The Economy. Education. Health Care. The Environment. War.

Sorry but without money, the country will be subjected to more and more crime and unrest.

Without an educational basis for the children, there is no hope for improvement. The time for good education is NOW - YESTERDAY - When I was growing up. Sorry but education stinks. I have a neice taking RELATIONSHIP. Um what? There is also a "Copper Jewelry" class. If those don't meet your fancy, consider "The Debate of Alternative Literature." Teachers are being paid to teach these classes. I thought relationship was something you discussed with your mom. I thought alternative lit (Stephen King, Tolkien) was what emo kids talked about after lunch and English Lit or Reading was a broad class that worked on understanding. Copper Jewelry won't get you far unless you have a little Etsy skills and luck out with little to no competition and develop a fan base.

Without good health care, many people will be suffering. We do have better health care than most. It still needs the cobwebs dusted out.

The Environment is the legacy we will leave our children. We have made great strides since the 70s but we can still do better.

War is the least of our worries. There will always be reasons for conflict, and as soon as one is solved there will be another around the corner.

1. Health care - without healthy workers and a safety net for those too poor to get the proper medical treatment you wont improve the economy

2. The economy - help from the ground up not the top down, the rich don't work hard for the poor, they work for themselves so help those at the bottom first.

3. The environment - without a healthy agricultural and natural environment you wont improve the economy and you wont improve people's health.

4. Education - build up the next generation of trademen and women, smart people make money and live under better conditions which help the economy, the environment and overall health of the population

5. Something else, not war! grief, think of something more important to spend the money on - soldier health services, repatriation expenses, family support, UN donations, aid donations! Anything but more money on the war machine.

There's a key prerequisite-condition tacitly embedded in this question, and that is... what's the system of government?

If you've got a government that is forced to think short-term because of periodic elections, then they will be forced to prioritize short-and medium term objectives, even though people in the government might know that it's better to think long-term... and the pressure on the elected to prioritize for the short-term becomes even more extreme if their constituents are poorly educated and are under financial pressure from which they have no imagination, skill or means-and-resources to crawl out of themselves.

In that case, the nation as a whole is extremely dependent upon the voting citizenry having sufficient education and vision for those voters to know who to elect and empower to manage things on all levels.

If the voters don't know how to prioritize things for short, medium, and long term themselves, then their government can do no better, plus if the voters have allowed a pack of sugar-crazed brats to pork the keys to the candy store from the elected reps, then even when the voters *know* what's good for short, medium and long term, they still might have to vote for inferior policies just to survive in the short term because they let their economy get tanked by the candy-store-gang... similar to the tenacious situation one finds in the US.

On the other hand, if you have the luxury of being a government with no opposition and no hassle of elections, then it is much easier to prioritize things on levels that will have the maximum benefit for the nation on all levels, including the long term.

In that case, the nation is extremely dependent upon the government bureaucrats (aka mandarins) having sufficient education, vision and moral fortitude to see how best to prioritize things on all levels of short, medium, and long term, but they are extremely vulnerable to sugar-crazed brats not just porking the keys to the candy store, but to the candy-store's property and sugar suppliers, and then getting bossy about who gets to shop there, which benefits family and cronies in the short term, but makes a mess of things in the long term... and that's the tenacious situation one finds in China.

That being said, Here's three lists: sort, medium and long term. Let's see if American voters can outwit trained, professional Chinese career mandarins...

Short term:

1) Economy,
2) War,
3) Heath-care,
4) Education,
5) Environment.

Medium term:

1) Health-care,
2) Education,
3) Economy,
4) Environment,
5) War,

Long term:

1) Education,
2) Health-care,
3) Environment,
4) Economy,
5) War.

The only thing on the list that I think the government should even be involved with is war. The economy is bad for many reasons, mainly because the government interfered with price controls. The Earth constantly warms up and cools down, because of its rotation and the sun. The government can't and shouldn't do anything about global warming (if it exist). Much like the economy, too much gov involvement is the problem with health care and education. Medicaire and Medicaid should be stopped. The Department of Education should be shut down, and unhindered capitalism would help more than any government program with education. The only thing the state should do is War. The United States is an Empire of Liberty. Thugs like Osama, Saddam, Kim Jong Il, Castro should be put down. The world would instantly be a better place if they were gone. (Not to mention ajad and chavez). In short, the US would be at its best if it focused solely on private property rights and national defense.

Sorry to stray from what you established on your question, but the fact that those five items are what government has to prioritize is part of the problem with government today.

A centralized federal government has no reason to be adding to their agenda topics such as health care, education, the environment or the economy. In doing so, a level of involvement is achieved, each time more intrusive to the rights of the individual states and the individual citizens.

From your five listed items the only one which I see that can be assigned Constitutional prudence is war, but even that has been turned into a political show, with wars being fought under congressional resolutions, were both the the executive and legislative branches shun their constitutional responsibilities, only to emerge smiling for photo ops when things go well, and hailing I told you so's when things go bad. The last US declared war was world war 2!

The economy, education, health care and the environment are important issues that should be prioritized by individual citizens, private enterprise, municipal, county and state governments, not the federal government. Once the citizens and the state governments have prioritized them, then all the federal government has to do is follow our priorities. They should never set them for us.

1. The war. It is the job of a government to protect its people from criminals and enemies.

2. The environment. It is the job of the government to protect my
private property from pollution by someone else. If your use of property stands in the way of my use of
property because of pollution, government has the role of protecting me
and my property from harm. However, the
government should not be passing crippling laws based on disputed
theories of climate change, such as regulating gases naturally produced
when humans exhale
(http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist).

3. The economy. It is not the job of the government to maintain a good environment, but since government regulation is responsible for the economic problems we currently have, government needs to repeal the laws that stand in the way of business growth, force banks to make risky loans, and require small businesses to provide benefits that they cannot afford.

4. Health care. It is not the job of the government to intrude into health care, and government needs to drop all the bureaucracy that hinders health insurance from being as competitive as car, home, and life insurance. We should be allowed to buy only what we want from insurance companies and to shop across state lines, and insurance companies should be allowed to charge more for high risk, just as they do in car, home, and life insurance. Those who cannot afford health insurance must rely on charity, and I will be the first to give, since people have given for my health care in the past.

5. Education. It is not the job of government to educate us. Government needs to take a cue from the private tutoring services and private pre-schools that are high quality and highly competitive. Those who cannot afford educate are not given the right to force others to pay for it but must rely on charity. Education is not the role of the government.