HOW do we fix IT??

*spits on own hands* *rubs hands together* *pops hands, wrist and neck* Okay lets get started. I do complain of these things but I at least have ideas along with it. It just takes awhile to get them all down and I know I'll miss things anyways. Plus it seems like people aren't too fond of longer posts. Well, I'll do what I can. Illegal Immigration - Build the damn wall already and put the real required manpower there to monitor and enforce the law. For those already in, deport the violent offenders. Don't jail them, and for goodness sake, don't EXCUSE them! Those inside is a tougher situation. I'd say put them in line right BEHIND the immigrants that are actually following the law and applying properly. Plus, loosen the immigration standards by just a bit to allow more people in. However, do not get lazy. Do the background checks and do the health checks. The School System - Cut the unions down to size so several teachers aren't being paid for doing nothing or just blasting their uninformed opinions day in and day out. Reward and appreciate the exemplary teachers. Cut down on the redtape and at least a third of the bureaucracy. Plenty of other countries have less administration, a good amount of teachers and BETTER results than stateside. Plus it does cut down on some of the spending. Make the school systems much more competitive. Introduce the school voucher program so the horrible schools don't keep getting money for failing. Here goes one that'll make some people negative me, along with the stop the crap points; make the school year longer. 180 days (rounded UP in most cases) plus 3 or 4 months of nothing is rather poor. Make it close to or just make it a year round deal (with good vacations mind you). About ~220-230 days. Politicians - Here's what should be done. Put all of them in a room. Have them change into orange jumpsuits. Cuff them and give them the perp walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. Then finally try them for various crimes, lying to the public, fraud, donation fraud, extortion, even some with treason (attacks against the Constitution, aiding and abetting several enemy countries and individuals). And finally, jail them. Bring in politicians that have little or no ties to the power hungry self-serving and appalling lobbyist groups. That way, at least some of what the politician says might be true, and they might actually care about their constituents instead of just their votes and the power of the office they worship (I mean 'use' -_-). Lawyers - They should have to compensate in the cases where they ruin lives, not just on false accusations, but also in some divorce and custody battle results. Then they should be disbarred if they were greedy adamant on getting people to divorce court or to court on a false accusation. Frivolous lawsuits should be abolished and any lawyer involved will get punished right along with the people suing over crap that's their own fault or something pathetic. Realtors - Well get them to stop flooding the market with crappy built housing. It shouldn't be too hard, there are building codes meant for neighborhood aesthetics and more over citizen safety. These people shouldn't be building houses with faulty circuits, poorly built decks, shortcut made walls, bad insulation jobs, etc. If you build some terrible housing and actually sell it to people at 5, 10, 15 times what its worth, you can join the politicians fate. Welfare - If you are seriously injured, disabled or in need of serious help, fine. Welfare is there. If you are able-bodied, able-minded and you are on welfare, expect no mercy. Some standards will be raised though, and fictional/semi-fictional afflictions will not be tolerated. Definite proof of welfare qualifications will be needed. The War - Well... WHICH war? When it comes to Iraq, be in it to win it. Its terrible sending people to get shot in the face and blown up when there are much more authoritative ways of doing it. Pull the troops and citizens out and replace with nonstop very heavy war machine use, both air and land. And quit screwing around when trying to hunt Limp Laden (I mean Bin Laden). Go get him for real! Search and destroy until he's found. How about Darfur and parts of Africa? Protect the victims, protect the innocents and show the clowns causing this horror no mercy! Anyone else want to act up with a much more firm stance being adopted by the world? Its the same with local criminals too! Criminals - Stop coddling them!! They do something terrible to someone, its jail time and make it triple for plenty of crimes! Make some punishments actually fit crimes as long as its in reason. Also make it equal. Men shouldn't be getting away with abuse, fraud, distortion. Women shouldn't be getting away with abuse, fraud, false accusations, distortion. Healthcare - Keep the existing system but doublecheck who is getting the help. The needy, yes they'll continue to get it. Depending on the type of care needed the care can be extended as long as a case of being unable to afford it can be presented. Anyone playing magic numbers with their taxes and income...don't expect help. For the medical profession itself, cut out the crappy doctors giving poor advice, unneeded medications, and ones not listening to their patients when its required. Keep priorities in line when it comes to care. Have an option for private investment on the side, some can take it others don't have to. Social Security/Retirement - Keep the public part of this open and quit the government robbing of this public system. Allow a smaller private offshoot for those that want it, and guarantee the government won't touch that either. Allow as another option a hybrid activity program to incentivize continued participation in the community (mentoring, community involvement, etc). Transportation - Invest in multiple transportation options, namely regional and connecting hi speed rail. This is to counter the failing airport industries by allowing another 1-3 hour transit option to compete with regional flights. Also, get the airport industry in check. Improve the service and improve the security, seriously. Qualified personnel are needed. Energy - Invest in BOTH short and long term. There must be provision of energy, that means supplies are NEEDED. That means finding the supplies homeward. If not, the price of oil, energy and goods will rise...dramatically. In long term, get REAL investment in other energies. Invest in and implement solar definitely. Invest in wind and water when it is geographically viable and feasible. Consider nuclear power due to its expansion in the past 20+ years in other parts of the world. Keep the high-end research going in tritium, helium-3, antimatter but make research spending conservative (meaning less production, more research, for now). Okay its long enough. I'll probably put in prices later. But I think this should be more than enough for now Miami. Until next time.

The biggest thing that that I would change is I would make sure that the people that have no power to help themselves are taken care of. That is the elderly and people with severe disabilities. Families would not have to live in poverty to take care of them and get the services they need. They need the services and that is what they seem to want to cut. I think the next thing I would do is try to find a way to get US jobs back in the US and not giving all the breaks to foreign countries to bring their business here. I do think that defense is important, but I think we should be defending our country and helping our country before helping and defending others.

Again, I completely agree with you, and all I can say is that these politians need to think of the American people who are actual citizen first and the rest of the world last. Take care of our own first, and then worry about others. In terms of Healthcare, do what the Canadians are doing, pay extra taxes and everyone gets free healthcare. As for welfare, make people get jobs by instituting more Job Centers.

That's right miami, it's gotten to the point that I can't even listen to it anymore! People are going on, just ranting, and raving, but make no effort for a solution! I myself feel helpless, to do anything about it, especially with so many people who have no rationality about the issues! I just do what I can here locally, and offer my opinion when somebody asks, and leave it in God's hands, to help us find the solutions!

Heres how the government is set up in Xfahctorland. Federal government.... National security, border security and immigration, social security, interstate and international trade, international diplomatic affairs, general and limited oversight of the nation as a whole. Other than that, they, in cases where money is distributed to the states, just write the checks and leave the needs be assessed by the state and local authorities. A government with as many responsabilities as ours has, is too big and clumsy to be effective and costs far too much to run and is funded by far too many diverse and unstable channels.

Excellent post, miamilady! After reading through all of the responses, I have to say that there is one item that wasn't mentioned - the type of people that will be responsible for managing the system in its new direction. I suggest mechanics. Think about it. To fix your car properly it costs say $800. You can't afford that for whatever reason. You tell your mechanic to do the best s/he can for the $120 you can afford to spend. And what happens? You get your car back better than it was, not perfect, but more appealing for you to drive. So how do they manage to improve the situation for so much less than what standard procedure calls for? It's because they know the system well enough to find what is necessary and to make it work - even if it is with recycled parts or custom parts made from what appears to be junk. If people of this thrifty an ability were managing our government we would see HUGE reductions in all categories. The savings could be used to take care of pressing issues that are continuously under-funded and what's left over can be used to improve/start other needed programs. Gone would be the attitude of "we must have new!", "mine is flashier than yours" and the like. I know there are other professions that breed the same thriftiness. And I know it sounds far fetched. But as long as we keep people who don't know how to do without in charge, we will always have run-away spending, "my position is WAY more important than yours" attitudes which got us in this mess in the first place.

write your congressman and get on to him or her about what ya do and dont like. I would hate to have to run the country themess it is in but then to the prez can do what he wants on these thing Dont know where this national debt came from when so many countrys owe us they never pay back. change the welfare program and take those sackers off that dont need it when they need a jog. I would make sure that the companies cant go over seas and make products and keep out jobs to home. Have big raids and send illigals home and make them do it the right way like so many has done. and think I would knock some heads together in Iraq and have them get friendly to one another so they can run their own government. and that smy 2 cents worth lol

We have to get the politicians to listen and not only to listen, to do what is right, even though many will be against it. But that would lead to a dictatorship (sorry guys, but Bush is not a dictator, the nearest one in Canada was the Canadian former Prime Minister Chretian and that is because in Canada, the political party members have to follow the will of their leader ((Hail Caesar or rather Hail Chretian!)) I would say the biggest priority is illegal immigration. If you let everyone in, the legal immigrants will suffer. I read on a post about a family wanting to come from South Africa and what they would have to pay. I am sure much of their cost would have been lessened if the American government stopped illegal immigrants from sneaking over the borders.

It's time to throw the bums out;all of them, shake up the whole system,get them mad and get them scared. Everyone gets upset about the no good congress and B*tches about this one and that and then turn around and invite "Their Guy or Girl" right back in on election day because "Their Guy" isn't the problem,it is others.B*ll Sh*t!! get them incumbents out of office now.

I think it is a somewhat complicated thing for the governments of most western countries to get the balance right and I wouldn't like to attempt it. But IMO, they think their citizens (those people who voted them into power) are idiots and don't understand anything at all - so they just ignore us and let us get on with our rants and do what they want. When we decide to fix it and vote a certain party out of power, the same thing seem to happen again.. It seems as if it has been going on that way for decades - one day an honest politician may come along... Maybe... Until then we just have to rant and rave and hope that somebody will listen. :-)

I'm afraid, miamilady, that it would take a cadre of focused, knowledgeable, and fair-minded people to get the country back on the right track. It would be a major undertaking-a monumental task! Since it is so hard to trust the politicians, maybe we should just do away with all the Senators and Representatives. Gee, I wish I had a real answer, but I don't. I do feel, however, that as long as we are represented by the powerful and greedy rich politicians, we will not get what we deserve. Our country should not be ran by only the rich and powerful. There should be people from different walks of life taking part in the process. That is the only fair way.