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For me, the political issues which are important as we approach the turn of the Millennium, are simple. It's not HEALTH CARE, CHILDCARE and EDUCATION; it's BIG GOVERNMENT, CRIME, NATIONAL DEFENSE and IMMIGRATION.
*HEALTH CARE*
This is an issue for me, though not one of " the " issues, as long as the greedy politicians in Washington D.C. keep their hands off the Medicare Trust Fund and replace what the Democrat tax and spend Congresses of the 70s and 80s raped for liberal entitlements, in full, with interest. Ofcourse, they may " save " Medicare by simple stopping the theft of Medicare surpluses, and declaring themselves holier than thou for doing it? Politicians of both persuasions are always quick to take responsibility for saving something, but slow to accept the blame for doing something wrong. This does not include the current Clinton White House, because after all, they have never done anything wrong, right?
*CHILDCARE*
Take care of your own children. If you must, contact your local church; if you are a single parent, you shouldn't be, unless you can afford the extra monetary expenses for child supervision. Any FEDERAL GOVERNMENT program to supervise or bring up your offspring in a surrogate manner, would be too much like " Big Brother " is watching you, some world socialistic version of Utopia or the beginnings of an evil oppressive police state masquerading as a big, fuzzy, caring, Uncle Sam!
*EDUCATION*
All I can say is that decades ago, when I was in grade school, the kids were quite a bit more dedicated to paying attention in class and doing their homework. I believe they should do away with the Department of Education, as it has only made matters grow worse. If we give the responsibility for pre-college education back to the local cities, and if the Feds want to offer a voucher, okay; but get the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT out of trying to legislate what individual municipalities want to do about schooling!
*BIG GOVERMENT*
I believe that the Founding Fathers wanted a government for the people, by the people; not a government which has all the answers. The individual municipalities, and states, know what their particular problems or needs are, not some central government far away from the problem ( or creating the problem ). A strong Federal government was what the first Pilgrams were fleeing from, not a lack of control, but too much. The stronger the Federal government becomes, the closer to a dictatorship or monarchy, we get! I want " them " to cut programs, not create new ones. I want " them " to eliminate the lobbyists, not open up new avenues. The Department of Energy was created in the late 70s when there was a mounting gasoline crisis, and it should be put to bed; the nuclear industries could and should revert back to the Department of Defense. Agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Education are failed extreme left-wing socialist Democrat projects, and should be scrapped, as well. Leave the funding of art to the museum patrons and tax deductible donations, instead of federally mandated grants paid for by taxpayers who may not agree with where their dollars are going!
*CRIME*
The Federal government should pass laws making sure that convicted criminals serve their entire sentences, and criminals using guns in violent crimes, as opposed to violating a Fish and Game statute on hunting with a firearm, are put away for life. We don't need any more gun laws, we just need to put the criminals away, instead of coddling them. We should encourage " them " to pass laws making violent state crimes committed by minors, chargable as federal crimes treating the minor as an adult, no matter what the age of the offender!
*DEFENSE*
Instead of cutting budgets and numbers of soldiers and sailors, we should leave the numbers at the current level or raise them. I think we should reinstitute the draft, if we need the people, or possibly make two years volunteer service after high school, mandatory ( yeah, I know that is easy for me to say when I am not young enough to be drafted any more ). In the coming millennium, I believe the major threats will be terrorists, including the small rogue nations supporting them; unless, ofcourse we get another liberal socialist Democrat for president, who must invoke the specter of " one world government " and " the United States as global policeman ". Consequencely, I think the most important military thing we can spend money on is an anti-ballistic missile defense; the one darn thing we don't have and the Russians have had since around 1972 ( sad, huh? ). Okay, so we should stop most foreign military interventions, leaving that to be decided upon by the Congress like the Founding Fathers originally designed, and build ABMs to protect the continental United States. We could easily do all this, while keeping our committments to the United Nations and yes, even NATO, though no more offensive ( " Wag The Dog " ) non-wars, like Kosovo. Returning NATO back to the purely defensive alliance it was created to be, would have two positive consequences; a warming back up of relations with the Russians and the US taxpayers spending a lot less money on expended munitions.
*IMMIGRATION*
One of our biggest challenges in the coming millennium is the influx of third world refugees ( immigrants ) pouring into the United States from all over the world, as democracy spreads across the globe, creating the eventual associated humanitarian crisises. In Southern California through Texas, the Mexicans are flooding across the border, infiltrating the local municipal governments and Mexicanizing them with illegal immigrants bleeding the social systems dry of the services paid for by legal immigrants and citizens. We must control the borders before we try to put some limitations on future immigration. The Founding Fathers and the Statue of Liberty couldn't forsee jet aircraft flying thousands of people in and out of the hemisphere, much less the avalanche of illegal aliens rolling in from South America! A tightening of US border crossings could easily have the added benefit to curtail terrorists from smuggling into America, some nasty weapon of mass destruction.
Our very survival hinges upon us dealing seriously with these and other issues. Ignore any one of these and you risk the continuation of life as we know it. The fall of the CCCP showed us the folly of communism and it's brother, socialism; let us not let that beast rear it's ugly head again, in the coming twenty-first century!
- Bongo ( Don't tell me your problems? )
