I know what it is like to be young and to be in college. These are some of life’s best years, as I can personally attest. After you are out of college you will look for a job. Once you find employment there are pressures of a career, of marriage, of children, and before you know it you’re a grandparent! Only in college do you have time to sit around with other young people and contemplate the nature of the universe! Never in your life will you be so free.

On Tuesday many of you will vote for the first time. I hope you take this privilege more seriously than I did, because the stakes are much higher for you than they were for me. When I was in college in the late sixties the federal government was small by today’s standards. The GDP in 1967 was $810 billion. The Federal Government claimed 18.4% of the GDP as receipts and spent 19.4% of GDP. The deficit for 1967 was 1.1 percent of GDP.

In 2011 the GDP was $14,958 billion. The Federal Government received 15.4% of the GDP as income, but spent $24.1% of the GDP leaving a 2011 deficit of 8.7% of GDP. You live in a country where the Federal Government borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends. In a world where environmental “sustainability” is a hot topic, you don’t have to be an Economics major to realize that the United States will suffer certain fiscal collapse long before the polar bears vanish.

If you don’t listen to me, I won’t blame you. I was once young and idealistic; even brash. Nobody could tell me a thing when I was in college. It is my strongly held opinion that the upcoming Presidential election is the most important of my lifetime. For you it may be the last chance you have to experience the prosperity that your parents have enjoyed. Four years ago most of my students were wildly enthusiastic about this charismatic man named Barack Obama. I shared their hope that Obama would make a fine leader. Today many of them have graduated from college and are living in their parents’ basements. I urge you not to make the same mistake they did or you may share the same fate.

In my opinion Barack Obama does not possess the values, experience, or economic knowledge to bring our country out of its present malaise. As we speak investors are sitting on billions of dollars, just waiting to invest in our economy and create jobs; including your future job. However, that money will sit on the sidelines for four more years if Obama is re-elected. The job creators, risk takers, and hard working men and women that create personal and national prosperity are not about to have the fruits of their labor stolen by the likes of Barack Obama. They know that wealth cannot be created by redistributing it.

You have a choice on Tuesday between a society based on government dependence or a society based on individual freedom. When you vote on November 6th I hope you are wiser than I was when I was in college. Your future is in the balance.