Political update on the "year of change"

I said 2015 would be a year of change both nationally and here in Nevada earlier, so I am writing to follow up on that post and show where things stand from my seat now that it's mid-March.

1. The U.S. President and the Republican Congress are at loggerheads over a number of issues, but there's still a chance Republicans will come to their senses and decide to govern. From my seat, the Republican budget that was proffered less than a week ago was pretty weak, and pretty easily dismantled. It depends on unspecified cuts in domestic spending to balance the budget in 10 years. For all the sturm und drang about the budget in the election, I don't think this is the blueprint for success that Republicans were hoping for. The fact is, the budget needs additional revenue in addition to spending cuts to make any sense.

2.  The President is the one elected official who represents all Americans, and he needs to do a better job of communicating with the people. Now, communication is a two-way street, but devoting your weekly address to a confirmation fight over Loretta Lynch is not the best way to communicate with the people. He needs to energize people to fight for the middle class, not argue with Congress over confirmation of a single individual.

3.  Here in Nevada, I don't see much improvement in our government from Republicans having complete control. The legislature remains a 120-day feeding frenzy for lobbyists, and there seems to be little consensus over the tax proposals and education proposals that Gov. Sandoval made in his state of the state speech. I think the only thing that will get through the legislature is a hodgepodge of "reforms" designed to line the pockets of certain people, like the construction defect "reform" package that was the first piece of legislation signed by Gov. Sandoval.

4. International security concerns continue to dominate the news. Whether in Russia, Ukraine, Iran, or Iraq, there seems to be some real instability in the world, and that is not in the U.S.'s best interests. Israel had a contested election that seems to have rattled some people here in the U.S., but let's hope there can be a peaceful transition to a new Israeli parliament now that the election is over. Netanyahu got painted as a racist in Israel, I believe, so I hope his re-election doesn't result in a crackdown on Arabs in Israel.

5.  As I once learned, there can be no change without conflict. There can be conflict without change, though, and I think that may be the pattern we're in right now internationally. I don't think the Iran talks will result in anything tangible in terms of Mideast peace. Iraq seems a real mess, and the President is trying his darnedest not to get pulled back in to that country/failed state, but I think we may end up going back into Iraq, not as an occupying army, but as allies to a weak central government. We may have to prop up Iraq's government for a long time, not just as a counterbalance to extremism in the region, but also as a strategic buffer between Israel and Iran. That's how we got involved in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when we propped up Saddam Hussein against Iran. However, there is a very slim chance that Iran will come to its senses, too.