PD - sounds like you have a magic wand there to wave :P
But the issues really go deeper than what you addressed
"Race relations have improved vastly in the last 40 years"
To some extend yes, but as long as you have Farrakhan on one side and David Duke on the other spewing venomous hate and they have followers, race relations still have a long way to go
"The drug problem?" -while Alcohol is a very strong drug no one in Colonial times had a crack pipe. Currently Heroin use is probably at it's highest point at any time in the history of the US
Combine those two and add Alcohol abuse and we have a nation of people with serious challenges. Which makes it more challenging for everyone to reach their full potential, not to even mention the resources that are lost
" lamented the unmanagable horde of immigrants in the 1840s"
The immigrants that came to America in the 1840 (and through 1950's) are different than the total of immigrants that come to the USA today
While I would like to believe everyone comes to the US for the land of opportunity and to better their way of life, sometimes the means don't fit the ends
We have a serious problem with some immigrants coming into the USA looking for a hand out and not a hand up
From 1840 to 1964 welfare didn't exist, now how many immigrants end up on our welfare and or some type of public assistance?
Even if it's a very small % of the total immigrant population every year it drains our resources and we get no return
Many immigrants came to this country and took the most menial jobs, worked hard and long to have a better way of life for their families and themselves.
That's the American Dream, with hard work and determination anything positive can be accomplished
"Budgets can be balanced"
Well get your ass to Washington and get on it
We were very fortunate to lose the deficit we had and actually have the first budget surplus since Nixon was President (yes and I am fully aware that the surplus came when Clinton was President and we are now back in a serious deficit with Bush as President)
"world perception can be changed"
I hope so
"why in the fuck does everybody want to come here?"
See better standard of living and millions don't want to come here
and yes the UN should get the fuck out of the USA and vise versa