Issues In America

We live in America, a place where ideas, dreams, and contrasting opinions are welcomed and applauded. With those freedoms comes the responsibility of the citizens of the United States to voice out concerns of the state of our great land. As an American teenager, I have an important role of voicing concerns for my country. This land will soon be mine, and my peers, to rule, to govern to the best of our abilities, so help us God. I love my country, and I want the very best for it. There are three problems that I believe need to be dealt with in the government, or we will be setting ourselves up for national failure down the road. Those three problems are national debt, the war Iraq, and Illegal Immigration.
The debt problem of America is absolutely ridiculous. I think that it is completely foolish and shows that the american people do not know the first thing about handling money. As of September 6th, 2007, the gross national debt was 8.9 trillion dollars. In the year 2006, 406 billion dollars was spent on just interest payments by the US government. The debt is created when the government spends more money than it gets on income. There needs to be a solution before our nation falls so far into debt, that there literally is no way on earth it can be repaid. There are very few ways to fix this problem however. one, is to increase taxes, which is rarely ever a good idea in the view of the american public. Another, and one that I would recommend would be to put a cap on government spending. Perhaps a 5% cap on all government spending until the debt is gone. Another way would be to stop importing so many foreign goods, and start importing more domestic goods. I am not an expert economist, and I don’t know if my ideas would create chaos, but i do soundly believe something needs to be done about the national debt of our nation. The borrower is servant to the lender, and the US cannot expect to keep borrowing so much money without having to eventually pay some kind of hefty consequences.
I do not think it sends a good message to the rest of the world for the President to be so in favor of a war in Iraq, and, it seems, the rest of the government to be in full disagreement with it. I think that the President and Congress need to get on the same page with timelines, agendas, plans, and they need to stick to them. If that calls for a troop evacuation, then that is what needs to happen. If that is for our troops to stick it out there for another 3 years, then that is fine. I just think that our government needs to get onto the same page, evaluate if us being over there is serving its purpose, if we are doing good, and make an educated decision based on that information, and stand behind it. If all of the government shows a united front of standing together and making a decision, even if that means some people in Congress may not totally agree, or they may need to lay down some rights, or the president may need to take a step back and take a look and what is going on, it will do wonders for giving the people of the United States more confidence in our government.
I live in Texas, a state with almost all of its southern border touching Mexico. I have absolutely no discrimination of Mexicans, and I view them all as equal people in the world, but I think that Congress and the president need to come to some kind of policy on foreign immigration. It is perfectly fine with me if immigrants want to come to america to better their lives and better themselves. I applaud that. But it takes some work, and it is not easy, to get into the country. And it should be that way. It should not be easy to just come into America whenever someone feels like it. Our customs should be efficient, but it should also be difficult to get through. I think that the government really needs to start cracking down on illegal immigration for the safety of its own people. There is absolutely no telling when a terrorist could illegally get into the country with the purpose of doing harm, and there would would be no way of knowing what on earth was going on until, God forbid, it was too late. I think the government needs to take steps to strengthen Homeland Security to protect all of our borders, oceans and checkpoints, just so that we can keep track of what is going on in our immediate area.
In conclusion, these are a few of the problems facing America today. No, they don’t all have easy solutions, some are going to hurt, and some are going to take quite a bit of time before they are no longer issues. To keep putting them off could result in some horrible consequences. I know that right now the lawmakers are doing their best to do right and just by the American people, but sometimes that involves getting out of ourselves, and choosing to think of others, and the American people, more than ourselves. I believe that with teamwork and selfless attitudes we as a nation can rise above the problems that are facing us, come up with solutions that benefit as many as possible, and beat whatever problems may come our way.