Media please focus on the big issues

With a man occupying the White House who has hard time with truth, civility, history and criticism, there is a bounty of things the media could focus on. And, that is part of the problem. I look at various news feeds and sources and see too many pedestrian foibles that get discussed. Yet, the countless criticisms dull our focus on the more important issues.

My concerns are several, so let me highlight those areas:

– we are borrowing from our future to make a long performing economy a little better, doing the opposite of what is needed to limit our debt from increasing from $21 to $33 trillion by 2027.
– we have ignored our allies and reasonable voices in the US to pull out of various multiparty agreements hurting trade, environment and security.
– we have pulled back several regulations making it easier for industries to pollute and ignoring the federal government’s role in fighting climate change.
– we have blamed immigration for a host of problems and focus on remedies that won’t help people or solve problems.
– we have held up the constitution as sacrosanct, while ignoring the sections on protecting the rights of all citizens, protecting the right and importance of the media and ignoring the clearly defined roles of the three branches of government. It is of vital importance to respect the judiciary’s pursuit of truth, even if the President does not like it.
– we have continued down a path which ignores truths and facts tolerating a man who makes more than a few decisions off misinformation and even disinformation. Governing well is hard enough when we use real facts, it is nigh impossible when we make things up.

Of course, there are other issues, but I attempted to group several concerns into larger categories. In closing, please remember these three cautions – we cannot shrink to greatness, we cannot continue to pee in our global swimming pool, and we must respect the rights and opinions of all people, not just people who agree with you or compliment you.

Example of how the media promotes conflict

In my business career, I became accustomed to the US regulatory process. Congress would pass laws and the Department of Labor (DOL), IRS, EEOC, etc. would pass regulations to administer the laws. And, they used to be reported as such. The DOL released proposed regulations today, e.g.

Now, to promote conflict, these departments are rolled up into one category – the Obama Administration. This likely started before with George W. Bush, but to me it is done to represent that the President must be extending his powers. When, in fact, it is these departments doing what they have always done, nothing more or less.

The process works usually like this. A department will propose new or revised regulations to address a new law or an outdated one. There will be a formal comment period where feedback is sought. Then, the proposed regulations will be revised and another comment period may occur. Then, the regulations will be released.

To their credit, the departments do listen to feedback. And, sometimes if the pushback is so severe, they will be pulled and redone. Back in the early 1990s, there were some regulations passed that were so-God awful (called Section 89 to regulate non-discrimination in healthcare benefits), they were pulled.

While regulations come in all shapes and sizes, I want to take the chance to mention my favorite regulations issued by the IRS. I call them the Mea Culpa regulations, but they are better known as the Voluntary Compliance Program. In essence, if an employer discovers an error in compliance, it can remedy the problem and approach the IRS with its solution. They would pay a set small fine from a menu of choices and demonstrate how they fixed the problem. Often, it would be restoring lost benefits or financial restitution to affected employees. This happens more than you would think, but it is a great example when government gets it right.

So, the next time you hear reference to the Obama administration doing something. Let’s not jump to conclusions. It may just shoddy reporting on a mundane task.