number of letters, at 19%.

Of the seven letters that Newsweek printed, how many of them were about Samuelson's article?  Four of the seven, which equates almost exactly to 57%?  Three of the seven, which would underrepresent the Samuelson letters by almost 15%?  Two of the seven letters?  One?

The answer: zero.  That's right, not a single reader response to the Samuelson article appears in the Newsweek dated June 8.

Not only does this shed some light on the stumbling blocks to a serious conversation about reform, but it may also provide a clue as to why publications such as Newsweek are having trouble connecting with their readers. 

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday.

Medicare already is paying out more money than it receives, something that happened for the first time last year. And Social Security will be by 2016, a year sooner than had been projected, the trustees' annual report said.

Obama has said that he will oppose benefit cuts and personal accounts in Social Security, which leads one to assume that young workers will soon be asked to pay even more money into the system. But why should we agree to higher taxes, especially when Congress will continue to waste the Social Security surplus on pork projects totally unrelated to retirement?

For many older baby boomers who once felt comfortable but have seen their 401(k)s and other accounts eviscerated the past two years, the magic words are no longer "stock market" -- they're "Social Security." That program, which is going to need to cut growth in benefits or get a huge bailout in a few years, is assuming a more important role in retirement planning than it has in decades.

The only problem with arguing that Social Security is becoming more important?  It's not true.  Yesterday, U.S. News & World Report highlighted this finding from a recent Gallup poll:

Given the decline in other investments, you might expect Americans to say they will increasingly rely on Social Security to finance retirement. But that didn’t happen. About 30 percent of Americans expect Social Security to be a major source of retirement income. This is roughly the same as last year and has remained fairly steady throughout the past decade.

It's okay to disagree with personal accounts, but let's have a fair fight.  As Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Last year, the program's trustees estimated Social Security would go cash flow negative in 2017. Blahous thinks that date will now change.

BLAHOUS: It's clear that is going to come nearer. We don't know how much, maybe 2016, 2015, it's hard to say.

Here's the transcript.

At a recent panel discussion on entitlement reform at the Heritage Foundation, Ryan Lynch, national director of Students for Saving Social Security, pointed out that young Americans will only receive 75 percent of the retirement benefits that they are promised. Young Americans are putting money into a system that they may never benefit from.

“One out of every eight dollars that we make is going into Social Security,” Lynch said. “This is money that we could be saving.”

Thus Lynch and Students for Saving Social Security advocate for personal retirement accounts.

The S4 Web site explains that with PRAs, young Americans could set aside a portion of their Social Security taxes, investing them in stocks, bonds and equities throughout their working life. By doing this they would gradually grow funds to prepare for a comfortable living once they leave the workforce.

S4 has 324 chapters in schools across the United States. Jo Jensen, executive director of S4, explained that college students are supporting the cause of S4 by writing letters and talking to their representatives in Congress. This, she said, affects the way legislators think about the issue. It also affects the young people involved in the process.

“Social Security is a stepping stone to other political issues for young voters,” she said. “Our first goal is to talk about the issue.”

Read the rest here.

President Obama has pledged to cut the deficit and has recognized that he cannot do that without addressing Medicare and Social Security.

Click here to read the rest of the the remarks by President Obama to a Joint Session on Congress

Click Here for Heritage Event Details

How can it be that after all of the problems with TARP -- which included lots of pork and gave money to the Bank of America, which spent $10 million on a Super Bowl party in Florida -- we're setting ourselves up to waste even more money?

And how can it be that there is so little scrutiny of government spending roughly the size of Australia's GDP, while Australia itself worries about passing a much smaller stimulus for fear that its future generations will be weighed down with debt?

Oh, and in case you're wondering: the Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers and "President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing."

According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans believe that Securing Social Security should be a top priority for 2009. Of the twenty issues asked, Social Security ranked high at number four, after the Economy, Job and Terrorism. 

All Americans are recognizing the urgent need for Social Security reform and the hurtful impact that waiting has on future generations.

Entitlement reform is no doubt one such hard choice, and we have been encouraged thus far by the president's comments about Social Security.  Obama is putting together a fiscal responsibility summit next month and, according to the LA Times, will address entitlements directly after health care.

Still, it is hard to know how seriously to take Obama's intention to reform Social Security.  First, entitlement reform isn't easy.  So while a fiscal responsibility summit may be a good idea, what will be its objective?  Gray-haired experts on entitlements would be happy to gather in a room and discuss reform for a couple days (especially if there are TV cameras), but what good would that do our generation? 

Second, there is a desire on the part of some to wait and see how much change the new president offers.  Though Obama spoke during his campaign about providing substantive change that would prove cynics wrong, some of us are probably reluctant to believe in a new way of politics just yet for fear we will be disappointed.

A new age?  Let's hope so.

^{President-elect Obama's children meet the S4 Ostrich, which travels around the country urging politicians to get their heads out of the sand and reform Social Security.}

Washington, DC — Students for Saving Social Security, the nation's largest youth organization dedicated to reforming Social Security, today challenged the incoming Obama administration to make good on Wednesday's promise to reform Social Security.

"The key is going to be restructuring retirement savings in a way that benefits future retirees," said Jo Jensen, the executive director of Students for Saving Social Security, or S4. "It remains to be seen how serious Obama is about entitlement reform, as well as how a proposal from him would gain the support of young people, who voted more than two-to-one in his favor."

Jensen continued: "Students will be watching closely in the weeks ahead. We look forward to hearing more about how Obama will reform Social Security and retirement policy in a way that benefits future retirees."

Changes in Social Security and Medicare will be central to efforts to bring federal spending in line, President-elect Barack Obama said on Wednesday, as the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.2 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year.

“We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part” of efforts to curb federal spending, Mr. Obama said at a news conference. By February, he said, “we will have more to say about how we’re going to approach entitlement spending.”

Curbing spending is much better than increasing payroll taxes, as I'm sure at least the nearly 60% of young people who want to opt out of Social Security would agree.