Priorities for leaders to focus on after election is over

In the 1973 Western classic “High Plains Drifter,” Clint Eastwood’s man-with-no-name character is asked by another what they are supposed to do after the citizens of the town of Lagos kill three cowboys they backstabbed after hiring them to protect the town.

“What about after?” Mordecai asks. “What about after we do it? What do we do then?”

“Then you live with it,” Eastwood replies.

With the 2016 election rapidly, and mercifully, coming to a close, those of us who vote will be faced with that same realization — whatever the outcome, we’ll have to live with it. But then, so also will the politicians we elect. They will have the task of figuring out what the results say regarding the priorities and demands their constituents have set for them.

So, here are some things the Cheney Free Press editorial board would like to see elected officials, local, state and federal, prioritize in their coming tenure.

One member’s desire is a hope that whoever is elected president doesn’t run the country into the ground. That’s a pretty good start.

Another voiced a desire for strengthening gun laws, particularly when it comes to background checks so that people who shouldn’t be armed, aren’t armed.

Locally, there was a wish that representatives in the state’s 6th legislative district — which includes the West Plains and its three cities — would visit out here more than just on special occasions or when Fairchild Air Force Base calls.

A third member listed these four priorities: achieving health care reform (a monster task), bringing some of our overseas troops home (why should we be stationed around the world?), guns (see above, partially) and improving the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) communities.

For a fourth member, it was back to health care reform. The United States is supposed to be “great,” one of the wealthiest and best off in the world, yet many people in our nation have to make a choice between paying for needed medical treatment and heating their homes.

There has to be a happy medium between receiving good quality health care and not having to pay an arm and a leg for it. Especially in a country whose major religious denomination puts doing to others what we would have do to ourselves as one of its main directives.

For state elected officials, how about we finally figure out what the term “fully funding education” really means? Then, let’s determine how we get to that and what needs to be done.

For a fifth member, what politicians need to get done boils down to two words: governmental waste. Perhaps as much as 15 percent of federal budgets consist of duplicate programs, programs that nobody is monitoring for costs, needless expenses and inefficiencies.

How does this happen? Why are we OK with it?

If just 1 or 2 percent of this waste were eliminated, we might find we can fund education, health care, programs to assist those in need and other things that benefit society. Perhaps there are government programs that would function better if they were privatized, but monitored by the public sector.

It does seem that when budget cuts are called for, the first cuts take place in offices that are directed to watch over the public’s dollars — like auditors.

Finally, our sixth member asked the question, what does it mean when politicians say we should be following the Constitution? Is that the original Constitution, sans amendments?

Is that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights only, or is it the Constitution with all 27 amendments?

To simplify things, how about elected officials follow these simple words: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

If politicians evaluated every law, every program, every tax increase or tax cut by these 52 words, we might be able to achieve a better society.