I have often ranted and complained about the American popular election system because the actual issues are usually bypassed and ignored in favor of a good sound bite and statements designed to rally the most agitated and angry portions of the political base.
Proposed: Let’s make the candidates respond to the issues.
I asked the google chat bot (Bing AI) to tell me the five most important issues facing the United States. Here is the result:
“According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2021, the affordability of health care is high on the public’s list of the biggest problems in the country today, with 56% of adults describing this as “a very big problem” and an additional 30% rating it “a moderately big problem.”
Health care costs is the only issue of the 15 asked on the survey seen as a very big problem by a majority of Americans, though about half say that the federal budget deficit (49%), violent crime (48%), illegal immigration (48%) and gun violence (48%) are very big problems.
According to Statista, in 2023, the most important problem facing the U.S. is the government/poor leadership with 22% of respondents followed by economy in general with 16% and immigration with 14%.
Other issues mentioned by respondents included: unifying the country (six percent), immigration (six percent), guns and gun control (five percent), race and racism (four percent) and crime (four percent).
Bloomberg’s Philanthropic Advisors list five biggest issues in America today as criminal justice reform, broadband access, unequal health-care outcomes, climate change and education.”
We still have time to direct the upcoming debates and candidates towards these issues. All we have to do is ask and pay careful attention to what they say.
Pew reported in 2021 that healthcare affordability was a landslide-level number one problem, then two years later it disappeared from Statista’s top concerns. In the interim, the peak of the Boomers got Medicare. Taxpayers matter.
Richard, you said, “Pew reported in 2021 that healthcare affordability was a landslide-level number one problem, then two years later it disappeared from Statista’s top concerns.”
I looked up Statista and found that it is a German company described in Wikipedia as follows: “Its main target groups are business customers, lecturers and researchers. The data provided by the company covers, among other things, advertisement, buying behavior or specific industries.” I’m sticking with PEW on this one.
You also said, “In the interim, the peak of the Boomers got Medicare. Taxpayers matter.”
Yes, it is good to know that the money we pay in often does come back to us.