What are the 3 most important domestic issues in the US today, and how do you feel the administration is doing in addressing them?

Well, first is the Economy, which is getting better, but not through Bush's help. The market bounces up and down, I don't think that downfall was his, not in the begining, but the way he handled it was wrong. Few more million below the poverty line, thousands of jobs lost, the ones made making less than the ones lost. What the Bush administration has done to aid has done either worse for the working people, or done nothing at all.

2nd would be a national healthcare system. We are one of the very very few countries in the world who have no such thing, and we are such a rich nation. Most eruopean nations which have less money than us have better healthcare systems. What has Bush done for this? Nothing.

3rd would be either enviroment or education. I'll go with education. Over 90% of DC schools are failing by the No Child Left Behind action. Its being learned that the Texas schools systemed falsified the reports that proclaimed this system to be good, leaving out whole districts and demographics.

Overall, not too impressed

Firstly,
I would go with education. We consistently are out scored on test (which granted can be subjective) by other nations. Our education system is in dire need of fixing, and it is appalling that in many cities, including our nations capital that school children have to leave their text books at school because there are not enough copies for each child to have one. They have to copy math problems out of the book and take detailed notes in history class becaues they can't bring the books home to study from. It's despicable that this is allowed to happen in the richest nation in the world. However, I don't see anyway of fixing it without spending more money on it, and nobody really wants to do that because it means either reallocating government funds or increasing taxes.

Secondly,
Healthcare. I agree with delta that the lack of a universal health care plan in this country is disgraceful. We could easily come up with the resources to fund one, although rolled into this would most likely have to be some measure of tort reform, so it would obviously complicate the process, but i feel that this could easily be done with the funds we have at hand, assuming the current administration doesn't keep cutting taxes.

Finally, I'm not sure what to call it... living wage? poverty? The amount of wage increases in the past twenty or so years for people who live in the bottom 20-50 percent of the national income bracket have barely kept pace (if at all) with the going rate of inflation. For instance, according to the new national study on housing costs, to rent a 2 bedroom apartment at fair market rent and have it be considered affordable (for an apartment or housing in general to be considered affordable you should only spend 30% of your income on it. If you spend more you might make it by, but then again if you get sick and your insurance goes up... you probably wont) in chicago is $15.44 an hour. interestingly enough this is actually higher than the statistic I saw last year for Baltimore ($17.20ish an hour, forget the exact cents). SHAC (a housing advocacy agency in Chicago) released a press release concering the statistics I've been quoting. SHAC also noted that HUD introduced some... questionable, methodical changes in computing the fair market rent, so that it would result in a lower wage requirement. That may account for the difference.

If you're interested in the "out of reach" survey it's usually put out every year and should be accesible via a google search. I know when I was doign a report on the living wage last year I found last years online (where the Baltimore statistic came from.)

Education is the worst problem in the country, hands down. All the other problems stem from a widely ignorant populous. Already, the government spends more per child to educate one kid in the public school system, than it would to send that one kid to a private school. Somebody mentioned DC; I think its $12,000 per kid in public school there. It's not a problem of spending its a problem of resource mismanagement.

I think Environment and internal infrastructure are also pretty big problems. Social Security is another one. Oh, and Democrats are a big problem; we need to get rid of them all of them. I propose that we ship them all over to China or Russia.

Yes, one party totalitarian state would be oh so lovely. <_< .

Lets keep it civil and refrain from comments such as these shall we?

I get the feeling that he was being facetious :)

I'm not so sure about the education thing. I agree mismanagement of funds is part of the problem, e.g. schools building new football stadiums instead of buying new history textbooks so that kids can read in the book instead of from their lecture notes how the cold war ended. However, i don't think that sums it up entirely. I will have to think and dig a bit more at it.

Even if this was the case, it can lead to certain things that I would rather not happen, thus stop before they start.

Anyways, with education, its not only the money being spent, its how we mark progress and the like. As of now, teh school system is based too much around standardized testing. As opposed to learning what really needs to be known, the teachers teach in a manner for students to be able to pass tests well, not so much to learn.

The standarized tests don't so much bother me as a concept. I mean the kids that outscore American students are doing it on those very same tests. They recieve specific training on how to do well on those tests so they can go to American schools. My problem is with the lowering of the bar on those tests, the falsifying of those tests, and the fact that government fundings is largely based on the results of the tests. Its all just a very bad system. But I haven't heard of any systems that are better, or any actual good ideas for reform. Privatization might be ok, I really havent seen any statistics on those schools that were taken over by private companies. Who knows though?

The thing with standardized tests is that it changes the way information is taught, as I said, not to be learned, but rather to pass tests, thats what students are taught.

Oddly enough, private schools don't outpreform public schools, given what public schools have to deal wtih. You see, in a private school, you first must have alot of money, and second be actually accepted to the school. You may be kicked out at anytime, and private schools do not have to do state tests, for they are not a state funded institution. Now, public schools have to accept all and must either have a place for them in school, or pay for them to get a tutor. Given the comparision between what goes in and what goes out, not overall achcivement, for that, as I pointed out, is not a fair comparison, I'd say that public and private schools are on more or less the same footing, for all save the most affluent schools.

As a student I must agree. No CHild Left Behind is just another way for the gov't to say that minority students in general do worse which is not true. Overall education is declining. I think teachers should get a 30,000 dollar raise since they have one of THE most important jobs in the counrty (more important then the VP in my opinion).

I would agree that education is probably the most important thing on the domestic agenda. I think "No Child Left Behind" wasn't a horrible idea to begin with. It passed with huge bipartisan support, and educators and legislators alike were excited about the prospect of it all. And then it was underfunded. The administration dropped the ball on this one, partially because it decided to fund two wars.

I'd say another big problem is illegal immigration. It affects everything--our economic structure, politics, homeland security, and our sense of cultural and national identity. And those things are not exactly in tip top shape as it is. But issues of maltreated illegal immigrants, issues of terrorists sneaking into the country, new issues of poverty in California, Texas, and New Mexico, all stem from illegal immigration. I think Bush has a decent plan for this. First, it was a good idea to streamline customs, immigration and naturalization, and parts of the CIA into the Department of Homeland Security. That really made things a lot easier, and made the transfer of information about illegal immigration much smoother. Then, they toughened criteria for accepting people into the country, which, sad as it may be, is ultimately necessary if we are to maintain any sense of order. Finally, Bush went liberal and is offering amnesty to illegal workers, if they meet certain requirements. The administration is doing alright on this one.

Finally, I think crime is an overall huge domestic problem that is CONSTANTLY overlooked. I would venture to say that more Americans are killed every day in America by violent crime than are killed in the war in Iraq. And while poverty is an issue that is linked to this, I think there are plenty of poor countries and poor peoples that don't nearly have the same level of violence that we do. But while we're diverting all of our time and energy into trying to intercept ballistic nuclear missiles from phantom rogue nations, we are in the meantime ignoring the substantial numbers of deaths and murders that occur within our very borders. This is an issue that Bush has not even touched, but frankly, neither did Clinton. Nor did Gore or Kerry talk much about it either.

I'm pinning this topic so that new comers can see it and weigh in on it without digging if they'd like to. I figure this being the US News/politics keeping this thing visible would be a good thing.

Actually adding to what I've said already, I think the fundamental growing gap between the richest and the poorest is a huge problem. It's amazing that cities can build multi-million dollar galleries, stadiums, and sky scrapers, and yet have people homeless and starving in the very streets.

I've said that elsewhere too.

One goes down to DC and sees the Captial Building, the White House, all these symbols of used by people of great wealth and power.

And in Feb you have people freezing to death on the streets 3 blocks away.

Does anyone think that terrorism is a pressing domestic issue?

I don't.

It is an issue, but one that doesn't occur often in the US. Kinda like plane crashes, airplanes are the safest mode of transportation, but whenever one goes down, it's huge news. One might think that airtravel is therefore, unsafe. However, compared to traveling in cars, its virtually accident free.

Domestic murders are often not even reported now, and the murder rate in a year is much higher than the number of those killed in terrorist attacks. Prehaps murder and crime is somthing we should be cracking down on.

Crime is something any leader needs to focus on. It's not just enough to increase police funding. We need do studies as to why people commit crimes and stop their need to commit them.




NOTE: I know there's probably already a big stack of studies on why people commit crime, but nobody's using them.

I hate to double post but I got to thinking on this one.


Public education. Is there anybody here that thinks the public education system is fine?

My first post in this thread touches on that:

Also, look at school priorities in Texas. That stupid "Sexy Cheerleading" bill was passed, while Texas has the lowest graduation rate and the 3rd lowest SAT scores.

To me the top 3 in equal preference are:

1)the elimination of global corporate influence in our government & on our elections

This can be achieved by eliminating the myth of corporate personhood and by eliminating business taxes by switching to the Fair Tax system.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1226-04.htm

http://www.fairtax.org/


2)immigration & border control reform with true border enforcement & without the formation of a guest worker visa nor amnesty

In the 1970's the only problem INS was reporting to Congress was the system was a little slow in the reunification of families. All of the problems being caused now are because under the influence of business lobbying Congress has passed multiple laws, ammendments, & forced mandates breaking the system. In fact it turned the border control system, which is supposed to be working in the interest of the American citizenry, into advocates for illegal aliens. The guest worker visa program was created with the intention of filling in vitally needed worker shortages temporarily with foreign workers. It used to be that it had to be proven first that there was a shortage & that a company had tried to hire an American for the position first before such a visa would be issued. The foreign worker had to be paid the prevailing American wage at that time, had to sign an affidavit that they had no intention of applying for citizenship, could not change companies nor position for which they were hired, & were limited to staying for only a set number of years. They had to have the necessary education, skills, & experience before they could be issued a visa to take the position. On top of that there were severely limiting caps on the number of visas which could be issued forcing companies to train Americans for the position. All the American worker protections that were in these laws have been removed and the caps increased. In 1970 there was the H-2 visa, the J-1 to promote cultural & educational exchange, & the L-1A & L-1B visas which were designed specifically for large inernational companies. Now there are numerous types for almost every professional category and numerous exclusions & exceptions to the caps & skill, experience, & education requirements & for their families. They are being given repeated renewals making these people candidates for citizenship based on length of stay. These people were never intended to be a burden to the legal immigration system. Their role was to be tempoary until an American could be trained. Their pay was to be equal so that there wasn't any incentive to hire a foreign worker over an American. Efforts to hire an American first had to be demonstrated & an investigation done to determine if there really was a shortage by the attourney general. All these public laws in our immigration & border control were changed in the last 30 years leading to the rapid unsustainable population explosion the US now has. The worst of this tampering by Congress has been occuring just prior to and since the writing of NAFTA. This tampering must be remedied & stopped.

3)The Constitution must be upheld. The Constitution is the social contract of the American citizenry which by our concensus allows the government to exist. It had a built in system of checks & balances that were placed there to keep the governing bodies in check for the peoples interest. No branch of government is allowed to abdicate power to any other party beyond the American people itself.
The President is not allowed to write treaties. Congress has no right to abdicate power to the presidency to so as in these fast-tracked free trade agreements. Noticed they are not called treaties because legally, they can't be. It is written into these trade agreements that supercede all federal, state, & local laws. Absolutely unconstitutional. Both the Declaration of Independence & the Constitution declare unto the world the intention that the American people are sovereign. How can a Strategic Support Branch be created within the military by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld without congressional authority nor appropriation & by the "reprogramming" of funds? What's more how can it be possibly be allowed to operate answerable only to Rumsfeld in its written definition? Exactly what does Commander & Chief mean? Congress is designated by the Constitution to regulate commerce with foreign nations. It has no right to abdicate that power to the WTO or any other agency nor agent. The WTO isn't supposed to be establishing US trade policy. The presidency doesn't have 'trade promotion authority". Congress is the only branch allowed to set trade policy. The president isn't supposed to be traveling the world promoting trade. Congress is supposed to represent the American people & the American people only. They are not supposed to be members of foreign caucuses and then writing foreign aid bills. Its improper that all these government officials be traveling the world, meeting with foreign officials & foreign corporate agents, then swiftly passing trade agreements or treaties of any kind. The meeting of these people is the purpose of an ambassador, keeping such direct influence apart. Foreign subversion of our government has ocurred & must be stopped. Eg. a president has sold national secrets to China & wasn't tried for treason.

Immigration is an interesting issue. I do have a problem with illegal immigration, but I also have a problem with this system of 'closed immigration'. Allow open immigration, then these problems wouldn't occur. And it would boost the economy.

The nation can't sustain the rapid population explosion we have had since NAFTA passed. Every urban area is turning into slums & the infrastructures are stretched to their limits. Good for which economy? Globilization has brought the national economy to the brink of total collapse. The global corporations are making mega profits but they're not sharing the money. Workers are being paid less & losing all compensations. IBM got rid of its pension plan. They demand company loyalty but treat workers as disposable. Poverty has risen 4 years in a row as average households take in less. Small & national businesses are dying. Its good to have a few global corporations doing well but the backbone of the national economy has always been small businesses & entrepreneurs. They sustain the majority of the population. All the little shops & businesses you pass not the global corporations. More & more of them are becoming churches. Most innovation doesn't come from large or global corporations. They pick up the best of what took off from small businesses. Most of what research & development the global corporations were doing has almost entirely been offshore outsourced already. The only thing I see being accomplished is the wealth of the US middle class is being redistributed around the world while the rich are untouched & in fact gain. Either by moving the jobs overseas, by issuing guest worker visas to lower wages by glutting the labor market, or by llegal immigration. Our trade defecit and national debt are record breaking numbers each year. These are numbers of a country about to go bankrupt. No matter how they spin it. A nation who's largest export is scrap paper is not going to survive long. A nation so in debt is not a rich nation & people have got to stop thinking that this is a rich nation. We haven't been for a while now. We had a well managed immigration system that allowed people to come here & assimilate into the society. That was broken by congress changing laws and it must be reversed.

1) The Economy. This includes such points as education and national health care, as well as immigration (though that's got a pinch of foreign policy too).

2) Social structures. Issues of homosexual rights and church/state need to be resolved, and resolved correctly.

3) Law Enforcement. We've got a horribly tangled mess of a legal and judicial system that needs to be simplified and expedited, as well as dealing with issues of punishment and victim and accused rights.

Beyond antidiscrimination I don't get the whole homosexual rights issue. I don't care if your homosexual. If your a citizen you should have the same rights as everyone else. No more. No less. I don't care if you get married. I don't care if you want to raise kids. I don't care if you want to put your lover on your health care plan, if I can't put my boyfriend then you can't. I don't think homosexuals are entitled to minority rights because for the overwhelming majority of people, who they have sex with and whether they ever have sex is a personal choice irregardless of gender. Being of minority opinion/preference is not the same as being a minority like race, age, or gender. I feel the same way about religious preferences. I don't feel the majority should be overly burdened in accomodating the handicapped. Eg. Licensing the blind to hunt & drive is an unfair danger to the general public. And feel that schools are an inappropriate forum to push awareness of lifestyle choices on the public. Parents are still in the process of teaching their own children of their own and what's more don't do it such a learning sensitive, peer pressured environment so there's unfair advantage being taken. Elementary & junior high schools are inappropriate forums for pushing social agendas. High school kids at least have a little more life experience with which to reason but even they can be programmed.

Keys, you might want to check out this:
http://s6.invisionfree.com/Politics_and_Pr...p?showtopic=151

Recent studies have showen that homosexuality is an inherited trait, linked to genetics, and therefore it is not opinion/preference, but innate in much the same sense as race or gender.

I won't comment any further since that's not what this topic is about at all...

To weigh in on 3 pressing issues, I'd say,

Government Spending, Poverty, and the Public Education System (specifically the success metrics used)

...I agree crime is an ENORMOUS problem in our country, however, I think addressing crime directly merely treats a symptom rather than a cause, and as such is a mis alocation of resources. Crime has been largely shown to be contextual, and would likely be drastically improved with a more effective handling of poverty, and public education, and similar issues

The largest domestic problem that the United States faces is not the educational system, but the negative given to education is presented with in popular culture. Students in other countries learn because the want to learn. Asian exchange students are not smart just because they have the right DNA, but because they have been taught to work hard and push themselves. America is the land of the stupidest, laziest and not to mention fattest people and especially kids.

The lack of proper teaching materials is inexcusable, but if some having a text book in front of a person won’t make the learn. They have to want to learn and intellectually improve themselves. If a student really wanted to learn they will find the information on their own and they are not the ones who should be worried about. The concern should be that skipping class, not doing work, insulting the teacher, etc. is all considered “cool”. I don’t know the answer to the problem but I also don’t have excess to the factors that cause this dilemma.

Immigration- Bush's administration is handling it horribly mainly because of his corporate buddies and the fact that he wants the hispanic vote

Economy-Downward spiral for many of the bottom 50% of the classes.
It is getting worse

Crime being introduced to new communities all over because of immigration, and social programs to move city scum into nice neighborhoods.
We need a lot harsher crime punishment, and less liberal B.S. on crime. which relates to this----->

In general, the system of varying laws in different states, is crappy too.
We should have one government with no states in my opinion.....


Rules would be much better and we wouldnt have problems where people get through state to state loopholes.

No, I do not believe terrorism is a pressing domestic issue. At least not nearly to the degree portrayed in the media. Education, healthcare, environment; all issues that affect people every day. Hence, domestic.

The Bush administration is handling immigration badly, I agree, but I'm certainly not agreeing with your ultimate desire to limit immigration. Bush's corporate constituency certainly wants cheap labor, but what they're giving immigrants in return is shit- the whole "guest worker" program is designed to limit immigrants' rights. That said, I think HR4437 (make illegals felons) is totally idiotic, and a return to nativistic xenophobia on this country's part would be stupid, especially given the fact that immigrants, now primarily Mexicans, have worked amazingly hard for little compensation to provide alot of wealth to this country. Throughout this country's history, immigrants from certain parts of the globe have often faced tons of crap, and then later racist legislation is repealed or reformed (ie. the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882). These calculated attempts to gain currency with a populist xenophobic backlash usually end up hurting this country's improvement while discriminating against human beings because of where they happened to be born. As the immigrant rights movement says, NO ONE IS ILLEGAL!

Your point about crime is hopelessly naive. Immigrants aren't massively supporting crime, and if some immigrants do recourse to criminal activity, it's because they're poor and they don't have any other opportunities. You look at the labor standards for say, Mexican immigrants on a strawberry plantation in California, and you'd be amazed how low they're paid. Heard of Cesar Chavez? You should probably read about him since your perception of what's now mostly Mexican immigration is incredibly flawed.

Also, I am sick of hearing about someone being "soft on crime". Do you even know what crime is? Look at it this way: a poor person (usually a minority) steals something, and a US Army Colonel helps kill thousands and destroy a country with weapons bought with cocaine money. Who gets put in jail?

Our legal system is patently absurd, it's a morality play ("good v. evil"), when anyone with a more comprehensive understanding realizes that life is more of a tragedy than anything. Given this case, you can't determine if someone's "guilty" "not guilty" or "mentally insane", it's just pigeon-holing people with a flawed concept of justice that isn't even applied properly across the whole system (as we can see by the simple fact that 70% of America's two million prison population are minorities, 63% of the two million being black and Latino). On the point of an unfair justice system, look at the disparity between crack versus cocaine sentencing. Crack does not lead to more violent crime than cocaine, yet since powder cocaine is more of a "middle-class" drug, the poor get hit with a one hundred times greater punishment for the same amount of crack versus cocaine. You also have to realize that given desperate situations reinforced by police brutality and a lack of real education, people are going to steal (property-related crime accounts for probably 80% of all crime versus violent crime, yet violent offenders are kept with non-violent offenders). The so-called criminal justice system in fact reinforces prison sentences based on poverty since, due to lack of education and proper rehabilitation, the recidivism rate (rate at which people go back to prison) is incredibly high. Not to mention all the prison rape and other screwed-up shit that goes on in prison.

Anyone who claims they're "tough on crime" in the traditional sense usually either doesn't know what they're talking about, or is very cynical and wants to use prison as a population control mechanism.

No offense, but this rant is asinine. First of all, this not just an issue of "homosexual" rights (for future reference, "homosexuals" prefer the terms gay, lesbian or queer). There are many transgender people who want to get married but can't. Second, gay rights should be a non-issue, but in the sense that no one should care to harm or obstruct anyone based on their sexual orientation. Unfortunately due to right-wing pandering to the "religious", queers aren't allowed to marry and get the full rights that they deserve. There are over a thousand legal issues involved with marriage, such as the right to see your partner if s/he got in an accident, that are denied to queers as a result of not being allowed to marry and get their full rights. Third, this isn't an issue of "minority" rights or "special" rights. This is an issue of human rights. Queers just want to be allowed to marry whomever they wish, to live a peaceful life and not be harassed by rampant homophobia that now passes for political debate. Tough shit if you think that's a "minority" right. Queers have been discriminated and oppressed for so long, in so many societies, that it's now time people recognize their rights. I recommend you look at the statistics for gay male teenagers who commit suicide versus their straight friends for one shocking example of society's intolerance and its effects.

Finally, I think it's really funny that people are deluding themselves into thinking that being queer is a personal "preference", and that they're accordingly pushing their "social agenda". Yeah, people really want to be queer so they can be harassed and made persona non grata in their own societies. Yep, that makes sense to me!

I'd ay the most pressing "democratic" issue in the states is that every couple of years my neighbors go out and legitimize a group of lawyers, thugs, and con-men who are backed by a group that is composed of the armed and mostly brainless. These people have no problem threatening all of us with violence, even though a majority of us made no decision about who would be best to lord over us, if we don't obey. Anyway I could get you guys to kindly knock it off?

I think all source of our current problems come from bad mental health...whether its crime, poor educational standards, environmental issues, business ethics.
Those are merely symptoms of a bigger, more incidious problem thats not easily "seen"
The vast majority of criminals are poor and traumatized with mental health needs that are neglected by a managed care system whose aim is profit, not caring for the health of anyone.
The sooner people see that the better.
The vast majority of wealthy career criminals are in total denial they have any problems..with the power and money to continue doing what they do.
Get the fox out of the henhouse..at least...dethrone Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser and Glaxo Smith Klein and Pfizer.
Corporate welfare has no place mismanaging health so CEOs can have their third vacation home.
Interesting that few connect the dots the same way.