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As Social Liberals, the students assigned to me went about analysing the different issues in a manner which focused itself on the effects of the policies on the citizens of the country rather than its economy. Even though this reflected the positions of social liberals in the real world to a certain degree, the students sometimes tended to disregard the effect of their policies on the economy. Many of them assumed that increased taxes, or a bottomless federal reserve, would be able to alleviate any problems created by greater financial burdens on the economy. For example, one student wanted Universal Health Care and several other social service programmes without any provision for where the money for these activities would come from.
During the first breakout session, I assumed that the students I would be mentoring knew a lot more than they actually did and was thus a little disappointed with their apparent preparation. However, their ability to absorb new information and relate it to topics that they had already learnt was immense and I was impressed with the speed with which some of them understood this material which isn’t exactly simple. One thing that I found pervasive in my group was the inability to distinguish between socialism and social liberalism. Some of them had assumed that the their viewpoint was that of a socialist and were thus giving ideas that were far more extreme than was meant to be for their position. I tried to convey this difference to them and I think I was successful because of a change in the way the students began to analyse the different topics after that.
The Blue Track viewed giving further bailouts to the manufacturing and financial sector as important because they believed that these sectors of the economy formed an important foundation on which the rest of the economy could function properly. As a result, this issue was given a high priority in our discussions and it was agreed to in general by the group that more money should be given to these companies. However, there was some disagreement about whether or not money should go to the manufacturing sector because some students viewed this as a sunset industry which cannot revived and should be allowed to die out in the US while it is being exploited in other countries. Our group also understood that bailing out the financial sector would not only help the American economy regain some momentum, but it would also help many other economies because of the nature of globalisation in today’s world. Thus, the bailout would not only help American citizens to regain their jobs and houses but it would also help boost the world economy which would again benefit the US. But, to be able to fund these bailouts, the blue track assigned some importance to increased taxes based on Obama’s model. Being Social Liberals, there was little disagreement between the students that there should be increased taxes.
There wasn’t a lot of difference in though within the students in the blue track and if there was any major difference, it wasn’t bought forth and thus not identifiable. As a result of this, there was oftentimes a lack of debate in the breakout sessions and us mentors were forced to present opposing views or bring up another topic of discussion just so that there was always something being discussed in the room.
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