On Tuesday night, state Sen. Tom Garrett (R-Buckingham) won the congressional race to represent the fifth district of Virginia. Garrett’s campaign emphasized his dedication to individual liberty while attempting to bring a newfound voice to millennials in the House.
Garrett intends to enact a policy called Student Security, which will not only affect students at the University, but also students across the country.
Student Security addresses student loan debt by allowing those with student loans to voluntarily raise their age of social security benefitting in order to eliminate their student debt, Elliott Harding, Chair of Albemarle County Republican Committee, said.
“Roughly for every year of delaying your social security age you get five to seven thousand dollars of student loan forgiveness,” Harding said.
This plan will be financed by issuing government bonds specifically allocated to Student Security. The bonds will receive a higher interest rate than treasury bonds to attract investors.
One year of social security benefits provides about $16,000 worth of benefits, Harding said.
“So if you are willing to give up that one year in order to get $5,000 of student-loan debt covered, you’re looking at a gross savings of $11,000 for social security,” he said, “but once they pay off the cost of the bond you’re looking at $5- to $7,000 net surplus for the social security trust. Long term this money gets invested back into social security so that it’s solvent down the road.”
Student Security addresses an issue often ignored in the Republican Party, Adam Kimelman, second-year College student and Vice Chair of Campaigns for College Republicans, said. This has led to support from millennials who are currently dealing with the increasing student debt crisis as well as the looming issue of social security’s instability.
“[Garrett] does address the issue and does it in a way that makes it optional,” Kimelman said. “It’s trying to solve two problems at once.”
Student Security is intended to transcend party affiliation and has been presented as a non-partisan proposal. Some Garrett supporters say he is known to withdraw himself from his party’s agenda when it compromises his duty to his constituents.
Recently, he was the only Republican to vote against a Republican-led budget bill in the Virginia Senate, Tanner Hirschfeld, a first-year College student head of Students for Garrett, said.
“He thought it had wasteful spending,” Hirschfield said. “He thought we didn’t need to be spending that money on yurts and waterslides when we have teachers that don’t make enough, police officers that don’t make enough, fire departments are underfunded, our schools are grossly underfunded. Tom said this isn’t right, I can’t support something that doesn’t have my constituents best interest in mind.”
Millennials are of particular interest to Garrett as his campaign slogan exclaimed the necessity of protecting the liberty of future Americans while not breaking promises of prosperity that have already been made.
“Tom Garrett knows that the future of the country, not just the party, is in the millennial generation,” Harding said. “They haven’t really had a voice in congress yet and he’s already picked up the baton and carry it through to be the voice of younger people.”
Garrett will begin his first term in Congress Jan. 3, 2017.
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