Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

One-off college debt forgiveness is probably a decent example for one cohort, maybe very generous home-buying tax perks for another *slightly* older set. You wouldn't care to mess with constitutional amendments because frankly it's in your best interests for the benefit to expire

OK, interesting. So we currently see the old using their higher turnout to transfer money from the young to the old by various mechanisms like this. Everyone who lives through this long gets to pass through this age and exploit those policies...

Giving more voting power to the young would generate the reverse — attempts to have policies that just transfer resources to the young. That's desirable in my view at the moment, but that's partly just a current day happenstance.

Setting aside whether transfers to the young are good, would things be worse than they are now? Unlike the old, who don't have to worry about costs their policies impose in 20 years' time...

...the young have an extra reason not to impose these policies, because they'll symmetrically bear the costs later as they age up. That's why I'd be more worried about changes to the *voting* system that permanently benefit one cohort, but that's a heavy lift to sell people on!

This only applies if policies are incredibly stable and difficult to change. When I'm old the policies that affect me won't be the ones I vote for while young, they'll be decided by the next generation of young people.

As the young become old and a new generation of young come along, they'll already be at the equilibrium level of redistribution given that distribution of voting power. No need for them to change (unless there's some other change).

To put it another way, yes, when young we can vote for a one of forgiveness of our college debt. But so long as the voting system remains the same, the next generation will just do the same thing!