Taylor Petersen

Dialogue in America is dying. Don’t believe me? Turn on your TV, phone, laptop, ask Alexa, etc. You’ll find an unhealthy amount of partisan vitriol, as both sides of the spectrum vigorously snap at each other’s necks. Unfortunately, this trenchant jawing is spreading beyond the talking heads crowding the national discussion. Noxious exchanges happen every day among local leaders, administrators, teachers, and even family members. For example. while you spend time with both extended and intimate family members over the holidays, see what happens when you bring up the following subjects: the ongoing impeachment inquiry, 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, the NFL’s recent workout for Colin Kaepernick, and the disparate crowd receptions to Trump’s appearance at game six of the World Series and Alabama-LSU game this past month.

President Obama was much maligned for contributing an additional $8.75 trillion to the national debt, pushing it from $11 trillion to around $19 trillion before he left office. However, President Trump is contributing to the national debt at a similar pace, on track to add $4 trillion to the national debt by the end of his first term despite a robust and growing economy [1]. As the U.S. government spends far beyond its means, it struggles to cover its “mandatory spending” obligations, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in addition to public pensions. The public sector is one of the few entities that offers pensions or “defined benefit” plans. With these plans the government sets aside a portion of the employee’s paycheck to invest in a fund that grows and is then given to the employee upon retirement. In 2018, Moody’s Investor Service, a ratings agency, estimated that public pensions are underfunded by $4.4 trillion, an amount equivalent to the economy of Germany [2]. With spending deficits ballooning and pension plans disappearing in the private sector due to economic infeasibility, it is wrong for the government to continue funding public pensions.

After an uneventful New Year’s Eve, I was unprepared for the resurgence of a long-forgotten name in the headlines on New Year’s Day. On January 1st, Mitt Romney, the recently elected Utah senator and 2012 presidential candidate, decided to give us his take on Trump in his op-ed “The President Shapes the Public Character of the Nation. Trump’s Character Falls Short” [1]. Following his 2018 midterm win, Romney set out to clarify his relationship with the nation’s politics by openly criticizing President Trump’s character, while agreeing with his conservative policies. While the op-ed itself is full of bland generalizations, it does help us to understand the current state of the G.O.P. and how Romney fits into it.