Without the government the United States of America would no doubt, not be as successful as it is today. Following the paths that our founding fathers laid out in our constitution, our current government has amended the way we all live to adapt to modern times. There is no doubt that there is no such thing as a perfect government and that is why there are good decisions and poor decisions that the government can improve on. Without the government not everyone would have public health programs, education would not be as available as it is now, and the middle class house buying boom would have never happened.
As I said, they is definitely room to improve. The government can improve on things. Education may be available but, on a global scale the U. S needs to step there game up. Also, they need to better focus the military budget and figure out a taxation program that works. A vast amount of programs are being run by the National Institutes of Health, which is known as the Center for Disease Control and, & state & local Public Health departments have made a giant improvement the health of all citizens.
The first example; scourges of polio, cholera, & smallpox have been nearly eradicated from the planet, this being a huge achievement, deserves recognition. Vaccination programs have led to a reduction of 95%! The risks of contracting diseases like hepatitis B, measles, mumps, tetanus, rubella, and diphtheria are now nearly impossible and if you happen to be the unlucky guy to contract one of these they are treatable and no longer life threatening. Federal funds are now spent to buy and distribute vaccines are saving countless lives.
The huge sum of money which would be in the billions can be used to prevent disease instead of treat it. In addition, the dedication of scientists is the only thing that will ever stand in between the American people and a catastrophic epidemic from a foreign country. The last deadly flu to reach the United States was in 1918! These are amazing results and we should continue to research these things to better our people. Without our government, no middle class would exist.
The GI Bill was created to help provide the funds for more than 16 million World War II and Korean veterans to get to finally attend college. Personally it allowed my father to be the first one in our family to graduate from college, he became an engineer, and went on to build a middle-class life for our family. A Historian named David Kennedy remarked that the “GI Bill beneficiaries changed the face of higher education, dramatically raised the educational level and hence the productivity of the workforce, and in the process unimaginably altered their own lives.
Personally I am thankful for the government in passing this bill, but my family was not the only one who created a life because of this bill. Here is another great example of a major decision which helped carve the middle class. The housing building and buying boom in the United States was also initially financed by a cheap GI Bill with housing loans and with the help of the Federal Housing Authority, insurance was brought onto conventional home loans. In 1945, only 44% of Americans had the privilege of owning their own home.
After the FHA program was introduced, which lowered the rates on interest and down payments, from 44% the number jumped to 63% of Americans that were now homeowners in 1968. These homes have eventually turned to become a multi-generational source of wealth for a huge population of Americans. The FHA still would cover inquiry’s that were over $50,000,000,000 a year just in mortgages, and it still remains to be especially important for all low-income house buyers.
Although it was important for education to be available to nearly everyone, the United States need to implement a nationwide K-12 system that will meet global standards, they also need to pay teachers for all of the important work that they do because they are very undervalued, making class numbers small-enough to ensure education is effective and logically. The U. S right now does not have a good enough standardized education system that will ensure the majority of the population will get a full education.
The U. S has one of the lowest literacy rates in all of the first world countries. The U. S has a the data it needs on what will work but still continues to spend its budget money and all of its resources on the system and program that are not effective. The US and many other countries offer strong education models (that pay the teachers well, have a strong core education backed by science, show a participation in learning, implemented special education programs, and smaller classroom sizes, etc). It’s been proven, however has not been done.
Schools will continue to get larger, and teachers are nowhere near paid what they should be. The Washington post made a report showing 51 percent of all students in pre-kindergarten throughout the 12th grade in 2012 were all eligible for a federal program that provided free and or reduced-priced lunches. The program is a proxy for poverty, but it created an explosion in the number of children in the classrooms. This is a phenomenon that is gaining attention among all educators, and public officials.
This is something to be commended, however there are many controversies on the nutritional value of these meals, but this is a start. Information from globalissues. org show that the United States spends 39% of the worlds military funding. We have the biggest military and all state of the art systems. There is no doubt that we are the strongest but even if we spent billions less, we would still be the biggest. The USA needs to create a defense policy that will make sense and recognize that world wars will hopefully be a thing of the past.
The world today will need a US military that is smaller, supportive, and nearly invisible. The USA still runs a huge military budget and defense structure like World War 2 is still going on. More money will be spent on guns, fighter jets, and tanks than on health care and education. Everyone seems to be to concern that the whole world is going to attack us tomorrow. But by lowing the budget, we could put the billions of dollars to way better uses. Every Navy is proud to have an aircraft carrier.
There are only 19 fully functional carriers and 10 belong to the USA. Out the hundreds of countries we have more than half of the aircraft carriers. The average cost is a whopping 4. 5 billion pre carrier and that is just the ship, not the aircraft itself and costs to keep in running. Perhaps cutting down on drastic expenses like this could lead to a budget that would more wisely use our money for the good of the people of these United States. Taxation is one the most controversial topics.
No one is happy to give there hard earned dollars back to Uncle Sam and the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer because the taxes people pay are not equal. The US needs to create a simpler one-tax system that will tax people based on the total income they make and can offer a limited but have justified deductions for all the things that will build value into our economy. Tax filing should be become automated and easy. Companies should not have to need to offshore there money to escape tax-laws.
Flat out from experience, the current tax system is just confusing. In fact, our tax system is one of the most complicated tax systems in the world. Compliance is a challenge just because of the complexity. Instead of just making the taxation process easier and finding a better way to enforce it, the tax code just becomes even more complicated each and every year. People in Singapore can file their taxes in less than 10 minutes but here in the USA we spend hours of hour time on something that could be made so much easier.
If people knew there tax money was being used for purposeful things, and the amount people were taxed was fair no one would have a problem paying their dues, so this is an important issue to address. Maybe in the future the perfect utopia will arrive. However for now we will have to settle for some of the flaws that will appear in every modern government. A world with no government would never work, complete anarchy would break out and that’s why we should be thankful for everything from small to little that it provides us.
From our basic freedoms, to regulating programs to keep things safe and fair. The world we were born into has given us a huge start over a lot of third world countries were things like basic health care are not available at all. Anyone would admit, that problems are present like a huge budgeting problem with our military but these are things that can be changed in the future for the better! In conclusion, there are many things that could be changed but this country has made me who I am and I am thankful for that and proud to be an American!
