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American's Ten Biggest Worries
by Jack Anderson

When the letters pour in to Jack Anderson’s office, here’s what Americans say are nagging at them.

From the complaints that pour into my office, I have compiled a Worry Index-those things that gnaw at Americans and leave them with a nagging sense of uneasiness. I was going to call it an Anger Index, but anger involves heat and we are not fired up enough to do much about most of these things. According to my mail, here are Americans' ten biggest worries. See if they match with any of your frustrations.

1. The Altering of America
The elitist and correctors among us are changing America for the worst. They're redefining our beliefs, revising our standards, rewriting our history and uglifying our heroes. The elitists can be found in the ivory towers of Wall Street, Hollywood, and academia where they have succeeded in establishing what is politically correct and what is not. Already this dogma has been given priority over what is morally or patriotically correct. They seek to level and control the masses by their vision of a new world, but they aren't interested in the feedback of the facts. For instance, against all evidence that the stability of society has rested upon the foundation of solid families, they seek to discount and undo marriage, sever the ties between parents and children, and jackhammer the traditional moral foundation. They raise their arguments in the name of "we the people", but they really think in terms of "they the people." They think of themselves as the "anointed" who have a special, politically correct vision they want to thrust upon the rest of us.

2. Moral Standards are Declining
Across an America that was once a safe and sane place to live, the root cause of crime has been identified as a lapse of the enduring values that used to undergird our country. Our schools no longer teach right and wrong. They merely point out the risks, of drug abuse or sexual promiscuity. Our right to think and act independently does not transcend our obligations to society. Freedom is not a license for unrestrained conduct. It is obedience to voluntary moral standards. Conduct that is legally tolerated isn't always morally permissible. The surest source of morality, our Founding Fathers agreed, was religion. Their speeches and pamphlets made it clear that they believed the colonization of America was guided by the hand of God. During the founding era (1760 to 1805), the book most cited by early Americans was the Bible. Still the founders stressed that religion should be dictated by conscience and never by the state. They established freedom of conscience as a fundamental, individual American right. In this spirit, the First Continental Congress established public schools for three purposes: to teach religion, morality, and knowledge. These basic values are listed in that order. They are "necessary" declared the First Congress "to good government...". Now two centuries later our schools have abdicated their responsibility to promote religion and morality-with dismaying results.

3. Law and Order
Across America, people are triple bolting their doors, installing security systems and purchasing guns to protect themselves from marauding criminals. They are concerned that the government is more concerned about protecting criminals than their victims. Big city governments are losing control of some urban neighborhoods-where murder has become a common place response to trivial irritations. The violence in these neighborhoods is beginning to spill into the cities proper.

My mail shows that law-abiding citizens have had it; they lay most of the blame on the courts for pampering criminals.

4. Government Malaise
Americans are losing confidence in their government. They've been shaken by a series of federal quakes which has caused a deepening distrust for government-all the way from the White House down to the local court house. An El Paso talk show host listed the top three frustrations of his listeners as: first, city government, second, county government; and third, state government. People are fed up with all government; they're turned off, yet they feel powerless to stop official misconduct and mismanagement.

5. Health Care
Complaints are churning up against the spectacular cost explosion for ordinary illness; the mass reductions in health insurance coverage by employers, the mounting refusal of deficit-ridden hospitals to treat those who cannot pay; the mushrooming of money-draining diseases such as aids, crack addiction, and ailments of the aged. The insured plead that the combined costs of insurance and non-covered expenses has reached the breaking point. The uninsured complain that they can't collect Medicaid, that the whole healthcare system, if I'm any judge is in trouble.

6. Abortion Uproar
My mail shows the national uproar over abortion has become deep and divisive, loud and bitter. The arguments have degenerated into shouting matches, shootings, and bombings. The clamor is drowning out the moderates who increasingly are tuning out the debate. Some newspapers and talk show hosts will no longer accept letters or calls on this subject because they've become so vitriolic.

7. Tax Burden
Downward mobility in America has been accompanied by upward taxes. The result is that the average family income won't buy as much satisfaction as it used to. This has caused a simmering anger that could boil over. Most Americans sense that they can't continue to finance their government services and living standards on borrowed money, but they are finding it painful passing from the illusions of receiving through the cold-turkey of paying back.

8. Government Waste
As chairman of Citizens Against Government Waste, I have been deluged with protests that reveal a seething anger over federal splurging. Americans are fed up with wantonness of waste, overcharges and outrages, $640 toilet seats and $659 ash trays, weapons that don't work, and contracts that should never have been signed. People understand that it will take higher taxes, spending slashes or devalued dollars to really balance the government's books. They want Congress to begin by counting waste and extravagance-a simply exercise in fiscal surgery that will hurt no one except those who waste the taxpayers' money.

9. Crumbling Infrastructure.
My fellow commuters resent the wasted time and depleted vigor that drains away during their protracted commutes. This has become a dreary, daily ordeal that's imposed on us by inadequate road systems and overwhelmed mass transit. Americans are fuming over daily hours lost in gridlock traffic, the extra miles of detours to avoid bridge repairs, the delays in congested airports; the cancellation of proposed projects because local infrastructures can't accommodate them; the breakdown of municipal water systems; the arson and vandalism by poor people to express their inner anguish.

10. The Learning Decline
Americans are alarmed over the failure of our schools to educate our children. American youth consistently place last or near last among the industrial nations in basic subjects;. Their SAT scores actually show a decline year after year. Only a tiny fraction of young Americans are technologically literate. The result is a workforce whose poor performance is beginning to decline. President Clinton's first Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has been repeatedly been told by foreign executives. "Don't quote me, but we have to simplify our machinery and dumb down our training programs for workers in the United States."

The worries that nag at Americans can still be dispelled. The approaching troubles can be averted. It is not too late. But it will take all the toughness that built America in the first place. We cannot escape responsibility by entrusting our consciences to our leaders. They have been unwilling to make unpopular decisions-unwilling to take unpleasant actions. This country belongs to "we the people" as our history so eloquently testifies. If something worries us, we must be responsible to find solutions.

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