The Cleaver/Yoder lovefest
Yael T. AbouhalkahEmanuel Cleaver and Kevin Yoder spent the better part of 80 minutes having a civil conversation Monday morning about Congress and how it behaves.
Yes, I know - borrrring.
But gosh it was good to see two congressmen - Cleaver from Missouri, Yoder from Kansas - not pointing fingers at each other, not calling each other or even other congressmen and women names.
And they did agree on a few things.
Spending more money on infrastructure is important to rebuilding America and creating jobs.
The banking regulations written after Congress passed a law tightening restrictions on banks went too far.
The federal government shouldn’t have more power than locally elected people when it comes to education.
The destructive name-calling in Washington prevents things from getting done.
And both voted against the debt ceiling bill (which Congress approved) although for different reasons.
Sure, part of the reason both men were so civil on Monday is that votes weren’t being taken and neither had the chance to pontificate on matters.
Yoder spoke out strongly for a moratorium on regulations that likely would be anathema to Democrats.
Cleaver said taxing the super rich is supported by 80 percent of Americans; Yoder said that wouldn’t raise enough money to come close to covering the amount of excessive spending Congress is engaged in right now.
But overall, it was still good to see that men with pretty much divergent views on a lot of topics could talk sanely to each other, and still with passion.
Why?
Probably in large part because - as Cleaver made clear - conversation between people who know each other is going to be more constructive and less damaging than conversation between people who don’t each other well and feel free to engage in “thermonuclear language.”
Google+
Share
Tweet
Comments