DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.
What issues drive voters on domestic affairs.
Consumer Affairs issues like poor quality Chineses Tools.
Credit Card Companies who offer enticing items then turn around and screw you with astronomical interest rates.
The politicians may not be able to stop these advertisements, but it would help if we could get some financial education.
You do not get that in Public School.
You get alot of Financial Management or Services Training in College.
Social Security provides a safety net, but it also has a glass ceiling in terms of what you can earn as an individual.
If you are disabled it provides a double amount of discrimination in that you have a fixed income and employers look down on you as an invalid.
Public Education should move back to a model that was prevalent in the 1930s and earlier.
More Vocational Schools, while leaving Bachelor Degrees to those more in the elite.
Its not dumbing down, more like a realignment of priorities.
I have four degrees, but I have rarely if ever used them in the work place.
Medicare and Medicaid are a joke in my opinion.
Again, you have earnings limits.
The jobs I am qualified for pay too much and have preexisting condition clauses in their benefits programs.
Sometimes it might be 30 days, 90 days, or even 1 year.
There is no standardization or rule of thumb for someone like me on how to go about getting a decent job.
I would end Medicaid and roll it over into Medicare.
The budget would remain the same, but the administrative complexity could be reduced.
From what I have seen in dealing with Medicaid is that there are multiple programs to chose from.
It would make sense to reduce the number of programs down to one for children. One for working adults. One for Senior Citizens.
One size does not fit all, but simplification of benefits programs would end a lot of confusion.
Crime is an ongoing problem.
I wonder if locking up violent offenders only would save the taxpayers money.
I wonder if nonviolent offenders were placed under house arrest for the first violation if that would save space.
I wonder if ILLEGAL Drug Laws should be simplified so that all drugs carry the same prison time or psychiatric care.
What to do about smoking?
You have my home state of North Carolina, heavily into tabacco being supported by the tabacco allotment pushed by the relevant Senators and Congressmen.
Whereas, the Surgeon General work's against this force of politics.
I wonder if it is time for Congress to give the FDA the power to regulate tabacco.
25% of the population is smoking so there would have to be some way to end the scourge.
Don Imus has used nicorrette gum for some 20 years or more.
He get's the nicotine fix without the side effects of smoking.
Their's that hand to mouth habit. Its something that is rooted in nerve impulses.
I wonder if you could short circuit this problem through electric shock therapy.
There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed domestically.