A remarkable, historic period of change
I was thinking about punctuated equilibrium in terms of our changes this last decade just last night; don’t worry, that’s just a coincidence and Ezra is not my astral twin. Others are probably thinking this as well because so much has happened.
We have experienced drastic changes the past decade, and a combination of technology, demographic destiny, and climate will continue to force change in the coming decades. That’s why it’s incumbent on our government to get the tax equation fixed and for Congress to set a new economic steady state, to let the bean counters across America know that they don’t have to worry about new tax structures every other year on top of everything else they have to account for. They might as well get it done now rather than later.
Step back and take an accounting of these last few years: The United States of America, a land where slaves were kept 150 years ago and bathrooms were segregated as recently as 50 years ago, elected and reelected our first black president. We passed and ratified a universal health-care system. We saw the first female Speaker of the House, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, and the first openly gay member of the Senate. We stopped a Great Depression, rewrote the nation’s financial regulations, and nearly defaulted on our debt for the first time in our history. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Washington and the District of Columbia legalized gay marriage, and the president and the vice president both proclaimed their support. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. We killed the most dangerous terrorist in the world and managed two wars. We’ve seen inequality and debt skyrocket to some of the highest levels in American history. We passed a stimulus and investment bill that will transform everything from medical records to education and began a drone campaign that will likely be seen as an epochal shift in the way the United States conducts war.