#4 Society's Priorities

Although I'm going to discuss a little politics here, don't freak out, ok?

I'm not going to cram anything down your throat, shout you down, call you stupid for believing something, or use any other tactic favored by the political punditocracy these days.

Instead, I want to touch on the concept of societal priorities, and you can't get there without running through politics first.

Wait, what?  Societal priorities?  What in the world does that mean?

Essentially, I mean that we (as a society) decide what is important to us, and we fund it accordingly.

Although you may be scratching your head, trying to remember when you participated in any priority decision-making, trust me, you have.

Voted in a congressional or senate race lately?  State representatives?  Mayoral race?  County commissioners?

You have?  Well, you've helped set priorities for society then.

Oh, I'm sorry, I must have misheard.  You don't vote, because all the politicians are crooks, don't represent you, and are only in it for the money and power.

You still helped set the priorities.

How?

Let's take the first case first.  When you vote for a particular politician, you are in essence giving your vote of approval for their legislative agenda.  However, due to our two party system of politics, many people feel compelled to vote for a candidate strictly on party affiliation, instead of carefully parsing out the platform that this candidate offers.

In the second case, when you don't vote, your abstention provides an additional vote to those whose opinions and viewpoints differ from yours, thereby strengthening their position.

In both cases, this has eventually led to career politicians who are far more interested in getting elected than they are in legislating.

Do you hear any specifics in political rhetoric these days, or are the speeches filled with platitudes (that sound good, but mean little)?

It's easy to say "Cut taxes!" "Reduce Spending!" "Reform (insert agency here)!" but how, exactly?

If you cut taxes (the revenue stream for government at all levels), you have to then decide what you will no longer fund.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of paying taxes.  However, I do like to drive my car on an interstate freeway.  I also like having the peace of mind knowing that in an emergency, there are people I can call to come to my aid (i.e., law enforcement, fire departments, the military).

Right or left, progressive or conservative, or somewhere in between. We ALL make up this society, and therefore, should find a way to voice our thoughts on this issue (I have ideas on how to remold democracy, but that is for another post).

This all leads to this question: what are the priorities for our society?

If we were to determine this based on our current spending as a federal government, our top 5 priorities would be the Department of Health and Human Services (Medicare and Medicaid, primarily) at 498.6 billion dollars, Social Security Administration (367.6 billion), Department of Homeland Security (243.4 billion), Department of Defense (240.8 billion), followed at a distance by Education at 73.7 billion dollars (source).

Even if we kept our priorities in line with our spending, would we have to fund all of these agencies at their current levels?

These are difficult questions to answer, and so our politicians choose not to, instead, foisting the fixes on the next generation.  Unfortunately, Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security will run into some trouble in the not too distant future, unless some significant changes are made.

Similarly, I don't think that anyone in this country feels that either the Department of Homeland Security nor the military should be disbanded, but is it possible that some of the funding given to those groups could be repurposed for other groups?  One side would argue that we need to keep spending and building our military forces, while the other side might point out that our military dwarfs the next several nations' militaries combined.  According to some reports, the US accounts for 43% of military spending worldwide, with China in second place with around 6.8% (source)

I'm not here to bash the military, or medicare, or social security.  I'm just saying that we need to decide what is important to the United States of America, and then we have to suck it up and fund it.

Is education truly important?  How about health care for all citizens?  Why do we tie health care to employment?  As one of the wealthiest nations, isn't it a bit of an embarrassment that people lose their homes because of health issues?

I've only touched on a few areas where we spend money as a society; the challenge is trying to get the nation to determine what are the priorities. However, I believe that if we were able to, we could cut both the size of government, as well as deficit spending (we would just need the private sector to create a few jobs to help those individuals who relied upon the government for employment).

You may not be the nation, but you are a member of it.  What are the priorities you see for our society?