Dear future president,

It’s clear to me that we live in a world where its inhabitants need an education. These days, we have more responsibilities as citizens than ever before. There are required taxes to pay, a large percentage of the population operates cars, and in our own democratic republic, we vote for the next president. The problem is when people come into this world, and decide to not take these responsibilities seriously.

In America, the number of people in debt is exceedingly large, and the problem isn’t always that they don’t have a well-paying job. Many people are in debt because they spend money that they don’t have. They purchase things that they want instead of need, and when the inevitable time comes to spend money on taxes, rent, mortgage or a plethora of other bills, they don’t have money. I do recognize that many families, who have no jobs or incredibly low-paying ones, or they have large families, compounding the problem. However, the problem I’m calling to attention are those that simply need to be smarter spenders. People need to take their obligation to pay their bills and taxes more seriously. There’s no reason that when I see someone driving a high-end sports car, that they should be in deep debt at the same time. Instead of pure electives, high-schoolers should be taught more about spending and investment.

Speaking of cars, people don’t take driving seriously either. It’s incredibly simple to go out and grab a license once you hit 16. The test for the permit is generally considered more difficult, but it has nothing to do with your actual driving skills. Because of this, car accidents are well within the top ten causes of death, and top five causes of preventable death. People will completely fail to use their blinkers, go far over the speed limit, and curve around slower cars to take a few measly seconds off their arrival time. Innocent people’s lives are at great risk because so many drivers just expect the better, smarter drivers to not get run into. Driver’s ed should be an essential when oh so many of us drive every day. More than just that, though, it should be made more difficult to obtain a license when it comes to the driving portion, that way skills are more accurately gauged. 

The last everyday thing that we the citizens need to be educated on are today’s politics. And by that, I don’t mean reports on today’s murders or today’s hate crimes. We have a responsibility to vote, not just for the next president, but for state representatives, or local mayors and governors. People need to learn more about what a country needs rather than simply picking a democrat over a republican or vice versa. Even more important than the president, though, are the aforementioned more local positions. These officials directly impact us more than federal positions, but a very slim percentage of the population will even go to vote for them. Perhaps the mayor receives votes, but what about the treasurer? I think that in order to keep people more educated on the government, we need to teach it for State history because Federal government is already taught enough, when it doesn’t affect us nearly as much.