We just went through an unbelievably long, highly contentious election cycle. We elected politicians on the national, state and local levels. Our televisions and phones were bombarded with partisan messages, many of which ignored the truth and most of which didn’t provide enough information to help us make an intelligent voting decision.
And there are a few topics which were ignored. Topics that should be discussed, but for one reason or another, aren’t, whether at the national, state, local, or neighborhood level. Here’s a list of a few of the most obvious topics that our lawmakers should debate but have failed to so much as mention.
1. WHY DO WE spend 13% of the U.S. budget on the military? The U.S. spends more on the military than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, France and Japan (the nine next-highest spenders) combined. About 1/3 of us think we spend too much; 29% think too little. Can we discuss this?
2. Why are America Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands (where are these islands, anyway?), Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., still possessions or territories? Why aren’t they states or independent countries? If they are ruled by us, why don’t they vote?
3. Why do we not have universal health care? Care that covers everybody, like other “developed” countries? Two-thirds of the population says the federal government should provide healthcare to everyone. Why was this not part of a political discussion?
4. WHY DOES the U.S. incarcerate over 1.8 million people, the most in the world? If you look at it by percentage of population, we imprison more than every country except El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda and Turkmenistan. Is that the company we want to be in? What’s the goal of our incarceration policy, and how are we doing compared to our objectives?
5. Why is the “best practices” concept never, ever used by government entities? This is very common in business circles, but we never apply it to government. Why is that?
6. Why don’t we treat guns like automobiles, with age restrictions, a written test, annual registration, and limits on distance of shots and number of shots, similar to speed limits? When “gun control” is mentioned by a politician, the response seems linked to “cold, dead hands.” Why aren’t we discussing common sense, constitution-friendly solutions?
7. RELATED TO (6), we know from our one-decade experience that outlawing machine guns reduces murders. A majority of the population wants these devices off the streets. Why aren’t actual proposals presented and debated?
8. Why does Indiana have 92 counties, and because that’s obviously not enough, why do we have over 1,000 townships? What is a township anyway? California has 58 counties, and its 4.3 times larger with a population that’s 5.7 times larger. Seems smarter, doesn’t it?
9. Why isn’t the minimum wage linked to inflation, with annual cost-of-living increases? It’s currently $7.25, and was last changed in 2009. About a million people are currently working at minimum wage. That’s a lot less than 1% of all workers in the U.S. Would it bankrupt companies or dramatically increase inflation to help 00.6% of workers? Can we discuss this, and review costs and impacts?
Let’s all let our new (and incumbent) politicians know that we’d like their thoughts on these issues.
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