Has anyone considered that politicians do not possess the backbone to really impact America’s economic problems? Most of the stop-gaps employed act as temporary fixes, treating the symptoms and not the causes of the current mess.
With national debt spiraling out of control and unemployment consistently hovering over nine percent, creative measures beg to be instituted. Is there an elected official willing to take a new approach?
Following are three ideas intended to spark questions as well as raise eyebrows.
Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon announced the beginning of America’s “War on Drugs.” Since then, taxpayers footed a bill approaching nearly $2.5-trillion. 
As drug-related problems escalate, government agencies devote precious resources to combat violence, incarceration rates increase, and a significant opportunity lies dormant.
If the government legalized most, if not all, forms of drugs, the current spending deficit inherent in the war could become a profitable enterprise. Public control would increase employment through government run production and distribution channels. The costs associated with the imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders would vanish. And, more time could be devoted to asking real questions during elections than whether a candidate still has not exhaled that last toke.
The national life expectancy rate in America averaged 78.7 years in 2009, according the World Bank. Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars each on research and design of new drugs that incrementally push that number higher. Consumers spend even more buying those drugs. However are the extra few months or years cost effective?
A study by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that five percent of Medicare patients accounted for 30 percent of costs. With a budget of $446-billion, the two agencies spend $134 billion dollars on a very small segment of people. As Americans reach later stages in life, healthcare takes an ever-larger piece of one’s total spending.
Value of life arguments raise a moral quagmire, but the costs involved in staving off an imminent death paint a stark reality: Americans will often spend more on healthcare in the final year of life than any other year. By re-evaluating the approach to the final moments in one’s life, Americans stand to gain significant savings in healthcare spending.
In 2008, Texas spent $1.2-billion in taxpayer money related to teenage pregnancy,according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. 
These figures include costs associated with healthcare, welfare, and lost tax revenue. While nationally, the numbers do not compare to Texas’ severity, the trickle down effect of teen pregnancy may not be a figure that can be measured concretely.
The government could mandate an age floor, say below 19, to lower the rate of teenage pregnancy, bringing a stronger stance to increase prevention.
So…any takers?