( CNN ) -- In his September 4 op-ed , Jack Schlossberg presents his case that young Americans should cast their ballots for President Obama this fall . Published on the same day it was widely reported that the national debt had hit $ 16 trillion , his piece is as ill-timed as it is unconvincing . Seeking to speak to and for his generation , he characterizes Obama as `` our biggest ally in Washington . '' He neglects , of course , to recount the harsh realities of the Obama economy . Instead , his message rests on the flimsy notion that we should hang on a little bit longer because enduring change takes time . You may be wondering what happened to `` We ca n't wait '' and `` Yes we can . '' Schlossberg concedes that we 're `` a little more cynical , '' but contends that `` just because our politics and government can disappoint us sometimes does n't mean we should forget how far we 've come . '' How far we 've come ? Unfortunately , such an argument demonstrates a sloppiness with the facts . Take , for instance , the fact that unemployment has remained above 8 % since the beginning of Obama 's term . Or , according to this analysis , that half of recent college graduates are jobless or underemployed Or that under Obama , the national debt has risen $ 5 trillion . Or that Obama presided over the first credit downgrade in American history . I could go on . The point is , these facts are overwhelming . And they are neither fair to young Americans nor signs of the progress for which we yearn . Rather , they are the residue of generational theft , of promises unmet , of false hopes and of crushed dreams . In a word , travesty . To argue otherwise is to fall out of a fairy tale . Schlossberg begins his piece with `` The Catcher in the Rye 's '' Holden Caulfield . He compares Caulfield 's desire to escape phonies to young people 's support for Barack Obama in his first presidential campaign . But the problem with that analysis is that it 's four years out of date . In 2008 , Obama regaled us with promises of hope and change , but his time in office has exposed the emptiness of these promises . And there 's more than meets to the eye to the president 's self-proclaimed achievements . While his allies may credit his health care law with allowing members of my generation to stay on our parents ' health care until we 're in our mid-20s , the real question is , why ca n't we find jobs in the first place ? Obama regards students as beneficiaries of his achievements . Schlossberg praises the president 's `` insistence on keeping student interest rates low , '' but that has n't kept student loan debt from reaching record levels . Schlossberg 's discussion of Obama 's energy policy is equally selective . He talks about the president 's `` investments in clean energy projects and jobs , '' but fails to mention that some of these `` investments '' came at a high price and on the dime of taxpayers . The saying goes that brevity is the soul of wit , so this argument merits a one-word refutation : Solyndra . But of all of Schlossberg 's claims , perhaps the most misguided is the notion that Obama has displayed political courage in the White House . He has refused to reform entitlements in a way that will ensure they remain solvent for future generations -- which is to say , us . Instead , he started a brand new trillion-dollar entitlement program in the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare , an unaffordable government takeover of our nation 's health care system . His fiscal stewardship has been nothing short of a disaster . Four consecutive years of trillion-dollar deficits is n't courageous ; it 's immoral . Schlossberg does get one thing correct , however : Part of growing up is coming to terms with heartbreaking truths . But in this case , it 's about coming to terms with the fact that Obama has had his chance to lead and his policies have failed . We do n't have to fall into line once again only to be taken for granted . We can vote for a new direction . We can reward truth-telling . We can elect Mitt Romney . The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Alex Schriver .
An op - ed recently urged young people not to give up on President Obama . Alex Haley says he overlooks the failure of Obama to fix the economy . Romney : Students ca n't find work , are burdened with student loan debt . We need Mitt Romney to move country in a new direction , Schriver writes .