What is the most important issue facing the country right now?

While the economy is for many the most immediate and obvious choice for #1 in your poll, there can be no long term financial recovery without the US having a secure, renewable and affordable energy source for the future. I also believe that the research and production of "Green" energy is the best vehicle for quick and sustainable economic growth and job creation.

For example, the boat maker ‘Bayliner’ recently shuttered a local plant that built their boats. It would seem that such a plant and it’s (now unemployed) employee base could shift to the production of small to moderate sized fiberglass made windmills to be used on a residential to small industrial scale. This type of action would serve to increase the production of green energy and keep those employees at work, a win-win for all except the coal and oil companies. Incidentally it also begins to shrink the absolutely stunning and unsustainable transfer of US wealth to those who wish us ill. Each and every dollar we use to purchase renewable energy is one dollar less we send to the Mideast for oil.

Although I support the pending stimulus package from Obama and before Congress right now, such maneuvers only serve as a tool to stave off the inevitable unless we succeed in beating our national addiction to oil.

The longest journey begins with a single step and it will largely be through a mass movement of such individual steps that the US finds a long term stable solution the mess we are currently in. Such steps (like installing residential windmills or solar panels) represent a way that the average person/family can help feed the economy and reduce oil imports. When we as individuals find and use such a way to contribute to our National recovery, we will be well on our way to a more prosperous future. The technology to do this is currently here all that is lacking is the will. Why not expect that all new construction have its own means of energy production (wind or solar) that’s as standard as a toilet or a kitchen sink.

Instead of help paying energy bills from the government, why not help purchase and install residential energy production technology? Such a step would save huge amounts of money in the long term, as it would reduce or end the need for such assistance in the future. I personally have already received enough such funding through LIEAP (low income energy assistance program) to have paid twice over the cost of either solar panels or a small residential windmill. Such a program would equate to how Jesus said that its better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a meal.

In closing I have to mention that the mess we are presently in is exactly what Osama Bin-Laden and his ilk want to see and how he said he would like to see the US fall. We have to stop sending our wealth to the Middle East to regimes who use those very same US dollars to support the terrorist groups that are our real enemy. It is my contention that every issue y'all have listed in your poll would stand to benefit from us having secure, cheap and renewable long term energy that does not benefit those who wish us ill.

Humbly, One Eyed Bob, Roseburg Oregon