Word: problems
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...state's real estate catastrophe contributes to the problem as well. Captain Joe Mendez from the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), says operators flush with cash are attracted to the abundance of cheap homes in Florida, particularly in Miami-Dade, which leads the state in foreclosures. While Florida's legitimate economy continues to flail, the HIDTA captain says indoor marijuana is thriving even though law enforcement is arresting more people every year. Says Mendez: "If the economic downturn remains as it is, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel...
...racial tensions - but a lot of black people will never apply to a college where such a program exists. What we often term "black issues" are really "American issues" that affect an uncomfortably large number of black people. For activists looking to rally around race, this has presented a problem over the past few decades: there simply is no single issue that unites blacks with the visceral power of segregation and its accompanying "Whites Only" sign. (Read an article by Gates: "Black Creativity: On the Cutting Edge...
...most difficult things to do in a democracy is react to a problem that is real, but not immediately threatening. Obama is trying to do this in two monster areas, health care and climate change. "He's killing me," says Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, referring to the hordes of special-interest groups that have camped on her doorstep and clogged her phone lines. Stabenow is smiling as she says it. She supports the broad thrust of Obama's initiatives. "But you can't believe all the groups that want to make their case. There are the doctors, the nurses...
...blocked the most logical and progressive way to fund a universal health-care system - eliminating the tax exclusion on health benefits and replacing it with a progressive tax credit. The health-care exclusion is, at approximately $250 billion, the single biggest tax break in the federal code. The problem is that unions have negotiated generous health packages over the years. According to Senator Stabenow, autoworkers get a package worth about $15,000 per year - and public employees get more, about $19,000. "The police and firefighters get even more," she says. "But they need it, and do you really want...
...questions of who should pay and how big a role government should have. These, he says, are the issues that deepen "some long-standing ideological divisions in our Congress and, frankly, in our society." They are also the ones that have defeated Presidents who have tried to solve the problem, going all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. But what looked like shrewd politics early in the process is increasingly being viewed on Capitol Hill as a failure to lead. As a senior Democratic congressional aide put it, "The President is going to have to step forward and start making...