What is one deep societal issue that you wish your state politicians would address, but simply aren’t?

31 comments

1. State-level? Probably the housing market. If you’re a developer who wants to build housing, good luck lol. To be fair, you can’t blame the politicians for this since the vast majority of Californians don’t want more housing to be built.

   Federal level? Not too sure, maybe criminal justice reform.

2. Legalize weed ffs

3. Medical care should never bankrupt you. Never. And pharmaceutical companies should never be allowed to push their drugs to the public through advertising.

4. Bribery of government employees and elected representatives needs to be more thoroughly investigated and more heavily punished.

5. Rural poverty. It is systemic and widespread and is not being approached at all.

6. Reform of Rhode Island spite fence law… I could go on ad nauseam

7. Car dependency and suburban sprawl. This touches on so many issues ranging from socioeconomic inequality to climate change to obesity.

8. The absolutely incredible poverty on reservations

9. They’re trying to address it, but the things they’ve been able to pass haven’t gone far enough.

   Revoking the ability of community groups and special interests to arbitrarily put up barriers to housing development, resulting in a statewide extreme shortage of housing (and resulting exorbitant housing costs) because no community in particular is willing to accept the local effects of higher-density housing construction.

10. [removed]

11. Healthcare. Every American should have access to quality healthcare.

12. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot Illinois politicians can do without federal help due to years of mismanaged finances and voter distrust of a proposed progressive income tax (which would require a change to the state constitution). I get why voters don’t trust the state, but instead of a progressive income tax we are getting lots of regressive taxes, fines, and penalties and budget cuts that penalize those who can least afford it the most.

13. Social Security is only taxed on the first $147,000 of salary. Make all income taxable for Social Security and increase benefits

14. Extreme housing cost

    Solutions require quite a few actions but will fix a lot of ills

15. Housing costs, there are some signs that they’re actually going to start working on it, I just don’t think that MA is set up to build a lot of housing quickly.

    Also something has to be done about the Massachusetts State Police, at the very least stop having them be required at construction sites.

16. State level would besome kind of state run aliding-scale based on income child daycare.

    If the pandemic taught us nothing else, lack of affordable child care ravaged women in the workplace and I believe their participation rate is still lower than it’s been in many years.

17. Divorce reform. It’s absolutely absurd that two people who agree to abolish their marriage contract have to wait up to a year to petition a judge to hold a hearing to decide if they’re allowed to make their own mutual decision. You can get married with little to no waiting period but getting divorced requires an entire court session. It’s ridiculous.

18. Oregon: If you’re gonna tax me 20% to buy weed from the dispensaries, I expect the mentally ill, homeless and drug addicted are taken better care of instead of just paying administration cost to run such programs they do jack shit to help remedy the current social problems.

19. None. Government =/= society. I don’t expect that they have the capability and I know that they don’t have the integrity to address my issues with society. We *are* society, not them.

20. Mental health! There’s no reason there should be such a lack of education, so much stigma and so little availability. Also, all candidates in govt should be screened and cleared by multiple mental health doctor groups.

21. at the state level would be declaring war on Delaware.

22. Like any of them lol

23. The failures of our prison system. Particularly the rampant sexual assault that goes on in prison, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

24. Food deserts, especially in more rural and low income areas

25. Literally 90% of the issues would be better solved by the states but the states are so dumb that they can’t get shit done.

26. In my state, they have have actually addressed a few issues very well, but kick themselves in the teeth every time they make any strides. We had a huge issue of under-education, especially in skilled trades. Five years ago, only 32%of Indiana residents had associate’s degrees. We started offering free associate degrees in high demand jobs and it has continued to increase, because people with associates degrees tend to stay as opposed to those with bachelor’s degrees. We are talking about HVAC, Advanced manufacturing, nursing, computers, etc. So all is good, right? But then our legislature continually passes backwards legislation regarding LGBTQ rights, abortion, anti-inmigration, anti-teacher legislation. We make it so uninviting for actual corporations to actually move here.

27. There’s a few things here in Texas like property taxes, just to let people know that our property taxes are insanely high, and it feels like they go yo nothing. All of our new highways end up being toll roads that never seem to get paid off. Amarillo smells like cow shit every time the wind blows. Belton has cornered the market on unknown traffic jams on the highway. Houston is pretty much a flood zone and no one is trying to fix it. Homeless is a problem in Austin and no one wants to really fix it.

28. Taxes

29. Mental illness

30. 𐑴𐑝𐑼 𐑧𐑤𐑧𐑒𐑑𐑰𐑙𐑜, 𐑣𐑨𐑝𐑰𐑙𐑜 𐑧𐑤𐑧𐑒𐑖𐑩𐑯𐑟 𐑥𐑹 𐑞𐑨𐑯 𐑧𐑝𐑮𐑰 4 𐑘𐑽𐑟 𐑹 𐑕𐑴 𐑬𐑑𐑕𐑲𐑛 𐑝 𐑧𐑥𐑻𐑡𐑧𐑯𐑕𐑰 𐑕𐑻𐑒𐑳𐑥𐑕𐑑𐑨𐑯𐑕𐑧𐑟 𐑛𐑩𐑟𐑯’𐑑 𐑜𐑦𐑝 𐑥𐑴𐑕𐑑 𐑐𐑪𐑤𐑦𐑕𐑰𐑟 𐑧𐑯𐑳𐑓 𐑑𐑲𐑥 𐑑 𐑚𐑰 𐑓𐑧𐑤𐑑, 𐑥𐑰𐑯𐑥𐑙𐑜 𐑝𐑴𐑑𐑼𐑟 𐑛𐑴𐑯’𐑑 𐑨𐑒𐑗𐑫𐑩𐑤𐑰 𐑜𐑧𐑑 𐑩 𐑕𐑪𐑤𐑦𐑛 𐑚𐑰𐑑 𐑪𐑯 𐑦𐑓 𐑞𐑱’𐑮 𐑚𐑰𐑰𐑙𐑜 𐑢𐑧𐑤 𐑜𐑩𐑝𐑼𐑯𐑛 𐑹 𐑯𐑪𐑑 𐑢𐑧𐑯 𐑦𐑑’𐑕 𐑑𐑲𐑥 𐑑 𐑜𐑴 𐑑 𐑞 𐑐𐑴𐑤𐑟.

    >!Overelecting, having elections more than every 4 years or so outside of emergency circumstances doesn’t give most policies time to be felt, meaning voters don’t actually get a solid beat on if they’re being well governed or not when it’s time to head to the polls.!<

31. As someone who doesn’t care about the issue, the legalization of marijuana. Contrary to popular belief, legalizing marijuana does not engender any loyalty from voters towards the party in support of the issue, so there’s never any reason for the parties in D.C. to waste time on it. We spend so much time and energy addressing any issue that doesn’t actually affect voters. If the all of the states handled the issue, the federal government would follow logically and we could stop wasting valuable time on an issue over which people will not change their vote and we could focus on issues that might prove important enough to dictate voting patterns. I want energy going into more important issue, which won’t happen until all of the states legalize marijuana.