“What we have now is a government where the notion of solving the problem seems to be secondary to a lot of people in Congress,” George Packer says on this week’s Political Scene podcast. “That’s our political life these days: going from one near-death experience to the next.”

The next such brush with fiscal mortality on the schedule is, of course, the sequester. On March 1st, a series of severe cuts to the federal budget will go into effect if Congress can’t pass a suitable deficit-reduction plan. Packer joins James Surowiecki and host Dorothy Wickenden on the podcast to discuss the long line of short-sighted policy decisions that have emerged from Congress over the past few years, the lack of action on significant issues like inequality and growth, and what has been happening to Americans as a result. Listen to the podcast, and click-through for more: http://nyr.kr/W6L846

(Source: newyorker.com / The New Yorker)