Reflective Essay Sample on Should the President Have an Age Limit?

Should the president have an age limit? Many companies have a mandatory retirement age, so why don’t we have one for the highest public office in the nation? Joe Biden, the current President of the United States of America is currently seventy-nine years old. The man who ran against him in 2020, Donald Trump, is currently seventy-five. The oldest person to become president is currently Joe Biden, who was sworn in after turning seventy-eight. A heart attack was the problem that pulled then seventy-eight-year-old Bernie Sanders out of the running for president. This sparked the debate of whether there should be an age limit for the president. Donald Trump was once the oldest president to take office however, that is no longer the case. If Joe Biden were to run again and be re-elected in twenty-twenty-four, he would be eighty-six years old at the end of his second term and that is extremely old to be president.  

In this paper, I will be taking you through many reasons why the President of the United States should have an age limit. Firstly, the retirement age is sixty-six and as a society we value age. Old age comes with more experience and knowledge however health concerns come with it as well. Secondly, according to CNN, former President Jimmy Carter wants an age limit for the presidency. Being president is an extremely stressful job so it would not make sense for an eighty-year-old man to hold the position. Until Donald Trump, the United States never had a president who assumed office after turning seventy. It’s obvious that we are living longer and healthier as we age than previous generations. President Ronald Reagan was sixty-nine when he started his presidency and was soon rumored to have Alzheimer’s Disease while in office and was later diagnosed five years after his presidency. In 2019, the United States life expectancy was seventy-eight-point-seventy-nine, Joe Biden will exceed that age limit. There are plenty of people who exceeded that life expectancy however, they’re not the president. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. adults polled stated that there should be a maximum age limit. With old age comes health concerns and the last thing we need is for the president to have health problems, especially since we’re currently in a pandemic. Also, due to the pandemic and the rising of cases the president will be under more stress. That’s certainly not healthy because Joe Biden is seventy-nine. 

The reason I chose to write about this was that now that I’m old enough to get into politics and watch the news, I’ve done my own research, and seeing that both candidates for the 2020 election were over seventy was mind-blowing.