America is slowly coming out of a long recession. Unemployment, after peaking at 10 percent in 2009, has fallen below 8 percent; more new homes are being built, although just gradually. Despite the heavy blow we've taken in the last few years, the US economy is very large and still growing... We have significant resources, but they are finite. What direction should we take? This issue guide offers three possible options to consider: Keep Tightening Our Belt Though painful, the sequester (mandatory across-the-board budget cuts) showed that we can get by with less. We should continue cutting gradually to bring down the deficits, shrink the national debt, and let the private sector drive the recovery. Invest for the Future We are making progress on the deficit. We need to make some adjustments to entitlements, but now is not the time to slash programs; it may result in hobbling the recovery. Instead, we should make strategic expenditures and grow the economy, which in turn will shrink the deficit. Tame the Monsters The steady growth of defense, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid are the main drivers consuming the federal budget...Social Security and Medicare, in turn, should be need-based and self-sustaining. We should get away from the whole concept of ""entitlement,"" which is bankrupting those programs. We also should reform and simplify the tax code.

America's Future: What Should Our Budget Priorities Be?

Business & Money

Wharton, Tony

Accounting

National Issues Forums Institute

One in five Americans will have mental health problems in any given year. Unaddressed mental illness hurts individuals and their families and results in lost productivity. In rare cases, it can result in violence.This issue guide presents a framework that asks: How can we reduce the impact of mental illness in America?The issue guide presents three options for consideration:Put safety firstThis option holds that more preventive action is necessary to deal with mentally ill individuals who are potentially dangerous to themselves or others. We should identify those who need help and intervene where necessary to prevent them from harming themselves and others. These individuals should be sought out and their needs addressed.Ensure mental health services are available to all who need themThis option holds that people should be encouraged to take control over their own mental health and be provided the tools to do so. We should make sure that everyone who wishes can get the needed help.Let people plot their own courseThis option holds that we should not rely on so many medical approaches. We should reduce our dependence on drugs and allow people the freedom to plot their own course to healthy lives. In many cases, simple changes to lifestyle can improve mental health. (2017-03-29)

Mental Illness in America: How Do We Address a Growing Problem?

Health, Fitness & Dieting

MENZISE, JEFF

Mental Health

"For many Americans, the recovery from the 2007 recession, a recovery that officially began in 2009, feels very remote, or nonexistent. Even as the stock market surges and millions of jobs have been created, they see a very different picture. Many Americans still believe in the basic notion that anyone who works hard should be able to support a family and get ahead. What can we do to make that happen? This issue guide presents three options for deliberation: Create New Opportunities We should make it easier for people to start new enterprises that will improve their circumstances. Whether it’s starting a house painting business on the side or opening a restaurant, when individuals start new firms, it helps spur economic growth. More skilled tradespeople are needed, for example, as construction bounces back. Half of all private-sector jobs in the US are at small businesses, and in recent years small businesses have supplied two-thirds of all new jobs. Strengthen the Safety Net We should secure and expand safeguards so that changes in the economy don’t push people into poverty or leave families with children homeless or hungry. In the last decade, millions of people found themselves unemployed or underemployed with few or no benefits, sometimes indefinitely. Fewer people work with one company for decades, employee benefits have shrunk, technology and globalization have eliminated jobs, and more people are employed in freelance work. We need to make sure people will not face catastrophic losses as they adapt to these changes. To do this, we should strengthen the unemployment insurance program, protect workers’ retirement, and make benefits more portable. Reduce Inequality We should shrink the income gap. Today, the richest 10 percent of the country’s population earn more than half of its total income. It is not right that CEOs make hundreds of times more than their employees, even as their companies cut workers’ hours to avoid paying overtime and offering benefits. Some inequality helps drive people to succeed and become wealthier, but if people can’t move into or stay in the middle class, or if the wealthy manipulate the system to their benefit, then we all lose. To reduce the large gaps between the very rich and the rest of society, schools should be funded more equally, we should do more to control college costs, and people who don’t go to college should be able to get decent-paying jobs that allow them to stay in the middle class.

Making Ends Meet: How Should We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity (National Issues Forums)

Economics

Drug abuse, a problem the United States has faced for decades, has taken a sharply more lethal turn with the rise of opioids―both legal pain- killers, such as oxycodone and fentanyl, and illegal ones like heroin. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50. More than 64,000 Americans were killed by drug overdoses in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is worse than the death toll at the peak of the HIV epidemic in 1995 and more than the number of US combat deaths in the entire Vietnam War. At least two-thirds of those 2016 drug deaths were caused by opioids. This issue advisory presents three options for deliberation. Each option offers advantages as well as drawbacks. If we increase enforcement, for example, this may result in putting many more people in prison. If we reduce the number of prescriptions written, we may increase suffering among people with painful illnesses. Each option is based on differing views about what we hold most valuable. Each represents a general direction and suggests a number of actions that can be carried out by different people or groups.

What Should We Do about the Opioid Epidemic?

Addiction & Recovery

NIFI/National Issues Forum Institute

Every American is affected by the divisions and outrage that prevent us from making progress on urgent problems. This issue guide is designed to help people deliberate together about how we should approach the issue. These are difficult questions, and there are no easy answers: <ul> <li>Should we require more accurate, respectful discussion in the media and online, or would that stifle free speech?</li> <li>Should we reform politics and government to encourage compromise, or will that mean giving up on the changes we really need and want?</li> <li>Should local communities set policies in areas like health care and the environment, or would that risk the progress we've made and make further progress nearly impossible?</li> <li>Should we crack down on money in politics, or will people just find new ways to evade the rules?</li> </ul> This issue guide presents three options for deliberation about difficult problems for which there are no perfect solutions. Each option offers advantages as well as risks. And each reflects different ways of understanding what is at stake, forcing us to think about what matters most to us. The research involved in developing this guide included interviews and conversations with Americans from all walks of life, as well as surveys of nonpartisan public opinion research, subject-matter scans, and reviews of initial drafts by people with direct experience with the subject.

A House Divided: What Would We Have to Give Up to Get the Political System We Want?

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

A Nation in Debt: How Can We Pay the Bills? (2022)

Stokes, Sutton

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