The way in which we elect our presidents has remained more or less unchanged for the past 200 years, and perhaps for good reason. It has in some ways transformed or evolved, but that can be said of just about everything. For example, money has become a huge part of the election process, dare i say the most important part. Without copious amounts of amassed wealth, becoming the next president of the United States is nearly impossible. Paying for the absolute necessities alone (getting your name on the ballot in 50 states, for example) costs thousands and thousands of dollars, and that's before adding in the price of travel, advertising, staffing, etc. Perhaps it would be better to have a lower middle class citizen as president. Maybe they would budget better. 


Outside of that, the system works pretty darn well. But, as is the case with any system, there have been some issues. The 2000 Bush-Gore race highlights a good few. In order to become the next president of the United States, you must win 270 of the 538 total electoral votes distributed throughout the country. Each state is given a set number of votes determined by their overall population so that each state is weighted to represent the number of people. Which seems like it would make sense. But, in 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore to become the 43 president of the United States. At least, that's what the electoral college said. In reality, Al Gore won the popular vote by .5%, which, in races of these sort, is a rather sizable margin. So more people voted for Gore, but just not in the right states.


And there have been several other situations where the system has had a bad day, perhaps most notably the Florida recount. During the 2000 election, Al Gore and George Bush were extraordinarily close. News teams across the country were concerned only with being the first to report the outcome of the Florida poll. At around 8:00 pm, news stations began reporting that Al Gore had won Florida's 25 electoral votes. Only a few hours later, as more votes were counted, they began placing Florida back into the "undecided" category, as it was too close to call. At around 2:30 am, Bush was leading Gore by roughly 100,000 votes, so they declared that now Bush had won the Florida votes and the presidency. And then again, two hours later, it got too close to call again. The election was so close that by state law, a recount was mandatory. In the end, Bush won. But there has been a lot of speculation as to if Bush won fairly. 


Our ways of electing presidents is reasonably effective. I certainly couldn't come up with a better way to do it. But, unfortunately, it has failed us a few times in the past.

Those whose jobs it is to balance the budget of the United States perhaps have the most difficult job in the country. It's hard to please everyone. Every decision you make is going to adversely affect someone, which means there are always going to be those who refute the policy. Also, no one really likes change. No matter how much we say we do, change is still something most people struggle with. And in order to balance the budget, things will need to be taken away or modified. Health care programs, social security, education funding, welfare. It's a lot like giving a child a toy. Give a child a toy, let him play with it for a little while, and then take it right back. The kid will cry and scream until he gets that toy back or until you give him a better toy. It's the same concept. If you let people collect social security when they're 65, and then you push it back to 68, Americans will cry and scream until you give it back. And then, of course, there's the simple matter of the $15,723,136,659 we owe as Americans. Those in charge of the budget have to, more or less, make that money appear from nowhere. Everyone whines and complains about the debt, but refuse to make any sort of change to aid in its payoff. So the government must make money appear from thin air.