What challenges would you like to see President-elect Obama take on first? What should be the priorities? National security? Healthcare? Economy?

All three of these are important but I have to say economy is first on everyone’s list followed closely by healthcare.
On the economy; what a hornets nest to walk into! Unemployment is rising. The good news is that gas prices are coming down. However, how long are gas prices going to stay down? There are not a lot of easy solutions to the credit crisis and the Zero down interest only sub prime loan may become our generations “Buying on the Margin.”
Banking just took a bail out and now the automakers want one as well. So tell me this, we gave the bankers a bail out, can we get them to ease up on foreclosures now? So, if we bail out the automakers how about a 30% discount on our next new car.
Healthcare has been a mess for some time. If you want a true testament to our healthcare system, go to south Texas and find the border town of Weslaco, Texas – Nuevo Progresso, Mexico http://www.shop-progreso.com . It is a small town of dentists, Pharmacies and assorted cosmetic surgeons. You can walk across the border and get all your RX carry to the US border station and all they are concerned with is if you brought any liquor in Mexico and are bringing it to the USA. You can see retirees pushing and oxygen cart with one hand and holding and armful of RX in another crossing the border. You can talk to any of them and they will tell you why they are there; Cheap RX without a prescription, cheap dental work, cheap small procedures done by Doctors and Dentists many of whom have their license in the USA or were educated in the USA.
National security, well, we as a nation tend to let it slide until some one does something to us and makes us angry. We cannot afford to do that with the Russian Bear getting aggressive and China beginning to flex their muscles. That is the way we as a nation are.