Do you think there are more important issues to deal with at home?

Question

I'm not a supporter of our intervention in Iraq, but regardless of whether you support it or not, don't you think there are more important things the US government needs to deal with right here in our own country? Our education system is in terrible shape, Social Security is going down the drain, the mental health system is failing, and the number of families living in poverty is alarming. I feel it is more important for us to focus on those issues than anything in Iraq. Of course now we have to at least clean up the mess we made, but there should be higher priorities.

What do you think?

This doesn't mean Iraq couldn't be a priority at all, but aren't there more important things? That's what I'm wanting you to comment on.

Answer 1

We do have more important things to take care of here in the US. The domestic agenda is virtually non-existent.

I disagree with you on poverty. Poverty has been going down for decades, including people on welfare. We will always have poverty.

Answer 2

I think yours is a classic case of crying with a loaf of bread under each arm. I disagree with all of your complaints. Not all high school students are failing. Havard and Yale every year have more qualified applicants than they can handle. Weak, money hungry politicians cannot say no to the teachers' union lobbists, so major improvements arent' going to happen. SS is not going down the drain. On the contrary, some of the SS taxes are coming my way. That is a good thing. Again the weak, money hungry politicians are unwilling to deal with long term solutions: means testing and personal accounts. I see no evidence that mental health care is failing. On the contrary, many people who would have been institutionalized in the past are out on their own, living productive lives. The so called poverty level in the US is a joke. I believe families earning less than $32,000 are under the poverty level. North Koreans and Cubans make about $350 per year. Now that's poverty. The poor in the US still can afford cars, air conditioning, television. And there are food stamps, free health care for poor children in many states, Medicaid and welfare. Other countries have none of these benefits. We need to fight terrorists anywhere we can find them, to preserve our freedom and our way of life. We can do more than one thing at a time. Most Americans are multi-taskers. "We" did not make a mess that needs cleaned up. We live in the best country on earth, have the highest standard of living, the best form of government and a bright future.

Answer 3

No, the most important thing to do is eliminate terrorist states. We did so in Iraq. We have to stay there to finish.

Our education system stinks because the teachers union runs it. There is no incentive and competition. There are schools in Europe that educate kids for a fraction of the cost.

Social Security is done because the government runs it. See what Galveston County TX did. 2-3 times the return.

Poverty is relative. See a third world country.

How about you spend your money fixing what you think is a problem and you let me keep mine and we will see what happens.

Answer 4

Yes. There are plenty of things that need to be taken care of at home. The border security needs to be tightened up. Healthcare, social security, manufacturing, farms, poverty...im not gonna look at a 3rd world country...there are alot of people in america that live below the poverty level. Including farmers. Milk farms are ever so decreasing because bush has his eyes set on $$$...you think he cares about people? 1.5 million manufacturing jobs were lost in america. unemployment is not at an all-time low...who ever said taht lied...its getting ever so harder to find a job in america. Americans are not even getting the education to get good jobs in america. Engineering is at an all-time low in america. How can we help the world when we can not even help ourselves?

Answer 5

I agree with you there are more important things at home. Health care for every AMERICAN citizen and children should be a top priority.
Spending money to rebuild Iraq is just giving them welfare. They've got oil let them get their act together and rebuild these things themselves.
I do think that while our troops are there we should spend the money to properly outfit them. The only reason we should be there is to train their police force so the slaughter of their own people does not continue.That's what I think.

Answer 6

Sure! We need to get out our shuttle fleet back in order
so we can spend wisely searching for green cheese on the moon and short little martians on Mars....Gotta keep the
international space station up for the Russians too...gotta
have a room for some hank-panky agoin' on!

Answer 7

I agree -
I think that one of the contributing factors in our apathy toward our own demise in the US is that local news was the first thing that Bush got rid of... he cut the funding on NPR and PBS...
Now, people don't even know what's going on right next door but they know everything about Virginia Tech and Anna Nicole...
You know, Hitler got rid of local newspapers and radio stations right away too... just thought I'd mention that...

Answer 8

All news is local news. All solutions to society's problems are local solutions.
Become involved in some worthwhile community groups and make very, very sure that they always support and obey the laws of our nation's founders.
Live your dream!

Answer 9

I agree with you completely. I think we need to clean up our own house (country) first before we help others clean up theirs. It really isn't a good reflection of the way we handle the state of our affairs when we continue to have our social and political problems and they continue to escalate, not abate.

Our taxes and other revenues should be spent on our country and its problems first. If we get these problems fixed perhaps we could increase our revenue and will have more to share with other countries instead of getting ourselves in more debt!

Answer 10

We should take care of things at home first people are starving because they don't have jobs or cannot work and live on a fixed income, There are people that are dying because they have no health care because they can't afford it and cannot afford to buy prescriptions. People need money to survive and without it people are left homeless and are starving to death.