So everyone has vices right? Mine happens to be Time magazine, yes I am aware it’s a little nerdy and sometimes it takes me a whole week just to read through it, but I love getting them. Each Sunday I open up my little mailbox and get super jazzed to reach in for Time, and two Sundays ago I was annoyed by what I saw on the cover.

First of let me start by saying that I am a huge Hillary Clinton fan, when asked who I want to be like when I grow up she is my first answer, well besides the cheating husband thing. However, when I saw that her possible run for president was the cover story of this weeks’ Time I became instantly frustrated.

I am picking on Time magazine, but they are definitely not the only media outlets with the future presidential campaign making many of their headlines. The New York Times recently released a magazine with Hillary’s face embedded in a picture of a moon. Their cover story was about the “universe” of Hillary, and all the people who will be assisting her to get the win in 2016. Every news channel you flip to is mentioning something, whether it be the chances for any Democrat to triumph of Hilary in the primaries, or the damage Chris Christie’s little mishap will cause for his run to the white house, it seems to be everywhere.

So instead of talking about the 130,000 civilians that died in Syria due to a violent civil war, let’s talk about an election that is two years away. I would understand if there was currently a lack of pressing news, but look around, breaking new stories are everywhere! American Olympians are entering Russia fearing a terrorist attack, multiple shootings have occurred in the last few months, Edward Snowden has been granted permanent asylum in Russia, the NSA is under severe scrutiny, and let’s face it, someone should be reporting on how freezing cold it is!

Not only do I think reporting about the 2016 election is irresponsible, I think it is feeding the current ideology that Americans have about elections. As a country, we tend to spread out our election season, making it not only excruciating for the public, but also very costly. According to an online source called Open Secrets, well over two billion dollars were spent on the last presidential election by Obama and Romney alone. I am not sure it takes that much money to get a good understanding of who the candidates are and cast a well- educated vote.

Presidential elections in America are inefficient in terms of time and money, and are a major distraction for the politicians themselves. I am going to throw out a pretty crazy idea here, but what if politicians remained focus on what their true job is, which is providing for the American people, rather than getting prepared for an election that won’t happen for two years. As American citizens we should be frustrated and angered by the fact that so much of our politicians’ time and energy is spent planning ways to beat their future opponent instead of drafting new policies, compromising with one another and ultimately running this country.

The politicians are not completely to blame however, like previously mentioned the media is responsible for creating an unneeded buzz about the presidential elections two years in advance as well. We would be much better off if the elections did not become a topic of discussion until much closer to November 2016. Until then why don’t we open up the floor to discussion about current issues that desperately need to be addressed, such as the newly passed budget, the all-important debt ceiling, health care, foreign policy and the many pressing social issues? Let’s spend our time working with the current president instead of trying to hypothesize who the next one will be.

So, Time magazine has let me down. However, I will continue to subscribe because I just can’t help myself.