expecting more from my government

Tonight my mother basically suggested I was a Democrat because I told her I was sick of hearing about the grave terrorist danger this country faces from the speakers at the Republican convention. I thought it was funny since I have never claimed to be a Republican or Democrat and am not accurately pigeon-holed into either. It feels easy to lean one way or the other given the current administration though. To be honest, after listening to speeches from both the DNC and RNC, there are things I liked and disliked from both sides. So, since I have this little piece of web real estate, here are a few things I'd like to see / hear our next President say / put into place.

1. Cut the fat out of Washington. The only way to do this is to
   1. dilute the emphasis on political labels /parties and stop polarizing America by forcing people into one of two camps, and
   2. discourage politicians from seeking kickbacks from big industry or wasting time on projects which stuff their pockets instead of satisfying the best interests of the people they represent.
   We are lacking a utilitarianist spirit in our government. In the software world, where I have spent over 5 years professionally, the best way to kill bureaucracy is to increase agility and demand constant feedback. See IBM as an example. It seems insane to me that aside from silly polls, one of the only ways we give feedback to our elected leaders is by re-electing them or kicking them out of office every 4 or 6 years. 4 or 6 years is not a small enough feedback cycle. We need transparency into their actions as our leaders. Give me a web interface to query the history of actions by Politician A of Colorado. Let's get Washington out of the 1980s and let's stop pretending the government doesn't know all of our email addresses... I would like to be able to subscribe to emails or whatever that will tell me what the elected people of my city/state/etc voted for or against. Please don't make me watch hours of CSPAN for that. I could choose between a weekly/monthly/quarterly summary, be given links to read about what each item was about, read comments about why they voted the way they did, and be able to submit feedback on the way my official voted. If enough people participated, our officials wouldn't need silly approval rating polls, and would know the region they represent is aware that they are working to achieve what they said they would... or not. Sending out a survey asking for input before votes would also help our officials to better understand how we want them to act while in office for us... and might help them to cross party boundaries. We should be able to expose (and maybe remove elected officials responsible for?) pissing contests.
   
2. Give the opportunity to interested parties to take back responsibility from the government.
   
3. Committees in Washington or elsewhere should be given realistic goals and deadlines. Those that fail should be given the chance to explain why but eventually be disbanded for ineffectiveness. There is to much bloat in our political system.
   
4. No more drilling on environmentally sensative US soil. Not in Alaska, not in Montana, not in New Jersey. Nowhere. That's like a meth addict saying, "I'll quit in 2010." No you won't dude; you'll be dead. And so will we if we don't divert funds wasted on existing nonsustainable infrastructures and begin to replace them with sustainable ones. For example, let's put up solar panels in Nevada and Arizona in "environmentally low impact" and "productive" locations to eventually replace Hoover Dam so we can let the Colorado run all the way to Mexico. (While we're on that topic, penalize Las Vegas heavily to discourage growth in locations that are never going to be environmentally feasible for their current or predicted populations.)
5. Taxes schmaxes. I don't care if you tax the crap out of me if I can see the reward. If that's what it takes to build a high speed mass transit rail system which reduces our dependence on planes and freeways, so be it. (Can we start with the one going from Denver to Vail with stops along the way for all the ski resorts please? Seriously... I-70 is a disaster.) I do, however, care a lot about you taxing me for ridiculous things like building bridges to nowhere or killing buffalo that take 1 step out of Yellowstone because some dumbass cattle rancher thinks his cows might get Brucellosis from a bison (... which has never been documented... and the damn cows started the problem in the first place... and the cows are not nearby in the winter to be infected anyways! Seriously, you people are insane. Read more at buffalofieldcampaign.org.) People who think they are paying too much in taxes are probably correct right now, but low income people who think only the rich should pay taxes are selfish fools. Sorry buddy; that's capitalism... you rely on the police, FDA or DMV just like Mr. Rich CEO does. Americans lack a serious acceptance of responsibility and appreciation for the services the government provides. The way we pay our teachers, keep our homeland safe, and protect our incredible wealth of natural resources (National Parks for example), etc is atrocious and costs money to remedy, erego taxes. If this is the richest country in the world, we should be able to see that... and I don't when I look in our public schools or read the City of Cleveland is bankrupt, etc.
6. Phase out or reform social security. There are loads of people collecting checks that are well off financially and didn't put in near what they've pulled out.
   
7. No more rogue actions that convince the rest of the world we're a bunch of stupid idiots. I'm sorry, but if the rest of the democratic world is a bunch of pansies and is too afraid to stand up for what they believe in, they should be called out on that rather than sink the US government into enormous debt. Spineless, lethargic or apathetic nations should have their true colors shown.
   
8. All of our elected officials should have to read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and pass a test about it before being sworn in.

That's enough for now.