Novotney: It Might Be Old Fashioned but I’m Still Rooting for America

It doesn’t matter what or who you believe right now as members of the country’s two major political parties continue to clash over everything from the price of eggs to Sesame Street in Iraq, and that’s because we ALL can settle on two true facts:

Billions of American tax dollars are sent and spent outside America.
Americans face ugly and tragic problems every day here on United States soil while billions of American tax dollars are sent and spent outside America.

That’s why I’m in favor of counting every tax dollar and examining where the denaro goes and what it’s spent on, and it’s not because of President Trump’s current “DOGE” review or President Obama’s Budget Control Act of 2012 or President Clinton’s Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

It IS because people are suffering and we see it right here in the Upper Ohio Valley, and when we ask what the unsheltered need to establish stability, we’re told about funding shortages no matter who the POTUS is or has been.

So, how about a congressional about-face so a smidge of those billions remains in America so we can address the need for treatment, counseling, and the medications the addicted and mentally ill need for better balance. And shoot, while we’re at it, let’s address hunger and poverty and the real-life impacts of social pandemics like the floods of opiates across Appalachia and the purposeful political division that has neighbors shunning the folks next door and others using social media to spread hate and mistrust between citizens who only want slightly different goals.

Let’s be honest when addressing the imbalance of opportunity without forcing reform through guilt-trips and enforced mandates, and let’s offer education about diversity for voluntary consumption. Freedom, after all, is freedom, and that’s why coerced inclusion always has and always will be met by push back.

It’s an American’s nature.

That’s why, if our tax dollars are better utilized on U.S. soil, human happiness could prove to be the missing ingredient for today’s American dream. But there are a lot of necessary amendments to make when it comes to those congressional appropriations, so, in no particular order, how about we truly consider more than a few changes:

Let’s spend to address the needs of childcare, and let’s be honest about what’s broken with foster care.
Let’s spend to remove greed and corruption from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to increase access to both.
Let’s spend to promote entrepreneurialism by offering real-life opportunities with federally funded and physical incubator programs managed by four-year and two-year colleges.
Let’s spend to reorganize immigration so it matches the economic realities of a country that’s now in debt to the tune of $36 trillion.
Let’s spend to bolster Social Security to remove the political fear mongering between the two major parties.
Let’s spend more on arts education in our schools and double-down on the maker-space mindset.
Let’s spend to better research the potential of hydroelectricity.
Let’s spend to better understand our American veterans and ask honest questions about why so many are deciding to take their own lives after the enemy could not.
Let’s spend to teach each other about each other without dividing each other.
And let’s spend to reward honesty, penalize lies, and create an accurate and perpetual plus-minus ledger for review by the American people.