Here's the $100,000 question:
What is the most important idea that Americans think should be implemented to improve our country?
There is a
site that is sponsoring a contest for original ideas to:
- Grow the economy
- Create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford health insurance, pay for their children's college education, get additional training and save for retirement
- Encourage existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.
The site is sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, which represents workers in health care, cleaning, security; and government. Since 5 October 2005, there have been over 13,000 ideas submitted. The contest closes on 5 December 2005.
What is interesting about this site is the distribution of ideas because it provides a glimpse into what Americans are thinking need to be improved. Common themes in the ideas include:
- Government -- 2,500+ ideas, most about eliminating pork spending, balancing the budget, expanding the number of parties, and forcing representatives to be more responsive to their constituents
- Health Care -- 1,400+ ideas; most about providing health insurance for everyone
- Retirement -- 1,200+ ideas, most about fixing social security
- Taxes -- 1,200+ ideas, including the flat tax, a national sales tax, a national lottery, increasing/eliminating corporate taxes, the transaction tax, and having a single taxing authority.
- Education -- 1,100+ ideas, most about funding college or trade school education but also ideas for primary and secondary curricula.
- Energy -- 950+ ideas, mostly about ending our dependence on oil, alternative sources like solar and wind, and conventional energy sources like coal, and some very creative albeit impractical ideas such as collecting energy from gym treadmills.
- Corporations -- 600+ ideas, most about either giving small businesses tax breaks or other incentives, outsourcing, CEO salaries, taxes, and limiting the role of big corporations in politics.
- Rich-Poor Gap -- 500+ ideas, most about differences in wages, the minimum wage, welfare, and immigration.
- Crime and Prison -- 400+ ideas, most about legalizing marijuana, reducing and managing prison populations, gun control, illegal immigration, identity theft and privacy.
For comparison, terrorism/Iraq generated about 350 ideas, abortion and gay issues each generated fewer than 50 ideas. Now of course this isn't a scientific poll and its focus is on the economy, but I think it holds a message for Democrats about what many Americans are thinking. Forget the religious right and promise the following:
- Change how the Federal government works so that it balances the budget and minimizes spending.
- Lift the $90,000 cap on social security taxes and put the surpluses in Al Gore's lockbox.
- Expand Medicare so that everyone can have health insurance.
- Create an Apollo-type national initiative for achieving energy independence.
- Limit the influence of corporations, PACs, and lobbyists in the political process.
- Simplify income taxes by increasing the standard deduction fivefold, eliminating most other deductions, and increasing the number of brackets so that incomes over $10 million are taxed at 50%.
- Increase the minimum wage and adjust it in accordance with Federal locality pay definitions.
- Provide no interest loans for funding college or trade school education, perhaps by allowing borrowing from social security accounts.
I think that fulfilling these eight promises would put America back on the right path. What do you think?