Hard Choices, session 1

I'm taking a course at Denver University, Hard Choices in Public Policy. The instructor is former Colorado governor Richard Lamm. Class size is about 22, predominantly liberal.

In today's class we talked about the culture wars. How the political parties are polarized but the electorate is not. The retirement of the baby boomers and the aging of society, and dropping fertility rates. Some people were shocked when I mentioned that red states have a 2.08 fertility rate vs 1.47 for red states. Can society be sustainably both economically and environmentally? The death tax, haves vs havenots or nows vs laters. Can the health care, social security, and long term care be solved separately or must they be solved as a single package?

It's a two hour class. Gov. Lamm lectures for 30-45 minutes followed by a free wheeling discussion. I contributed a few small facts today, like the one above, but I hope to deliver some strong opinions next time on some of these topics. It looks like we will cover several related topics over the course of several weeks which should give me and others time to think about the topic and respond.