Mexico's To-do List

Jorge Chabat laments the lack of foresightedness on the part of Mexico's leaders, and runs down the pressing list of incomplete chores:

The list of the government's pending problems is very long: a fiscal reform that truly provides the state the funds with which to do its job well. Penal reform, communication between the federal government and the states on important topics like health, the state system of medical attention, labor reform, the modernization of the electricity supply and the distribution of potable water for the entire nation, the railroad and highway network, the federal mail service, combating corruption in the three levels of government, the formation of efficient and honest police agencies through the country, the creation of enough well paying jobs for the nation's inhabitants, the substantial improvement in the quality of education at every level, access for the population to technological advances like the internet, combating poverty, et cetera, et cetera.

At this point it's more than obvious that we are a country in which the governments of the past --of the last 500 years, so that no party feels targeted-- haven't done their job. They never made the changes that were needed and they allowed everything to accumulate until it reached crisis level. We stand before a scenario of the collapse of the country, because the basic problems haven't been resolved. The majority of the problems require political will and money. From that perspective, the first reform that must be carried out is the fiscal reform, so that we have sufficient funds to carry out other reforms. Nevertheless, no one takes the bull by the horns. Not even the parties that are campaigning. Everything is rhetorical propaganda: the problem of the health system is solved with the government giving you money to buy medicine and insecurity is done away with by combating poverty. And the money? Where are the funds for this going to come from? There's no answer.

Quite a list, even if you don't think state collapse is a likely consequence of the failure to take on these problems.