Apologies for the overlong post that follows. We’ve been having a discussion for a while now about what’s not being said in the political theater. What passes for discourse is little more than staged sound bytes. If we could rub the political lamp and get the genie to grant wishes what follows would be the discussion this country would have when it chose leaders. Any of the below items that do come up tend to not survive longer than a few news cycles. The list isn’t some manifesto; just us thinking out loud. It isn’t all-inclusive either, just the big things we see missing from the discourse. As with all things in this blogspace, it is offered with the “IMHO” tag.
A & A Wish List
1: A reasonable, pragmatic approach to addressing health care. This is a unique issue as almost everyone that touches this topic agrees that it’s broken on some level. Included in this is a serious discussion about the raging gaps in mental health care. In the end, somebody actually doing something, anything, as opposed to making speeches and changing the topic.
2: A pragmatic discussion about social security that based on fiscal realities. This, along with all other topics, would have to include a disclaimer up front that changes some people aren't going to like are going to be required. In this as with all things, politicians need to get over their opinions and listen to experts.
3: A serious discussion about the role and factor of personal debt in this country. I'm not as insistent that politicians actually do something in this case. I'm more interested in them using political clout and legislative threat to coerce the financial community into being more responsible. Congress and the executive branch aren't financial experts and the more they tend to mess with these things the more they tend to screw them up.
4: Serious effort at infrastructure upgrading. Every single jurisdiction in this country is patching together an aging, arcane infrastructure. 85% of the infrastructure in this country is in private hands. They are doing no or the bare minimum of upgrading, with the exception of the telcom industry. Something like six and a half trillion dollars in upgrades will be needed in the next generation in this country. Nobody is even talking about how to begin to approach that.
5: The congressional appropriations process is an absolute travesty. The earmarks that dot every single piece of funding legislation that get pooped out are criminal. First and foremost on the list: The Department of Defense. The half-trillion dollar defense budget has numerous programs that are orders of magnitude beyond projected cost, which the DoD continues to support anyway. Added to this are numerous weapons systems that the military isn't all that keen on having, but congress uses as a federal jobs program. This is not like herding cats: The majority of spending goes to about a half dozen defense contractors in this country. Why is the government accepting a level of incompetence and graft that a high school dropout wouldn't tolerate from a home repair contractor?
6: Serious discussion about a long term strategy in the war on terror. Yes, it is a war. Yes, we are engaged whether we want to be or not. Pull whatever demagogue positions there are about the war in
7: A serious discussion about energy policy. Global warming will have to be completely removed from this discussion, as too many people are too deeply emotionally invested in the idea. Fix one and the other will follow anyway. This has to go beyond improving the CAFE standards and getting people to drive hybrids. Making people plug in their cars and manufacturing enormous amount of ethanol merely moves the energy consumption to a different part of the grid. A complete broad-spectrum approach is needed. This area is ripe for a Manhattan Project style approach, and the first one to claim that position will probably have the political high ground.
8: Lobbying and influence buying needs to be addressed on an adult level. The only people that think the current system is reasonable are those that benefit from it. Aside from being blatantly criminal it's an insult to regular people that play by the rules in this world. Here's a novel idea: Why don’t we hold Congressmen to the same ethical standard we hold cops to. The occasional comp'd dinner is as far as you can go when it comes to accepting gifts, and even that should be viewed with a wary eye.
9: A serious, dispassionate review of the "War on Drugs" is needed. Almost 40 years of effort has wrought appalling violence and incredible levels of incarceration. We need to ask ourselves if some radical, sacred cow-busting approaches wouldn't yield better results. Whatever rationale people are clinging to about the evils of marijuana will probably thin out even more and the baby boomers start confronting terminal illnesses in greater numbers over the next 10 or 15 years. Again, a complete, across the spectrum review is needed; not more laws and more jails.
10: It’s time for a new political party. A serious one, not one thought up at Ralph Nader’s mommy’s kitchen table. We’re not the first ones to say it, and we won’t be the last, but there’s not a shit’s worth of difference between the two biggies anymore, and we all know it. I’m still trying to forget H. Ross Perot’s venture into national politics, but good grief, somebody do SOMETHING. (Ares note: I actually voted for Perot, mainly because he had actually done something with his life besides politics.) The last time we had a new political party that stuck in this country was just before the Civil War. The soil is ripe for some innovative reinvention, especially as the baby boomers move off the stage.
Ares and Athena
