Ideas within topic government,national: (click suns to rate or comment on ideas)

1		When a 17 year old child gets a driving license, allow him to only operate cars fitted with GPS monitors to record where they are going, and how fast they are going. Monitor is merely a cell phone equipped with GPS system. Perhaps $250 for 6 months.	E-mail
2		Car companies should build new, hybrid vehicles for the postal service, thus keeping the auto industry alive, replacing the aging postal service fleet, and putting the bailout money to constructive use.
3		To promote tourism, the tourism development agencies of developing countries can provide cheap interpreter-cum-guides. Teach the poor but intelligent youths some lesser learnt (in that region) foreign language. Help them & the region earn more.	E-mail
4		Send tsunami and other disaster warnings by SMS (short message service) so that people who don't happen to be watching TV or listening to radio at the moment can be alerted and can evacuate. (tornado, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane)	E-mail
5		Make an online activity for each citizen to assign spending and taxation categories of his national government. Experiencing the compromises needed to balance the budget will make people more realistic and will transmit that realism to their government.	E-mail
6		Since corruption and poverty can cause each other, it's hard for poor countries to climb out of poverty. To fight corruption, a country could volunteer to accept an outside (UN) commission and court to investigate and prosecute corruption.	E-mail
7		Create a website with interviews of people who tried to enter various careers and failed or succeeded, with statistics on % who quit that track or got a job. Are they happy? Provide the site for all high school career guidance counselors worldwide.	E-mail
8		In countries like India, income tax & sales tax are difficult to collect. To track all transactions, government could give debit cards to all people and card readers to all shops. No more need to print money, also saving government expense.	E-mail
9		Highly populated countries like China and India, instead of forcing the people to have only one child, can have income tax (or other taxes) brackets depending on the number of children. This will have a good impact with out a hard rule.	E-mail
10		Banks that are "too big to fail" threaten the world economy if they do fail. To prevent banks from getting so big, government should force breakups or block mergers of banks/companies with assets or liabilities > 1 day of world GDP (0.3% of annual GDP).	E-mail
11		Some governments give poor people cheap public housing, but they need to wait a long time to get it, they must live in a certain place, and people fake poverty to qualify. Instead, raise taxes to pay everyone cash, and let people rent wherever they want.	E-mail
12		To prevent financial tsunamis, countries or UN should define companies that are "too big to fail" and assign a regulator to declare others that fall outside the definition, then put a public official on their boards and limit their leverage and risk.	E-mail
13		To fight brain drain (poor countries losing precious funds teaching doctors, who then leave for more pay in rich countries), use education loans, to be forgiven by working in home country or repaid in cash earned from rich country.	E-mail
14		Companies charge huge fees to workers who migrate abroad for long-term contract jobs (as maids, construction workers, etc.). Instead, governments should arrange migration and contracts at low cost to let workers keep more of their meager incomes.	E-mail
15		Governments should pay for removal of discarded fishing nets snagged underwater. These nets last centuries, killing huge numbers of fish and mammals.	E-mail
16		Government in many countries alternates between two options: dogma (theocracy) or dictatorship (or military rule). The third D, democracy, tends to lose as it lacks the intense personal reward of heaven (dogma) or wealth (corruption in dictatorship).	E-mail
17		States or provinces tend to spend all their income when the economy grows, then need to cut spending in a recession, just when more spending is needed. Countries should tax states in expansions and pay them in recessions in order to create balance.	E-mail
18		Governments should run shelters for all street children and supply basic food, clothing, health care, and education.	E-mail
19		Tiny CCTV cameras in cockpit of plane connected to a multi-channel digital video recorder. Store the hard drive in the blackbox. If the plane crashes, full audio/video recordings of the crew and instruments, passengers, & out-of-windscreen view.	E-mail
20		In case of fire or smoke in your hotel room, the safety instructions posted on your door should blink or light up to instruct you what to do and where to go for safety.	E-mail
21		To improve railway safety, install GPS devices and radio transmitters on all train locomotives. A computer at a control center would monitor all train locations and alert any trains headed for a crash, based on position and velocity estimates.	E-mail
22		Simple classroom app for smart phones and computers. Teachers are given an application that allows them to quickly access, edit, and scramble the roll of their class. Also allows for automated emails to be sent on command to principals & parents.	E-mail
23		2 satellites collided, spewing debris that threaten other satellites. To prevent crashes, a UN agency should track all orbiting objects and program a computer to predict their orbits and potential collisions. Satellites could then maneuver out of danger.	E-mail
24		A website where people can type in their zip code and find out the location of the nearest recycling facility for metal, glass, paper, plastic, etc.	E-mail
25		In order to encourage drivers to keep a safe stopping distance between vehicles, a detector could be fitted to the front of vehicles and warn when a safe stopping distance is not maintained for that speed.	E-mail
26		To improve health, teach preventative measures at school: good fitness, sensible eating, weight control, non-smoking, moderate drinking, etc. Less visits to doctor = lower overall costs.
27		To reduce accidents, install devices on traffic lights to change them automatically to green whenever an emergency vehicle is approaching. The light for the cross-street would simultaneously be changed to red. Such devices have long been available.	E-mail
28		Put a missing persons picture on the welcome page to the internet. A different one every few days. Please let me know if you try this on your own website.	E-mail
29		Toaster ovens should have a replaceable wire in them that melts at extremely high temperature to cut the power, like a fuse. This could prevent oven fires from getting out of hand. (appliances)	E-mail
30		A world-wide web page with a list of expired patents and information on how to use that knowledge.	E-mail
31		Post Clinical Trials: Make drug companies monitor new drugs for 24 months after release and provide reports on effectiveness as part of the public literature.	E-mail
32		Building codes should require new structures to use motion detectors in lighting of offices, classrooms, conference rooms, etc. When nobody is there, the lights go out. I know the devices exist--just make them mandatory. Cary Ma (energy conservation)	E-mail
33		Encourage organ donation by paying people to list on a central registry to give their organs after death. After death, pay a second fee to a relative if he/she allows the organs to be used. This would save many lives, and help poor families.	E-mail
34		Backward facing seating arrangement in buses can reduce head & upper body injury due to sudden braking or accidents because the upper-body will get pressed into the backrest cushion instead of bumping on the front seat.	E-mail
35		Energy wastage fines. Thermal imaging equipment mounted on an aircraft could be used in winter over towns/cities. Wasteful buildings could be pinpointed and given a financial incentive to insulate.
36		In my area, I can now submit my name to a government list to prevent salespeople from calling me on the phone without permission. This should be expanded to mail and email to get rid of junkmail.	E-mail
37		Trans fats contribute to heart disease that may kill several million people a year. Food product manufacturers should be required to put the amount of this fat on food labels.	E-mail
38		In flood-prone areas, build high-rise flats/condominiums instead of single-family homes so that the homes will stay dry in floods. Build parks on the remaining land.	E-mail
39		To have a better, greener, & cleaner world, ensure that before each tree is cut, at least 5 saplings (per tree cut) of the same species have been planted in proximity and those have survived for at least a year. This can be made an international law.	E-mail
40		A Stockholder Representation Organization: a worldwide group shareholders can join that would vote their proxies for them at annual meetings according to policies in the interest of stockholders rather than management.	E-mail
41		Change the food sales tax: instead of being proportional to price, make it proportional to calories. Like the tax on cigarettes, that would discourage consumption of fat food and boost vegetable consumption to reduce heart disease and stroke.	E-mail
42		To increase world development aid, conduct an ad campaign in rich nations to inform people of the % of the national budget spent on aid, which is now actually much less than people think and much less than people say they would prefer.	E-mail
43		Send emergency SMS (short message service) alerts to emergency workers. Use special trigger that makes cell phone: beep loudly, override silence option, not rollover to voicemail. (disaster, tsunami, tornado, typhoon, cyclone, hurricane, earthquake)	E-mail
44		To slow population growth, with 2 healthy children alive each time a couple makes a baby their socio-economic supports from government should be reduced and taxes increased.	E-mail
45		Do not keep the name of organ donors secret for more than a year. A TV program can be arranged where the organ donor's family meets the recipient's. The emotion & gratitude of the recipients will encourage more organ donation.	E-mail
46		Prisoners should be put to work building windmill machinery for creating renewable electricity. The valuable devices created would reduce or eliminate the cost.	E-mail
47		Install a device on a vehicle that requires you to insert your drivers license. It keeps track of age, insurance, and drunk driving record, and will not let you drive if your record is bad.	E-mail
48		Prisoner mixing allows them to learn new crime methods and have the worst role models: other inmates. Instead, isolate all prisoners in cells (tiny, to save money) and provide job education and good role models via books and selected videos. (jail)	E-mail
49		Systemic corruption is partly due to inadequate rewards (compensation) for non-corrupt activity. Paying higher wages in areas where corruption is systemic will contribute to a reduction of the scale of the problem.
50		Try to reduce global DALYs (disability-adjusted life years lost) as the main goal of your charity, politics, & work. Top causes will soon be perinatal conditions, pneumonia, heart disease, & stroke.	E-mail