reply to post by St Udio
Many great general ideas and a good place to start looking, though the "Obama-phone" thing is really a
meme or myth and is, in fact a program paid
for by telecommunications companies - and they make a lot of money from it.
Since 2009, there has been an urban myth that Obama created a program to provide free phones to low-income Americans at taxpayer expense. There
is, in fact, a government program that will provide low-income people with a free or low cost cell phone. It was started in 2008 under George W.
Bush.
The idea of providing low-income individuals with subsidized phone service was originated in the Reagan administration following the break-up of AT&T
in 1984. (It was expanded and formalized by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.) The program is paid for by telecommunications companies through an
independent non-profit, not through tax revenue.
Many of the things you cite, directly, are also varied and many are funded by community organizations or charities. But some of them do apply to be
sure.
To me the answer is really simple and twofold:
1) Transparency in government.
2) Reform of both the House and Senate to abolish lobbying, better define conflicts of interest, and create mechanisms to prevent "pork barrel"
spending and riders.
That last bit is, IMO the most important one. Riders ( additions to bills ) are so abused. If one actually reads bills ( a very boring process ) it
becomes evident that most of them end up with riders that divert a LOT of money - and they don't even have any connection to the concept or basis of
the bill that they're attached to.
Example: A bill to control medical costs might end up with a rider to build a eighty million dollar bridge somewhere.
It's absolutely amazing how flagrant and frivolous it all really is. To say that I long for the days when Washington was crooked behind our backs -is
such an irony to me... but it's an accurate statement.
~Heff