Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Over the Cliff

Officially we are now over the cliff. Even though the Senate passed a deal, (89 yea - 8 nay),  at 1:39am 1/1/13, the House has yet to vote. The deal makes middle tax cuts permanent and delays the sequester by two months, just about time when the Treasury runs out of money.

If the deal passes the House, we will have two months more of Congressional brinksmanship before we have to raise the debt ceiling. The real fight has just begun.



Like other tragedies, we can use this as a teaching moment. How has our political discourse become so toxic? Rather than vilify the people we disagree with, we can try to understand what underlies their beliefs. Here is a TED talk which tries to revive the lost art of democratic debate.
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2 comments:

  1. MichaelJanuary 1, 2013 at 7:55 AM

    The TED speaker, Michael Sandel, is a Harvard philosophy professor and has made his course available online here:

    http://www.justiceharvard.org

    ReplyDelete
  2. MichaelJanuary 2, 2013 at 4:29 AM

    At !0:57pm 1/1/13, the House passed the Senate deal, 257 to 167. Two-thirds of the aye votes came from the Democrats.

    ReplyDelete

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