However, it seems also manifestly obvious that this complexity - or any other excuse - can't keep us from really making some major changes to what we do and how we do it.  Failure to do this will be catastrophic.  How to get this across to people when day to day circumstances seem fairly stable is a challenge.

It seems reasonable towards this end to talk about both changing how our government derives income, as well as how it spends it (and what it spends it on).  Addressing one or the other may be ideologically cleaner, but isn't going to solve the problems we face.

There are folks who make reasonable suggestions about a way forward.  Many folks seem to be of the mind that any change to how they want to do things will be uniformly negative, and that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.  It may be messy, but what if changes actually improve things rather than make them worse?  Is that possible?  It's ironic when our culture is far, far more optimistic about our ability to fundamentally change our physiological and emotional and psychological natures through genetic modifications and chemistry, than it is about whether or not we can untangle the political and economic mess that threatens our national stability.  

This seems like a reasonable way forward.  Have you seen other recommendations that make sense to you?  

And what about how the government spends it's money?  Those folks who are loathe to cut or touch entitlement programs paint scenarios of people falling through the cracks into poverty and death if we change what we're doing.  However, this assumes that the programs we currently have are effective in preventing this.  The problem is, nobody knows if that's the case or not.  Defense of current programs and advocacy for expanded benefits assumes that these programs work.  Yet there seems to be an undercurrent of popular opinion that they probably don't.  Not the way they were supposed to, and not the way we'd like them to - where people in true need are helped and people bent on abusing the system are unable to.  

The key, I think, is ensuring that our focus is on the right things.  The goal is to help those who need it - the goal should not be to defend the status quo or any particular solution or approach.  How we help the poor needn't (and likely shouldn't) be a sacred cow.  That the poor are helped, that ought to be the focus.  

This seems to be a good way of thinking forward towards action and reform.  What problems do you see with it, or what other options seem like they might be more promising?