• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

What is the biggest problem in American government?

What's the biggest problem in America you think Government needs to address?

  • Tax Reform

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Government privacy intrustions on citizens

    Votes: 4 16.7%
  • Energy independence/affordability

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Addressing climate change

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Partisan polarization

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Education

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Reducing crime

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Addressing generational poverty

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • The economy

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 29.2%

  • Total voters
    24

Smeagol

DP Veteran
Joined
Jun 14, 2012
Messages
4,147
Reaction score
1,694
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Undisclosed
If you could unilaterally fix one problem with American government, what would it be and how you you fix it?
 
If you could unilaterally fix one problem with American government, what would it be and how you you fix it?

It's the campaign money politicians need to get re-elected. It taints our whole political system. We could fix it by banning all contributions and supplying each candidate with a fixed amount to get his message across. The money we spend there would pay for itself off 1000's of times over by eliminating wasteful spending and cronyism.
 
It's the campaign money politicians need to get re-elected. It taints our whole political system. We could fix it by banning all contributions and supplying each candidate with a fixed amount to get his message across. The money we spend there would pay for itself off 1000's of times over by eliminating wasteful spending and cronyism.

^ This, word for word.
 
If you could unilaterally fix one problem with American government, what would it be and how you you fix it?

Returning to the constitutional enumerated powers of the federal gov't. Examples: Eliminating the federal department of education entirely. Making the taxation of income from all sources have nothing to do with how (or upon whom) that income was later spent. Removing all direct gov't payments to citizens if not for goods, labor or services provided to the gov't - possibly exempting contractual programs based mainly upon individual advance contributions like SS/Medicare.
 
Returning to the constitutional enumerated powers of the federal gov't. Examples: Eliminating the federal department of education entirely. Making the taxation of income from all sources have nothing to do with how (or upon whom) that income was later spent. Removing all direct gov't payments to citizens if not for goods, labor or services provided to the gov't - possibly exempting contractual programs based mainly upon individual advance contributions like SS/Medicare.

In other words let's turn back the clocks to 1900. You must think we had paradise back then. Actually it really sucked for the vast majority. There is little to be proud of about America then. It was just another oligarchy, where the wealthy abused the masses and kept them poor as dirt. You need to do some reading.
 
Last edited:
It's the campaign money politicians need to get re-elected. It taints our whole political system. We could fix it by banning all contributions and supplying each candidate with a fixed amount to get his message across. The money we spend there would pay for itself off 1000's of times over by eliminating wasteful spending and cronyism.

I was going to say the economy and specify that we must eliminate the current relationship between corporations an politicians (both of them just using their money/power for subsidies/regulations/reelection). But yours essentially sums it up.
 
It's the campaign money politicians need to get re-elected. It taints our whole political system. We could fix it by banning all contributions and supplying each candidate with a fixed amount to get his message across. The money we spend there would pay for itself off 1000's of times over by eliminating wasteful spending and cronyism.

^ This, word for word.

Seconded.
 
Education. Through education, all other problems can be solved.
 
Seconded.

Humans are often motivated by what is best for them even if they are unaware of it. Therefore, a politician may change his or her position on a subject simply because he or she knows that by doing so, he or she would fair better. They may not be conscious of their motivations, but it happens none the less. Thus, the problem is really that politicians are too aware of the causes that large corporations and wealthy people support. I would assume that ideally, our governmental system is supposed to be for the betterment of society. Obviously there are problems and they are all based on human error. So, I think we need to find ways to eliminate human error. How can we do this?

In my opinion, we may be better or using science rather than opinion to inform decisions. Of course science can be corrupted too. So there goes that idea... lol!

This is definitely a difficult situation and as long as humans are involved, there will never be a perfect solution.

I would agree that, for starters, we should eliminate any benefit that politicians could receive via any kind of monetary or other valuable type contributions from anyone except the state.

The only thing that should hold any weight from society should be votes. There are still problems with this though. However, if money were taken out of the picture, so that politicians could only or at least mostly be motivated by doing the "right thing", then we would be taking a step in the right direction.

What are other people's thoughts... how can we reduce monetary influence? How can we protect against bad choices from uninformed or unethical voters?
 
Education. Through education, all other problems can be solved.

Yes, I agree that education is key.... perhaps this is why some countries put their citizens through college? I have found that education cannot necessarily make people make ethical decisions though. Selfishness can still exist. This aspect needs to be treated on a different level... i.e. via parenting... even then, some people's personalities are more genetically influenced than environmentally.
 
The biggest problem that government needs to address is ending out- and in- sourcing, both the legal and illegal types, and thus return millions of jobs to the Americans to whom these jobs ethically and patriotically belong.

That would go the longest way to raising the economy out of the lingering ashes of The Great Recession as well as halt the continuing slide of America into city-state status of the one-world U.N. government that Obama's Multi-Cultural Internationalists desire.
 
Yes, I agree that education is key.... perhaps this is why some countries put their citizens through college? I have found that education cannot necessarily make people make ethical decisions though. Selfishness can still exist. This aspect needs to be treated on a different level... i.e. via parenting... even then, some people's personalities are more genetically influenced than environmentally.
I agree. Although I also think that our education system needs to be altered so that it encourages traits like empathy and compassion. I think it currently encourages traits like selfishness which leads to a lot of problems, as you mention.
 
its imperialism

l suggest senators focus on their own problems involved in the poll
 
If you could unilaterally fix one problem with American government, what would it be and how you you fix it?

The Republocrats and the Corporate Machine they serve.
 
"Entitlement Reform". That's what is about to sink us. "Size", in general, is the problem with our government. There is too much of it.
 
The biggest problem that government needs to address is ending out- and in- sourcing, both the legal and illegal types, and thus return millions of jobs to the Americans to whom these jobs ethically and patriotically belong.

I agree with this part, but would add returning as much industrial production to the U.S. as possible as well to generate employment for people who prefer learning and then applying skilled labor over the time and expense of a college education.
 
It's the campaign money politicians need to get re-elected. It taints our whole political system. We could fix it by banning all contributions and supplying each candidate with a fixed amount to get his message across. The money we spend there would pay for itself off 1000's of times over by eliminating wasteful spending and cronyism.

This would be a big improvement but why not go further and have term limits of one term for all elected officials as well as a balanced budget amendment. Even if politicians do not have to worry about raising money for their re-election campaigns there still will be strong pressure to appease powerful special interests that may not coincide with national interests. Which politician that will be running for re-election wants public employee unions to run ads or supply massive grass root opposition for implementing a world class efficiency program throughout government. Or the same kind of opposition going against banking, finance, or big business special interests. Try and reform welfare and you threaten to piss off 30 or 40 million voters. Get off the China credit card and make the hard choices that need to be done, and risk not getting re-elected? Short term insanity in a typical politician's eyes. Term limits of one term with very strict ethic laws of politicians not getting any future outside benefits from special interests along with a balance budget amendment would be the type of structure needed to drastically improve this situation.

There are some additional structural things that could improve the quality of government that ties in with the term limits of one term. I like the idea of taking away the direct democracy of selecting all of the senators in the Senate and allow the state Governors to appoint one of the two senators of their state, with state congressional confirmation of the selection, and allow these appointed senators to be re-appointed as many times as the state government wants to re-appoint them. The hope is this will improve the quality of the Senate and many of the really good senators will be re-appointed when their six year term is up adding some experience and wisdom to the Senate. I'd also like to see the Senate have to vote for 10% of the House of Representatives that will serve additional terms when their legally restrained one term in office is up. For example a really talented person gets elected to their one term in the House by the citizens of their state, the Senators see this person is a benefit to the nation, a really good congressman, and so they are voted by the Senate for a second term, and no longer represent their districts, but are counted as the 10% of the House of Representatives that are voted in by the Senate. Some of these 10% may have long careers in the House, others may lose out to new congressman that impress the Senate. The hope here is to keep some continuity and leadership in the House that is 90% one term. The Presidency I'd like to see as one term of six years with a vote of confidence by the congress after 3 yrs. If 3/4 vote in both houses call for elections, then the sitting President would face a general public election.
 
Last edited:
Probably energy, and all of the interventionism that goes along with it.

That would help the economy big time.
 
Partisan polarization

Ony two parties can't represent people accurately. Currently a person can't be Pro-Life and Pro Same Sex Marriage. They have no representation in the government. I would Finance two candidates (one Liberal and one Conservative) to run at the same time. That way maybe we would eliminate the concept of "wasting" your vote for a party other than the current two.
 
Abolish democracy and end its miserable failure.

I strongly agree. Let me back that up with a little analogy. Republic versus democracy is like flying versus driving today. You can either put select few who are well trained in control or you can give equal power to many. The numbers speak for themselves when comparing the safety of these two strategies.
 
Education. Through education, all other problems can be solved.

This starts with responsibility. There are perfect opportunities for education in this system today. The problem is that many are too stupid or lazy to take full advantage of it and/or raise their kids to do such.
 
The biggest problem that government needs to address is ending out- and in- sourcing, both the legal and illegal types, and thus return millions of jobs to the Americans to whom these jobs ethically and patriotically belong.

That would go the longest way to raising the economy out of the lingering ashes of The Great Recession as well as halt the continuing slide of America into city-state status of the one-world U.N. government that Obama's Multi-Cultural Internationalists desire.

I disagree with this kind of thinking. I support free trade and globalization without hypocrisy of buying just American for instance as as a way to lift living standards across the board. If this nation was smart it would give instant citizenship to any foreign person with an advance degree from an American university especially in engineering and science instead of blocking them and seeing them as competition for U.S. jobs. These type of people will create far more jobs than they take in the long run directly and indirectly, as well as give American companies an edge with the nation benefiting with higher government revenue and other stimulus to economy that will create jobs. How many Googles and Amazons in the future are going to be created by U.S. trained international students who want to live in the U.S. after graduating from an American University but are not allowed to because of insane immigration laws who then move to Canada or Australia who intelligently see the great benefits of pursuing them. Maybe they are more talented or more motivated than some of the Canadians or Australians but if one of them creates a Google that hires 100,000 local Canadians, and you see hundreds of these type of companies, and all this international money starts flowing into their nation because of the success of these new Canadian or Australian mega successful companies, how smart does that make us? How is it not hypocrisy to want the world to buy our products but we only buy American? Free trade, when the process is transparent, benefits both sides or neither side would make the trade. To limit it out of fear of competition in the long run will be a negative. We could go the route of protectionism but all it will do in real terms lower the standard of living.
 
"Entitlement Reform". That's what is about to sink us. "Size", in general, is the problem with our government. There is too much of it.

I don't know what the solution is but yanking the safety net from under people who would otherwise be homeless, their kids go hungry and would be forced to seriously consider crime as their only option for survival isn't as cut a dry a practical solution as it might seem in theory. Then once arrested, tried and convicted it turns out to be a much bigger cost to tax-payers than the safety net.

But what's interesting is this. Everybody knows the economy has been pretty bad recently. I live in a middle-class community. Of those I know I have neighbors who are police officers, a nurse, high end travel consultant for a service that only caters to millionaires, an engineer, military personnel and a doctor doing his residency. That's just to give you an idea of the likely income ranges, not exactly wealthy but nobody's poor either. One of my good friends and neighbors was unemployed for about a year. He's now working again doing sales for a big auto parts distributor to auto repair places. He confided in me yesterday saying during his unemployment he had to get on food stamps or his little boys wouldn't have been able to eat. He said his fridge was better stocked then than it is now. A lot of people using entitlements do better in some respects than people with incomes.
 
Back
Top Bottom