What are your important issues? (1 Viewer)

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    wardorican

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    Forget the current headlines. Forget the manufactured talking points. What are the big issues you care about? Or the small ones that don't get enough attention?

    I'm just going to rattle off a few. I may dig into these more later. In no special order...

    1. Infrastructure investment. The major categories being road transportation, flood protection / drainage, electrical grid resiliency, and better mass transit, especially rail. Our rail systems, outside of a few areas like Chicago, NYC, DC.. are just awful. They don't serve enough of the areas. They aren't tying the Suburbs, and towns nearby to the major city centers and major concentrations of Industry.
      1. A - I'd have much preferred no tax cut for the wealthy, and use that money towards Infrastructure. I don't mind some of the corporate tax cuts (not a fan of profitable companies finding ways to pay $0 in taxes.. that's unfair), but take a little back to go towards infrastructure and mass transit, which will boost productivity and lower congestion in major cities.
    2. Wage growth. Not just min wage, all wages. Not sure what the government policy could be to drive this, but it's a huge pet issue for me.
    3. Technology. Finding the balance between a company being large enough to have stability/security (think Apple, Microsoft, Samsung) to have things work well, but no so large as to stifle all competition and drive up prices. Also, who controls/owns our data. If my data is so valuable, why can't I be compensated for it?
    4. Education funding. It's ridiculous how much the States cut from Colleges and how little they controlled their growth since the 1990's. That's why tuition is out of control. So, it's not just the funding issue, but also the lack of forcing public Universities to cap operating budget increases. In college, tuition increases was probably one of the biggest things I tried to fight against when in Student Government. We usually failed, but I did get one win on that topic, when I realized the committee that year was being somewhat dishonest about the increases, and called them out in public about it.

    I care about a lot of other things, but I'm going to stop with these four.
     
    Forget the current headlines. Forget the manufactured talking points. What are the big issues you care about? Or the small ones that don't get enough attention?

    I'm just going to rattle off a few. I may dig into these more later. In no special order...

    1. Infrastructure investment. The major categories being road transportation, flood protection / drainage, electrical grid resiliency, and better mass transit, especially rail. Our rail systems, outside of a few areas like Chicago, NYC, DC.. are just awful. They don't serve enough of the areas. They aren't tying the Suburbs, and towns nearby to the major city centers and major concentrations of Industry.
      1. A - I'd have much preferred no tax cut for the wealthy, and use that money towards Infrastructure. I don't mind some of the corporate tax cuts (not a fan of profitable companies finding ways to pay $0 in taxes.. that's unfair), but take a little back to go towards infrastructure and mass transit, which will boost productivity and lower congestion in major cities.
    2. Wage growth. Not just min wage, all wages. Not sure what the government policy could be to drive this, but it's a huge pet issue for me.
    3. Technology. Finding the balance between a company being large enough to have stability/security (think Apple, Microsoft, Samsung) to have things work well, but no so large as to stifle all competition and drive up prices. Also, who controls/owns our data. If my data is so valuable, why can't I be compensated for it?
    4. Education funding. It's ridiculous how much the States cut from Colleges and how little they controlled their growth since the 1990's. That's why tuition is out of control. So, it's not just the funding issue, but also the lack of forcing public Universities to cap operating budget increases. In college, tuition increases was probably one of the biggest things I tried to fight against when in Student Government. We usually failed, but I did get one win on that topic, when I realized the committee that year was being somewhat dishonest about the increases, and called them out in public about it.

    I care about a lot of other things, but I'm going to stop with these four.
    I think we need to address all of the issues you raised above.

    The one I'll add is:
    • Election reform with to primary component being changing to some form of ranked choice voting
    I have a lot of others, but if I only got one political wish, it would be that every election between people being decided by a single election with a ranked choice vote, no more primaries or runoffs and no more being left with only voting for the least of two evils.
     
    I like all the suggestions above, but campaign finance reform is big on my list. The way money flows to candidates through Super PACS, the way billionaires can buy influence and push policies that are to the detriment of most of the rest of us.

    I would also like some sort of focus on disinformation. That’s really tricky, but something has to be resolved in this area.
     
    I think we need to address all of the issues you raised above.

    The one I'll add is:
    • Election reform with to primary component being changing to some form of ranked choice voting
    I have a lot of others, but if I only got one political wish, it would be that every election between people being decided by a single election with a ranked choice vote, no more primaries or runoffs and no more being left with only voting for the least of two evils.
    I like all the suggestions above, but campaign finance reform is big on my list. The way money flows to candidates through Super PACS, the way billionaires can buy influence and push policies that are to the detriment of most of the rest of us.

    I would also like some sort of focus on disinformation. That’s really tricky, but something has to be resolved in this area.

    You two hit it on the head. Publicly funded elections and RCV.

    Completely separate of election reform, I will also say that this country needs to do a much better job in addressing and providing care for mental health. We need to remove the stigma surrounding it and start funding facilities to help those that can't find it anywhere else.
     
    Infrastructure, yes. Roads, bridges, water, sewer, everything we do rests on this foundation. We need a complete overhaul or its all going to collapse.

    NASA. Fully fund Earth sciences, research and development and the Artemis Moon/Mars program through the next two decades at least.
     
    Taxes
    Infrastructure
    Public Safety
    Social Security
    Political / Election reform (take the money and special interests and parties out of politics)

    None of the other "issues" directly effect me now, or in the future... to me, they are mostly fabricated by both sides to divide us and farm votes based on emotional and irrational response.
     
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    Interestingly enough, NPR ran a segment where the guest was talking up infrastructure. I'll try to post it later.
     
    At the local level, we passed a 1% sales tax increase to all go towards infrastructure projects.

    Not sure if the project going on near my place is from that or city funds, but they are widening our super congested road, and redoing the drainage. They also seem to be elevating the road a good 3ish feet from where it was.
     
    Education
    Justice Reform
    Poverty
    Healthcare (incl Pharma)
    Voting Process Integrity/Access/Participation
    Infrastructure (esp in rural in urban communities
    Environment
    Digital Security(privacy/infrastructure)
     
    I don't mean this to be offensive or singling you out by any means, but do you really sit around and think about the problems with the American education system and criminal justice system or do you mean these as an issue in your country?
     
    I copied the list and added digital security and environment. Both affects both our countries

    And by the way we do have our own issues with the criminal justice system too. They are just "different" than in the US. We lack the equivalent of your supreme court, which means that the only option we have if we're talking human rights issues is the EU Courts and we don't really have a place to test if a law is constitutional or not :(
     
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    I don't mean this to be offensive or singling you out by any means, but do you really sit around and think about the problems with the American education system and criminal justice system or do you mean these as an issue in your country?

    who was this directed to? Just Dragon or me, too?
     

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