Here in our little corner of the world, we have a bad habit of making issues more complicated than they really are. We have an aversion to simple solutions. I don’t know why. It must be due to some strange fungus that grows in our government buildings – a fungus that paralyzes the brains of politicians and polarizes their constituencies.

For example, consider the Ohio River Bridges debate.

It began at roughly the same time that Rick Pitino discovered basketball. After more debates and meetings than it took to write the federal tax code, it remains unresolved. It is such a joke that we can only hope that Leno and Letterman don’t hear about it.

The answer is simple: Build the East End bridge, see how it affects the flow of traffic through Louisville, and then determine what to do downtown by considering all possibilities, including the 8664 project.

But when I brought this up to a legislator in Frankfort recently, he told me we couldn’t do it because we’ve already received so much government money and spent so much on studies that we can’t possibly go back and start all over.

Have you got that? What he’s saying is that we have become hostages to our own bureaucracy. We have gotten ourselves mummified by so much red tape that we can’t move. So our only option is to plunge ahead with the two-bridge, no matter how flawed and outdated.

Do you realize how stupid that is? Are we really going to commit to something that will define our community for the next half-century or so because we’re too tired or too lazy or too paralyzed by bureaucracy to do the right and prudent thing?

Then there’s the issue over whether to let the public vote on the legalization of casino gambling.

Another no-brainer. In every poll taken on the subject, the people have said, overwhelmingly, that they want to vote on the issue instead of leaving it up to their elected officials. So let them. Isn’t that the very essence of democracy?

The public is telling the legislators they don’t really care whether they’re for or against it. They’re telling them to get out of the way and let the public have its say. So what does any legislator possibly gave to lose by voting to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot?

I mean, do any of them really think they’re going to be kicked out of office because they voted to allow their constituents to have their say? Of course, not. It’s ludicrous, unless you can imagine Farmer Bob, from the Bible Belt, standing up to his State Senator and wagging his finger in his face as he says, “I’ve had it with you for letting me vote. How dare you do that. You are so irresponsible that I just can’t vote for you again.”

Let the debate begin not now, not in Frankfort, but once the issue is put on the ballot. Then the voters in every county will have a chance to see the two sides debate, head-to-head, on KET and at Rotary meetings and other venues, which is far superior to hearing them testify before a legislative committee.

What else?

Well, there’s the debate over raising the cigarette tax. Another easy call. Hike it to at least $1 a pack. If that prices some young smokers out of the market, that’s great. If others are willing to pay that much to feed their habit, so be it. What’s so hard about that call?

The debate over the death penalty is another easy one. Kill the death penalty. Now. It’s inhumane and uncivilized. At the same time, let’s unburden our strained prison system by moving drug offenders into treatment programs that work.

Did you know that The Healing Place has a 65 percent success rate? That it costs only about $25 a day to house and treat a recovering addict? That The Healing Place has just signed an agreement with the Department of Corrections to take over the care and treatment of 20 inmates at a time?

It sounds to me that this is a win for patients, a win for the taxpayers, and a win for the prison system.

On the sports scene, you probably heard that Chad Johnson, the egomaniac who plays wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, roughed up an NFL publicity aide after delivering a monologue about himself that even Terrell Owens would find sickening.

Solution? Trade the punk. There’s no downside.

We need to start getting things done instead of just talking about it. And I absolutely refuse to accept the idea that we are being held prisoner by bureaucracy. That’s a cop-out, which is a far cry from leadership.