Satire and Serious as we approach the Fiscal Cliff

  

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The Fiscal Cliff Compromise
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(From US Government Teachers Blog)
 
This is a nice concise overview of the fiscal cliff. You can stop it half way through when he gets to the Grover Norquist tax pledge.

The WashPost has a nice article that neatly breaks down the "fiscal cliff" including some nice charts.

The 113th House is a man's world

News from Capitol Hill's House GOP caucus meetings if a further example that the U.S. Congress is not a body that represents a cross section of Americans. Remember that committee chairmenship are determined by party majority (in the 113th Congress all the chairs will be Republican, and in the Senate the gavel goes to Democrats in all committees) and in most cases still, party senortiy.

And while the 113th Senate will have the most ever women in the chamber, as Politico reports, at the top of House committees, it’s a man’s world.

Not a single woman will lead any of the major House committees in the 113th Congress.

After a day of meetings closed to the public, the House Republican Steering Committee announced an all-male slate of committee chairs, including 12 returning lawmakers who will head up some of the most important panels in Washington. The chairs for the House Ethics Committee and House Administration Committee have yet to be chosen, so a woman could end up in one of those slots.

(PHOTOS: Meet Boehner's committee chairmen)

The top female contender to lead a major committee was Michigan Rep. Candice Miller, who lost a battle for the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee to Texas Rep. Mike McCaul.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84293.html#ixzz2Ddjibtcj

Identity problem

(From Teaching Comparative blog)


Establishing a country's identity is a big deal.

Name Change Is Suggested for Other ‘U.S.’

With just over a week left in office, the president of Mexico has offered perhaps the boldest proposal of his six-year tenure. He wants Mexico to just be “Mexico.”

The formal name of the country is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, often translated as “United Mexican States” or “United States of Mexico.”

It is the “Estados Unidos” that nags at President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa… and he wants it out, once and for all. It happens to be the Spanish name of the big neighbor up north…

Now it is time, [Calderón] said, for Mexico to step out of the shadow of the United States, at least in name.

“Mexico does not need a name that emulates another country and that none of us Mexicans use every day,” he said Thursday at a morning announcement at the presidential residence…

Making it so, however, will take a constitutional change… 

Can We learn lesson before going of the 'cliff?'

 

As we wrap up Congress, and deal with the budget, we will have a change of plans and do a new deliberation lesson on Tuesday in class (thanks to C-Span in the Classroom).

What is the 'Fiscal Cliff?'

BAckground article questions

Vocab Preview

We ALL will complete this lesson Part I in class or at home on Monday.

Then we will meet in the MITS Lab on Tuesday. Half of you will break down President Obama's speech, and half of you will break down Speaker Boehner's speech (linked below) and we will deliberate the question, "Should the Federal Government concentrate on spending or revenue in creating compromise legislation to avert the fiscal cliff."

TUESDAY's Congress Test will be a take-home exam -- Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

President Obama on the Economy and Deficits

 





Speaker Boehner on the Budget and Tax Cuts

Questions for President Obama's Speech on the Economy and Deficits

Questions for Speaker Boehner's Speech on Budget and Tax Cuts

“Budget Deficit” vs. “National Debt”

Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow (i.e.; use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.


Below, imagery to help us think about the issue of a $16.2 trillion federal debt.

What does ONE trillion $$$ look like?

Former WV YG Governor at center of Obama campaign rally tonight

The Tribune centers its story about what supporters hope is a Obama victory rally tonight in Chicago, around Waubonsie Valley AP Government Political Warrior and 2010 Illinois YMCA Youth & Government Governor Janesh Rahlan:

Four years ago, Janesh Rahlan watched the Grant Park presidential election extravaganza play out on TV from the confines of his parent's Aurora home.

"I did want to go, but my parents said that is not happening on a school night," said Rahlan, now 20 and a junior at Northwestern University.

This time around, however, Rahlan said that all the homework and midterms in college could not keep him away from President Barack Obama's McCormick Place rally.

The atmosphere Tuesday, however, is likely to lack the spectacle of 2008, when an estimated 240,000 people streamed into Grant Park to see a victorious Obama speak, a historic moment marking the election of the first African-American president.

Obama's campaign chose to keep its festivities indoors this year, where the crowd will be limited to a few thousand die-hard supporters who volunteered to work for the campaign in the final days. For supporters who don't have a ticket to the event, a CNN-organized gathering in the plaza outside the James R. Thompson Center may be the only public event available.

City and campaign officials have made no announcements of accommodations for a public gathering. Information about Tuesday's plans has been sparse. City officials said the Office of Emergency Management and Communication would be announcing traffic restrictions related to the president's visit, but as of late Monday no announcements had been made.

If Obama plans to move around the city Tuesday, commuters should expect other temporary road closings to accommodate his motorcade. Workers at the Aon Center were notified Monday by the building's management that Columbus Drive near the office tower will be shut down Tuesday, with city salt trucks used as barriers. Several other streets surrounding the building will be subject to "rolling closures" because of motorcades in the area, the notice read.

At some point Tuesday night, Obama will join supporters at McCormick Place's Lakeside Center, the older, black steel and glass building on the east side of Lake Shore Drive. Campaign officials have not said how many people will be allowed into the convention center, but no one will be allowed in without a ticket.

After days of making calls to voters in battleground states, Rahlan was one of many Chicago-area volunteers to receive a ticket Monday to the president's watch party Tuesday night.

He received the ticket at a Skokie Obama campaign phone bank location and summed up his reaction with one word.

"Ecstatic," Rahlan said. "It (is) one of those things where you get to be a part of history."

Rahlan said he plans to take public transportation to McCormick Place on Tuesday and arrive around 8:30 or 9 p.m. Before then, however, he said he might work a little more at the Skokie phone bank.

"Just to make a final push," he said.

City officials finalized a permit Monday for CNN to park a satellite truck and a jumbo television screen on Randolph Street between City Hall and the Thompson Center plaza. The cable network is inviting the public to watch results on the big screen, and it plans to televise part of its election coverage from the location.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-obama-rally-1106-20121106,0,6984650.story

Broken Government? Your Job: Fix it

Mike Adams,the creator of the above cartoon, thinks things are bad at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):"Of all the cartoons we've ever done on the FDA, this is the one that people seem to like the best."

It addresses the issue of FDA conflicts of interest. The Food and Drug Administration, an agency that suffers under the hallucination that it protects the public from dangerous foods and drugs, has actually become the marketing department of Big Pharma. It actually takes money from drug companies in exchange for evaluating and approving their drugs, and the decisions concerning which drugs to approve almost always come down to a panel of "experts" who have strong financial ties to the very companies impacted by their decisions.''

Well, if it's "Broken Government" then it's your job to fix it.

Before you start with your poster/policy pitch assignment due Friday, consider this article from US History.org

http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8d.asp (take note or the merit system and bureaucratic accountability).

Have one person from your stake your claim for an agency in the comment section starting 11/5. Also, list the 3 or 4 members of your group.

EPA Chief (from last year): Enviroment should be above partisanship. Do you agree? Also, would Richard Nixon (before Watergate) make it in the current GOP. Afterall, it was his administration that created the EPA in 1970.

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45395747#45395747

Can you pick 'em?

The NY Times has a graphic that you can manipulate the 512 ways (assuming 9 states are still swinging) to see who will become the next president of the US.

Politico has broken down what it will be linke Wednesday morning (maybe?) Obama loses or if Romney loses.

For fun, blog in the comment section your I predict.....included electoral vote count (remember 538 total EC votes, 270 to win), popular vote percentage and national voter turnout. We'll say a major award for the winner of our Presidential Selection Pool.