What are the real issues of the U.S?Follow

That's priceless.

Do I only get five?

1) National debt and the interest thereon

In 2000, over 1/3 of our national revenue was going to pay the INTEREST on the national debt. Not principle, the interest. Think about that a moment: say you have consumer debt in the form of credit cards. Imagine if a full 1/3 of your income were paying just the interest on those credit cards. Not the principle, the interest. Not only would you never be able to pay them down, you would never, ever be fiscally solvent like that.

Now, the situation is worse. We are adding trillions to the national debt, AND we've given the major taxpayers--the ultrawealthy--huge tax breaks so the national revenue is even less. I'd be quite surprised if the amount of the national revenue paying interest on the debt now weren't somewhere in the range of 40-45%.

Now, not only does this mean that we cannot ever be solvent in such a situation, but the vast majority of that debt in being held by China and Japan. They have our currency hostage and can use the situation to influence trade and foreign relations negotiations, essentially blackmailing us into playing by their rules. All they have to do is call in their chips and the dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Someone, and I'm too lazy to look up my notes to remember exactly who, but it was some representative of the Chinese national bank I believe, actually BRAGGED about the situation to the media. I believe the quote was "The American dollar is at the mercy of Asian governments."


2) The ascendency of the religious far-right

Looking at the evolution of social policies in the last 30 years, it's very obvious that the religious far-right is in ascendency in our government, and the situation is getting worse, rather than better. This is dominating a plethora of social issues from gay marriage to the curriculum taught in school science and health classes to, of course, a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body.

It wouldn't be so bad if I truly believed that the government officials making these policies were doing so out of genuine conviction and to keep true to the actual will of the people, but they're not. They're inflating issues they really couldn't otherwise be bothered with because they know if they make it sound shocking enough, it will motivate the slightly right-leaning moderates who might have otherwise not voted for them. Look at how, amid all the other MAJOR sh[/i]it going on, gay marriage and stem-cell research became huge issues in the 2004 election. They became huge issues because the right-wingers got on TV and talked about them and talked about them until they motivated voters who would have otherwise stayed at home to get to the polls just to vote on those issues, and then incidentally vote for the guys that had been talking about them [i]ad nauseum. It's pandering, and it's really quite reprehensible.


3) The environment

Being, as I am, 31 years old and looking the biological clock straight in the face, I've had to weigh the pros and cons of having a child recently. And one of the most significant cons that occured to me is that I am not sure I want to subject a person I've given birth to and loved, and their children after them, to the place that this world will be in 50 to 100 years. It's not going to be a nice place, or a healthy place, and I'm really not sure we could undo the damage now even if we started full-steam efforts to do so immediately. I'm not sure it's right to being a child into that and leave them with that legacy.

4) The waning right to choose

I know this probably should have been part of #2, but frankly I think it's major enough to deserve it's own bullet point.

I saw this Frontline report last week and almost cried at how utterly irretrievable this situation is becoming. As a soon-to-be nurse midwife who will be providing women's gynecological and obstetrical services, I'm going to be in a position of having to deal with women the scope of whose choices is rapidly becoming narrower and narrower.

Deadly back alley abortions WILL be a reality again in the next 20 years, bet on it. And as a women's health care provider, I'll be cleaning up the mess they leave behind.

5) Iraq

This is the Vietnam of our era, make no mistake. We will be lucky if we are out of there in 10 years, more realistically count on 15 or 20. And when we DO pull out, it will be with our tail between our legs, having succeeded in doing absolutely nothing but making the situation worse, and only because the people finally got completely fed up and DEMANDED we get the hell out of there. Anyone who thinks this is a short-term war is dreaming. And I'm not calling it the War on Terror because Iraq. Never. Fu[/i]cking. Committed. A. Terrorist. Attack. Against. Us. (not until [i]after we invaded their sovereign territory, that is.) Calling it the "War on Terror" is only one of the plethora of ways the administration morphed Al Qaida into Iraq to convince the idiot public the war was necessary.

Okay, I'm out.



Edited, Mon Nov 14 07:01:14 2005 by Ambrya

As far as the environment goes, I would say that that is more of a global issue. Sure, there are issues with specific species and ecosystems here at home, and even sub-issues within, but it seems kind of broad. I would say that an immediate issue is our dependance on fossil fuels.


Ambrya: As far as not having children in order to save them from the environment... I'm just curious, but do you think that would justify an abortion in your mind? Just trying to see how strongly you feel about it.

She should join the feminists. That way, she can kill someone else's child and free up a slot for her own!

1. National Debt and trade deficits.. This country destroys its own leverage in the worldwide market by putting itself under with out of control borrowing. We're not even borrowing from countries that show an inclination towards our future welfare. Money doesn't just appear out of thin air and our road to recovery only gets longer and longer the more we borrow.

2. Energy - I would make this the number one issue with this country except for the fact that we will need to have the resources available to fix this issue. Without responsible fiscal policy, we will not be able to solve our dependence on foreign energy. We are literally standing on the cusp of a new age with breakthroughs in nanotechnology coming on an almost daily basis. We are also on the verge of major breakthroughs on key technologies like hydrogen feul. Unfortunately, even though we are the worlds strongest super power, we will be left in the dust as other countries will surpass us and gain the same opportunity we would have had today were it not for gross mismanagement of this country at such a critical time. We could leave the fossil feuls for industrializing nations such as India and not feel the pinch. As it is, our congressmen think they are going to bust Big Oil's balls when they have to come face to face with economic realities. India, China, and co. are only going to need more and more oil because their societies are evolving. If we are to survive, we too, must evolve. There's almost no excuse for not moving forward with a more domestic approach with our energy needs, except Problem 1 where we don't have the money and resources available due to gross mismanagement by Congress and the Executive.

3. Poor Immigration Policy - We ABSOLUTELY MUST secure our borders. It will be a matter of life and death in the next two or three decades. We stretch our resources thin enough, but we are also subsidizing the very existence of our southern neighbor. Thankfully, Bill Clinton was able to do something about the welfare state we had become in the 90's, but our immigration policy is emerging as a key threat to American civilization and has become the next welfare crisis. We offer health-care to these people and they offer next to nothing in return. The rapid influx of unskilled labor in the United States has led to an obscenely rapid pace of stratification in our economy. A lot of people want to blame "big business" for having all the money, but we have always had "big business" yet stratification was never an issue until we rescinded the Immigration Quotas put in place during the early 20th century. We can bring labor in on demand and adjust quotas, but without a secure border we are only subsidizing Mexico with an outflux of capital that we desperately need at this time. The West was won, there is no need to turn it wild again with illegal immigration skyrocketing.

4. Education - Unfortunately, this can only be number four because the previous three reasons are a dire strain on resources we need to fund education. Also, with the influx of immigrants in this country, it only serves to leech money from upstanding citizens who see their value depreciating year after year in the workforce. Education is vital, but we must be able to fund it. Once the blocks fall into place, we can re-emerge as an intellectual super power once again. We are the land of NASA and IBM! It's a horrible shame to see children get left in the cold by other countries for the simple fact that they can actually manage money. Education is the investment that returns exponentially. We must think of our children.

5. Criminal Justice System and it's subsequent effect on popular culture - We simply must enforce our laws with expedience. Too many times child sex offenders as well as murderers are returned into the general populace to exact their horrific mentality on the innocent. The soul purpose of any government is to protect its citizens. This problem manifests itself on a fundamental level to all Americans. Some people feel like they are have-nots and justify criminal acts through invisible ghosts of repression. To the OP: If racism was such a problem in the US, then why are black African immigrants more likely to be successful than native black Americans? It's a demographical truth. Yet, crime plagues the black community because our justice system takes pity on criminals and has become soft. People do not feel obligated as citizens to the country anymore. Of course, the problem isn't just with blacks, but they seem to be the most vocal minority when it comes to issues of racism yet the numbers do not favor the ideology. If crime is not brought under control, it won't take long for people to get the idea that the government must be replaced. This problem is societal as much as anything, so it must be addressed.

Honorable mentions: Iraq - Now that the reasons for going there have been debunked, we need to get out of there as soon as possible. I don't believe this means we need to cut and run, but we must certainly take an apologetic tone with the people and do our best to reconstruct. Maybe it will take a few years, but a decade would be far too long. You can put this right between Problem 1 and Problem 2, because it is only an indication of the gross mismanagement of our government.

Iran and North Korea - We are losing our *** in the international community. We look like complete fools for invading one country over the threat of WMDs yet these two nations blatantly flaunt their desire to create WMD technology to all of us. The sooner these two coutnries are put in their place, the less likely we are to become a complete laughing stock of the world in the next decade. We CANNOT allow them to arm with nuclear warheads.

Socialistic impulse - This country was never meant to be socialistic.. We cannot afford more beauracracy and social programs when the real focus needs to be on changing fiscal policy, energy policy, and immigration. This impulse is powered by the problems created by the three, but will not answer them.

Top 5 issues/problems in the US?

1) Americans
2) Hurricanes
3) Oil
4) Gubberment
5) Americans

Of this I am certain.

So far Elderon is the only one to add a real Problem to his list. I really hate it when he says something marginally intelligent.

Any list of the top 5 Problems facing the United States today is precisely 4 items too long. Any discussion of the state of the union must start and end with the fact that there is currently no cohesive vision for this country.

At many times in our nations history, the citizenry has joined together to forge toward some common goal. This is definitely not the case today. Politically, socially and economicly we are no more focused on the forward motion of the country than a flock of gulls. Every man, party, business for themselves sums up the national ethos at the moment.

Issues of the Day come and go. This generation's war will be supplanted by the next generation's war. This generation's economic woes will be unseated by the next generation's economic woes. This generation's environmental concerns will be lost in the sheer magnitude of the next generation's environmental concerns. "Isms" will always exist because it is human nature that they do. Immigration will ebb and flow as it has for the last 400 years. Placing any of these, or other, "issues" in front of the nation as the pressing concerns of our generation ignores the underlying Problem and passes it on to another generation.

If you really want to do something to improve the state of affairs in this country, listen to the person who believes in things that strike at the very core of your being and search for the common ground. Trite, cliched platitude. I know. Now go try it. 200 million times later and we have a new majority.

I would fire your campaign manager.

Because if there is not the fate of Rome awaits us.

A better question is why shouldn't now be one of those times.

This view suffers from the same problem most individuals in today's society suffer from. Lack of a long view. Short term goals are well and good, but if they come in place of a long term goal, of a plan of attack and focus on the larger picture, they do a disservice to those they are intended to placate. "Missing the forest for the trees" is not a cliche because it is rooted in nonsense. "Step back and look at the big picture" is not just an interesting pop idea. Putting gas in a car with a blown cylinder will not help it get down the road any quicker. Focusing on "The War" or "The Economy" or "Immigration" or any number of other issues that arrise in the course of time marching forward will never reap us a lasting solution.

Let's take one of the biggies out there today: Abortion.

You (not you personally, the plural "you", the ubiquitous "they") believe that all forms of abortion are immoral and wrong and an afront to God. I believe that though it is never going to be a preferred solution, there should be an option in some cases to have it available. They believe that it should be an on demand service no more difficult to obtain than a coke at a vending machine in the laundramat. The common ground is "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We (you, me and they) must find a compromise solution. We must all come to the place where we understand that rule by a short-sighted, dogmatic adherence to the personal beliefs of a select few zealots is no better when done at the hands of a Christian fanatic or a humanist fanatic than when it is done at the hands of a Muslim extremist.

We must come to the place where we are able to see that it harms no one to put the works of Bill Burroughs in a schoolhouse library any more than it endorses a religion to have a copy of the Bible or the Koran under that same roof.

It's over 300,000,000 at the moment, but that's beside the point. Of course its unlikely, but that makes the idea no less awe inspiring. That 200 million people in this country could wake up one morning and find themselves living in a country they could be happy to call their own, a country that they didn't fear the demise of. And the rights of the majority today are being trampled by the loudest minority groups, so I personally see little wrong with Eminent Domain being carried to it's logical end.

Ok. Just want to respond to this one bit, cause it caught my eye:



Where do you get that figure? What "national revenue" are you talking about? Are you talking about total GDP? Because that's ridiculous and can't be correct right of the bat, since the total Federal revenue as a percentage of GDP is currently 16.3%

Do you mean 1/3rd of that federal revenue? That's not possible either, since I can glance at a budget and see that huge chunks of that budget and revenue is allocated to things like defense, domestic programs, medicare, education, etc...

How much do you want to bet that what that figure started out being was "1/3rd of the federal budget allocated to pay for the national debt is consumed paying interest rather then principal"?

Just a guess, but nothing else comes close. Clearly, nowhere near 1/3rd of our total federal revenue is spent on the debt, whether paying interest or principle.

Regardless, your analogy is horribly flawed. It's more like this. About 1/6th of our total "income" (GDP) is taken by the government in the form of taxes. Of that, some much smaller amount (can't even find it as it's own line item, so I'm guessing it's hidden in the "domestic discretionary spending" budget, is allocated to paying national debt. If I'm right, the entire domestic discretionary spending budget is approximately 1/2 of 1/3rd of the entire budget, so that gives us a maximum of 1/2, of 1/3rd, of 1/6th of our "income" (GDP remember?) spent on national debt, 1/3rd of which is spent on paying off interest...

Um... Not even close to what you said. Again. Where did you get that quote? Is that like the people who mangle budget numbers by making claims like "1/2 of our federal budget is spent on defense!"? Just curious, because it's waaaaaaay out there. And it's so obviously wrong that anyone with a passing understanding of current budget figures knows it immediately.



Again. Where are you getting your information? We're "adding trillions to the national debt"? Hmmm... Since Bush took office, the debt has increased from 3.3 trillion dollars to 4.2 trillion. That's *close* to one trillion. Hardly "trillions".

Interestingly enough, when the debt is calculated as a percentage of GDP (the most relevant measurement of "relative debt"), it's gone up from 33% to 37% during Bush's term. That's not "huge". Not really. Back in the Reagan and Bush Sr and most of Clinton's terms the national debt was running in the mid to high 40s as a percentage of GDP. Yeah. there was a huge drop at the tail end of Clinton's administration, but that's hardly a trend, and is mostly explained by increased taxation (he was taxing at 20% and higher versus Bush taxing at 16%).

Oh. And corporate taxes have increased from 1.5% of GDP to 1.6% of GDP over the last 4 years (that's unfair though since they dropped to 1.2% as of 2003, and came back up last year). Personal income taxes have steadily dropped during that time period from 9.9% to 7.0%. So, if we're to read trends, it's that corporate taxes have stayed about the same, but personal income taxes have been steadily decreased. How exactly is this all coming from "the rich"? And if GDP is growing at a pace with national debt, are we really in trouble here?

Again. Where do you get your numbers? Out of a hat? Heard them on the radio? I'm seriously curious as to where these totally BS figures come from, because I run into them occasionally (usually when someone tosses them out there like they are fact), and I'm dying to know where people go to get such crappy information...


BTW. I get my figures from www.cbo.gov

No, but only insomuch as there is very little I can (you'll pardon the term) conceive of that would compel me to terminate a pregnancy, because the bottom line is, I WANT to have children, and if I found myself unexpectedly pregnant, I would welcome it.

The current environmental issues and their possible effect on the livability of this planet and more specifically this nation within the lifetime of any theoretical child I might have is simply one point among many on a list of pros and cons compiled for the for the purpose of evaluating the wisdom of ceasing to use birth control or even actively attempting to conceive. That list also include my husband's age, our financial situation, and my status as a student, and whether or not I feel we would have something, as parents, worth offering a child. No single point is by any means a dealbreaker in and of itself. I just feel it would be selfish not to consider this issue and the effect it will have when I'm dead and the child I created has to continue to live in a world that has become a cesspool.

To Varrus: you don't deserve the effort of a separate reply, so I'll just throw it in here. Your compulsion to force your unwanted opinions on a forum from which you have been forcibly ejected at least twice already is bordering on becoming pathological. If every day above ground is a good day, why waste these good days trolling here rather than making something useful of yourself. In conclusion, GFY, and seek help.



Edited, Tue Nov 15 08:11:53 2005 by Ambrya

Gbaji:

The figures are off the top of my head memories of research I did for an economics class I enrolled in shortly after Bush began increasing the national debt once more. I really couldn't begin to remember the source of the reports I delved through at the time. The notes I made for that paper are long since buried and I'm not digging them out on your behalf. My research was solid enough for my instructor, I got an A in the class.

I notice that while you expend a great deal of effort rambling on and on about whether or not the numbers are legit, you fail to address the material point, which is that the fact that the vast majority of our debt is being held by Asian governments puts us in a dangerous and untenable position.



By the way, since I don't have the time to go digging through the whole site you gave the URL to, but the $3.3 to $4.2 trillion figures seemed a little fishy, so I did a little digging of my own at the Bureau of the Public Debt Homepage and here's what is sitting there right at the top of the page:




According to my math, that's over $8 trillion.

For that matter, so does the figure of only $1 trillion in four years. You might want to check out http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto4.htm, which gives a historical breakdown of where the debt has stood each year. According to that, the debt went up TWO trillion dollars in four years, from $5.8 trillion in Sept 2001 to $7.9 in Sept 2005.

Maybe it's YOUR figures that need a little more scrutiny.

It was $4.9 trillion in 1995, which means it took six years to go up ONE trillion dollars before Bush took office. Now it's TWO trillion in four years. If you can't see that's a fu[i][/i]cking terrifying and massive problem, you're delusional.