The Buie Knife

Next President Faces Overwhelming Challenges, Perhaps Even the Nation's Bankruptcy

Why would any sane person want the job of U.S. President, 2009-2017? Just look at the headlines. And these are the problems we can ANTICIPATE. Obviously this does not include the problems we cannot anticipate.

The Economist: "Jump forward to 2017, when the next president will hope to relinquish office. A combination of demography and the rising costs of America’s huge entitlement programmes—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—will be starting to bankrupt the country."

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue: Scary Challenges the Next President Faces (Newsweek)

Next President Faces Growing Crisis In Afghanistan : NPR

Next president faces swelling U.S. debt | csmonitor.com

Infrastructure: Nation's Failing Physical Plant Is Another Crisis for Next President (McClatchy DC)

Next President Faces Pressure to Delay Regulation of Greenhouse Gases, Which Could Hasten Global Warming (Guardian, UK)

Next US President Must Deal With Tehran's Nuclear Program - Voice of America

Economists say Obama, McCain can't do much to close wealth gap

Intelligence Head Says Next President Faces Volatile Era ...
NASHVILLE, Oct. 30 -- The next US president will govern in an era of increasing international instability, including a heightened risk of terrorist attacks ...

Terrorism: What the next president will face

Law Professor: Next President Faces Challenges Abroad

October 23, 2008 — The next president of the United States faces the most daunting challenges of any commander-in-chief since Abraham Lincoln...

Next president faces growing health care challenge

Important Decisions on Education Ahead for Next President

Next President Faces Rough Road As Economic Weakness to Persist ...

Grim economic reality faces next president

Presidential Science Lessons : The Next President Faces Tough Decisions in Science and Policy...

Next president faces daunting economic challenges Democrats fear next president faces Iraq 'quagmire'

Kaine: Next president faces toughest first term since FDR's - News ...

10 Policymakers Discuss What Grave International Issues the Next President Will Face (PBS Frontline)

Incoming president faces huge challenge rebuilding military

Guantanamo headache faces next president - Politics- msnbc.com

Compare this overwhelming agenda with the state of the nation when George W. Bush came into office. The U.S. was at peace, the economy was chugging along, there was a budget surplus, the threat of terrorist attacks was not on most people's consciousness.

Manifesto for America's Future: 'Remember Who We Are'

Manifesto: 'We are the children and grandchildren of Americans who confronted the Great Depression and beat it. We are the children and grandchildren of Americans who built a new democracy and a new prosperity from the ground up...' Read the whole thing.

The Institute for America's Future offers "a compelling progressive agenda primarily focusing on kitchen-table concerns such as affordable health care, accessible higher education, retirement security, living wages, healthy workplaces, strong infrastructures, safe food, fair trade and clean energy." For details, go to www.ourfuture.org

Optimists Vs. Pessimists On How Internet is Changing Society

Fascinating evaluation of recent books and articles. Which side do you think makes the more compelling case?

Related:

• Internet Takes Us Back to the Future
• A Political Reawakening: Internet Takes Us Back to the Future

Generational Change: 'Millenials' Plot Cultural Makeover

Lost Generation?

Watch this on YouTube.com.

This video clip reinforces some of the themes in the book, Millennial Makeover.

Number of Senior Citizens, Hispanics in U.S. Will Double. New Immigrants Will Pay For Our Retirement

The most startling demographic projection as America moves from a population of 300 million in 2006 to a population of 400 million in the years 2040-50, is that the country will be made up of OLD PEOPLE, to a much greater degree. Think of the whole country as like Florida today. In 2006, about 6% of the U.S. population is over 75 (compared to 3% in 1967). By 2040, about 11.6% of the population will be over 75 (Source.) The 65-and-over population will leap from 10 percent of the U.S. population in 2006, to almost 72 million, or 20 percent of the total population by 2030 (Source).

The country NEEDS a large level of immigration -- young, new immigrants who can pay into social security to finance the twilight years of elders. We're all in this together.

The second most startling demographic projection is that the Hispanic population is almost certain to almost DOUBLE, from 44.2 million (14.8% of the overall population) to at least 24%, due in large part to immigration, legal or otherwise. Economic and immigration policies can have SOME impact, but there's no turning back on this BASIC trend. We'd better get sed to it, see the positive impact and build on it, rather than try to push back the sea with an angry, nativist reactionary approach than cannot succeed. The 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico simply cannot be completely protected and sealed off amid desert, sand dunes and places where locals don't even know precisely where the border is.

Robert Samualson argues convincingly that since Americans are living longer, healthier lives, they need to work longer, and the retirement age should be raised to 70. If most of us are going to live to well past 80, and to healthy well into our seventies, why should we be able to access full retirement benefits at 65? Some people on good pensions are retiring in their forties or fifties, yet they may live for another 30 or 40 years, meaning they would have worked less than a third of their lives. Is that fair to the younger generation that will pay through much higher taxes for their elders' indolence?

Previous:

• Fence Isn't Likely to Stop Immigrants from Coming into the U.S. Increased Border Security Might Help Some.

Predicting the Future of the Internet

"Virtual communities could help citizens revitalize democracy, or they could be luring us into an attractively packaged substitute for democratic discourse." -- Howard Rheingold, quoted on "Imagining the Internet," past and future predictions about the Internet, a joint project of Elon University and the Pew Internet project. http://www.elon.edu/predictions/default.aspx. Includes a survey. "Share your vision today." Read recent predictions.

MP3 Music Files Implanted In Your Body, Specifically Your....

A friend forwarded me this: "Computer chips that store music could soon be built into a woman's breast implants," according to Ananova, a British news site. I thought this had to be a joke, but the story quotes Ian Pearson, who is indeed a "futurologist" who has been quoted seriously by the BBC. "I like the idea of MP36DD players," my friend quips. "Of course when the girls get a little older they will accused of having floppy drives."

Progress on Health Care, Environment Moves to State, Local Governments, to Non-Profits, and to Public-Private Partnerships

Over the next four years, the federal government seems unlikely to address serious social problems like health insurance for the uninsured, or greater access to prescription medications. Nor can we expect it to care about weaning the nation's addiction to dirty, polluting oil-based products, or to encourage clean energy alternatives.

Progressives therefore must look to state and local governments, to public-private partnerships, to non-profit organizations, and to online networks to do more.

Some local governments and communities are already addressing these problems in innovative ways, and far faster than the federal government could do so.

In Montgomery County, MD, for example, about 100,000 residents lack health insurance. The county is vowing to provide health insurance for nearly half of them over the next five years by expanding funding for a network of nonprofit clinics. By 2010, the county will spend as much as $20 million a year to provide primary care to people without health insurance. 

"While others argue about how to provide health care to the uninsured -- or conclude that it just can't be done -- we are making it happen," Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan told a press conference on Thursday, The Washington Post reported.

Since 1993, the Primary Care Coalition has collaborated with public and private safety-net organizations to offer direct patient care.

"If you're sick and you're poor, we're going to make sure you get to see a doctor," said council member George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), according to The Post.

Last spring, Leventhal proposed that the county use its buying power to create a "community pharmacy" to purchase the 12 most common generic prescription drugs in bulk, and offer them at deep discounts to the non-profit organizations in the county that serve residents without health insurance.

The legislation passed, and less than six months later, non-profit health clinics in the county are providing the most common prescription medications to county residents at deep discounts. 

"We still have to keep the pressure on federal and state government to take responsibility," says Ulder J. Tillman, the county's health officer.

Montgomery County, Md. also purchases five percent of its energy from wind power, and offers tax credits to residents who purchase non-polluting energy, such as wind power. Last week, it was honored as "the greenest county in Maryland."

Even if the federal government is close-minded or unresponsive, visionary people can work together to seek solutions to social problems on the state and local level.

Heaven Forbid! Possibility of Agreement With Arch-Conservatives

Ron Moore, in a post on his blog, quotes approvingly from a new book by former Senator Gary Hart called Restoration of the Republic. He quotes Hart:

"The strength of American political purpose in the current age is arguably to be achieved through the reengagement of ordinary citizens in public life and the common purpose rather than through continued reliance on a remote elite to manage national affairs for a society increasingly detached from national life and national purpose."

Uh-oh. This is something I've been arguing for about nine years. See "Vision for a New Democracy", a piece that I wrote originally back in 1995 after discovering the potential of the Internet as a tool of political and civic re-engagement. I updated the piece in 2000. If Ron and I agree, there must be something wrong with my thinking!

Seriously, I will have to read Hart's book, and start perusing his blog on the subject. The list price is a steep $45, but I see that I can get it used for $5.99. That's more in my price range. I do certainly believe that Democrats in particular need to re-examine and think up new ideas for the 21st century. Their problem in the 2004 campaign was that we knew what they were AGAINST (Bush's policies), but not so much what they were FOR. Bush on the other hand could sum up his position simply: "Cut taxes and mount tough, aggressive, kick-ass foreign policy."

Pessimistic View of U.S. Future

"The facts facing the United States as George W. Bush and John Kerry joust for the presidency are too grim to be honestly discussed on the stump. No one wants to tell cheering potential voters that the nation has sunk so deep into a hole that it will take decades to extricate it. So the candidates are trying to outdo one another in expressions of sunny optimism." -- Bob Herbert in the New York Times.

There is no exit strategy for U.S. troops in Iraq, he says. Afghanistan has been reclaimed by warlords and allies of terrorists. "There are not nearly enough jobs available for the millions upon millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who want and desperately need gainful employment," he says.