by Rick Fontes

Created on: May 27, 2011

There are no complicated answers, only complicated reasons for not adopting simple answers.  

When attempting to formulate solutions for many of the problems facing these United States, our Congress lacks the will, the constitutional authority, or both. While much lip service and hand-wringing is devoted to showing a great deal of empathy for the concerns of the American people, it is mostly political rhetoric.  

One must be mindful that, no matter what the defined 'problem' might be, someone is gaining a tremendous amount of power or garnering a substantial sum of money from that problem remaining unsolved.  When the prevailing attitude among elected and appointed officials is one of complete compromise, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, it is obvious that personal agendas will trump any progress toward actual problem solving.  

Illegal immigration - Reestablish a guest worker program with licensed labor brokers on the border. Give all current illegal immigrant, heads of household, temporary green cards, renewable at regular intervals and subject to criminal background checks.  Allow their dependent families, subject also to background checks, to remain in the country.  Then militarize the border until the guest worker program has time to stabilize the currently illegal workforce.  

Unemployment - Remove or greatly reduce corporate taxes, taxes which are merely passed on to the consumer anyway, and eliminate the minimum wage. 

Rising Food Prices -  While this category can be broken down into many aspects, let's tackle just one; corn.  The price of corn affects many areas of food production.  It would not be instructive to attempt a list of all the ways the cost of corn impinges on our American lifestyle since they are commonly and widely known.  Let's focus on one; ethanol.  Ethanol, compared to gasoline, is an inefficient fuel source. It is also detrimental in many ways to the internal components of many of the machines in which it is burned.  A simple solution would be to eliminate the ethanol subsidies and allow market forces to dictate corn prices.  Also, remove the mandate for ethanol in motor fuel and let the consumer choose whether or not to purchase it.  Years ago conventional wisdom held that an ultimate revenge against someone was to place sugar in his gas tank. The federal government has placed sugar in all of our tanks and requires us to pay a premium for them having done so.  

Choose any of the problems that are recognized as being 'national problems' and ask yourself what, in a perfect, unrestricted environment, would be the simplest way to solve that particular problem.  Then ask yourself whose income or power base would be negatively impacted if your solutions were to be adopted.  From that point you will easily see why complicated reasons have been devised to prevent the simple solutions from being implemented.  

For so long as our politicians and appointed officials are able to profit, beyond salaries and expenses, from the offices they hold, there can be no incentive for change.  Any solution to any problem will result in someone's ox being gored. The 'go along to get along' attitude of Congress cannot permit simple but pragmatic solutions to the nation's problems.  This is the overarching problem facing us as a nation. Solve it and all the others will tumble like dominos.

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