What Would You Do As President?

[Mensch]

Yeah, I would like to be among the ones to point out that the President doesn't have the power to make law, or even the power to initiate bills to become laws - rather, the only power the President has is to execute law. So besides issues directing federal agencies, the President has little power. Much of what you want to be done has to be done by Congress.

sigh I'm getting really tired of pointing out to people that the President is not, in fact, a temporary dictatorship like many people would like to think it is...

You're forgetting that we have STRONG presidential government. Presidents DO, in fact, make legislation a part of their agenda by incorporating new laws (or the agenda for a new law) into their presidential campaign. Technically, the president is suppose to execute law. But in this society, we've empowered the president to do much more than that. Take the new health care law. How involved has Obama been in the proposal and passing of the new law? He turned health care reform into the driving force of his first term. Without Obama, we might not even of had the reform. Pretend someone like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller (imagine that!) became president. Both are democrats, and both would be presided over a democratic congress. Yet I doubt we would see a new health care reform bill passed during their presidential administration.

 

[Redress]

Abortion: No change. I think the way things are now in respect to abortion is appropriate.

Marriage: I would allow gays to get married by the state. Churches can perform wedding ceremonies for gays if they choose to bt would not be mandated to.

Drugs: No change

Recreational Drugs: No change

The intelligence community: Oversight and cooperation needs to be improved, but I don't think consolidation is the answer.

Social Security: Has to be made solvent for the long run. That is going to require some painful things like raising the qualifying age, freezing benefit levels, and possibly more.

The Department of Defense: Base consolidation is a good money saver down the road, but very expensive in he short run(it takes about 10 years of a base being closed to cover the cost of closing the base). I think it is a worthwhile investment to close some bases, but readiness has to be the key factor in the decision. The Pentagon needs to be tasked with finding ways to cut costs without reducing readiness as much as possible, which is something that is doable.

Social programs: I think most of the programs you mentioned are needed, but I think all need to be reduced to an extent, mostly by streamlining processes, working to reduce fraud, and working to make them more efficient.

College: I don't think we can afford to make college free, except for vets which I strongly support, and an increase in merit type scholarships. Free college is not going to happen I don't think, but helping ensure motivated people can attend college is great, especially by joining the military as a route to free college.

Give massive incentive for companies to do business in America: I think there are real limits to the effectiveness of this. Labor elsewhere is just incredibly cheaper, as are some of the more important regulations lesser. I think in conjunction with education and maybe more merit scholarships and improvement to our education system we have to make the US desirable by a better workforce than anywhere else.

Give government consolidated business and agriculture loans for $50,000+ to any business or farmer with a solid plan: I don't think this will work well, and would be painfully expensive. What we need to drive business and increase employment is more demand, not more businesses.

Reinvest in transit and rail system heavily: I can agree with this, but I don't see us being able to have rail systems used like in Europe or Japan.

Allow immigrants in by completing a simple test to be American citizens: While I think we can allow more (legal) immigration, I don't think making it that easy is a good idea. Once an immigrant is a citizen, I think they should be treated just like a citizen, not as some separate category.

Make free healthcare: Not going to happen, and I don't think with things as they are it's the best way to handle healthcare. What I would do is put 5 democrats and 5 republicans who are knowledgeable on healthcare in a panel and task them to come up with plans to control health care spending. They would present their plans each December, and the next January a new set of 5 repubs and 5 democrats is empaneled to do the same.

 

[Dittohead not!]

You're forgetting that we have STRONG presidential government. Presidents DO, in fact, make legislation a part of their agenda by incorporating new laws (or the agenda for a new law) into their presidential campaign. Technically, the president is suppose to execute law. But in this society, we've empowered the president to do much more than that. Take the new health care law. How involved has Obama been in the proposal and passing of the new law? He turned health care reform into the driving force of his first term. Without Obama, we might not even of had the reform. Pretend someone like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller (imagine that!) became president. Both are democrats, and both would be presided over a democratic congress. Yet I doubt we would see a new health care reform bill passed during their presidential administration.

The POTUS can use his office to urge, to advocate, to make a sales pitch, but not to mandate. It's possible that health care reform would have passed without Obama's advocacy, but it is not possible for it to have passed without Congressional action.

 

[Mensch]

The POTUS can use his office to urge, to advocate, to make a sales pitch, but not to mandate. It's possible that health care reform would have passed without Obama's advocacy, but it is not possible for it to have passed without Congressional action.

That is true, but it doesn't diminish the power of the president. Ever since Lincoln, we have had an exceptionally strong presidential political system. The president has far more influence on law-making than most would like to assume.

 

[Mensch]

Abortion: No change. I think the way things are now in respect to abortion is appropriate.

Marriage: I would allow gays to get married by the state. Churches can perform wedding ceremonies for gays if they choose to bt would not be mandated to.

Drugs: No change

Recreational Drugs: No change

The intelligence community: Oversight and cooperation needs to be improved, but I don't think consolidation is the answer.

Social Security: Has to be made solvent for the long run. That is going to require some painful things like raising the qualifying age, freezing benefit levels, and possibly more.

The Department of Defense: Base consolidation is a good money saver down the road, but very expensive in he short run(it takes about 10 years of a base being closed to cover the cost of closing the base). I think it is a worthwhile investment to close some bases, but readiness has to be the key factor in the decision. The Pentagon needs to be tasked with finding ways to cut costs without reducing readiness as much as possible, which is something that is doable.

Social programs: I think most of the programs you mentioned are needed, but I think all need to be reduced to an extent, mostly by streamlining processes, working to reduce fraud, and working to make them more efficient.

College: I don't think we can afford to make college free, except for vets which I strongly support, and an increase in merit type scholarships. Free college is not going to happen I don't think, but helping ensure motivated people can attend college is great, especially by joining the military as a route to free college.

Give massive incentive for companies to do business in America: I think there are real limits to the effectiveness of this. Labor elsewhere is just incredibly cheaper, as are some of the more important regulations lesser. I think in conjunction with education and maybe more merit scholarships and improvement to our education system we have to make the US desirable by a better workforce than anywhere else.

Give government consolidated business and agriculture loans for $50,000+ to any business or farmer with a solid plan: I don't think this will work well, and would be painfully expensive. What we need to drive business and increase employment is more demand, not more businesses.

Reinvest in transit and rail system heavily: I can agree with this, but I don't see us being able to have rail systems used like in Europe or Japan.

Allow immigrants in by completing a simple test to be American citizens: While I think we can allow more (legal) immigration, I don't think making it that easy is a good idea. Once an immigrant is a citizen, I think they should be treated just like a citizen, not as some separate category.

Make free healthcare: Not going to happen, and I don't think with things as they are it's the best way to handle healthcare. What I would do is put 5 democrats and 5 republicans who are knowledgeable on healthcare in a panel and task them to come up with plans to control health care spending. They would present their plans each December, and the next January a new set of 5 repubs and 5 democrats is empaneled to do the same.

Forgive me Redress, but you don't appear to be "very liberal."

 

[haymarket]

And thank you so much for explaining why!

I'm sorry you think it's such a horrible idea to let individuals be free.

What I do think is that its a horrible idea to use meaningless cliches like letting people be free as a talking point. I prefer Apple Pie and Motherhood myself.

 

[Mensch]

What I do think is that its a horrible idea to use meaningless cliches like letting people be free as a talking point. I prefer Apple Pie and Motherhood myself.

It's only a cliche if you neglect to give the specifics. I have given a clear and specific outline of economic freedom that I think is a viable alternative to the corporatist status quo. You simply fire back by saying you disagree with every single amendment, and that this is what's currently wrong with the Libertarian philosophy.

In essence, your response was utterly useless and a waste of yours and my time. If you want to delve into the reasons WHY you don't think individuals should be free to pursue a profession of their choice (one of my amendments that I thought any rational person would support) or WHY you don't think individual sellers should be free to price their products, then I'm all open.

Otherwise, why waste time? Life is too short for us to read your trite comments.

 

[samsmart]

You're forgetting that we have STRONG presidential government. Presidents DO, in fact, make legislation a part of their agenda by incorporating new laws (or the agenda for a new law) into their presidential campaign. Technically, the president is suppose to execute law. But in this society, we've empowered the president to do much more than that. Take the new health care law. How involved has Obama been in the proposal and passing of the new law? He turned health care reform into the driving force of his first term. Without Obama, we might not even of had the reform. Pretend someone like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller (imagine that!) became president. Both are democrats, and both would be presided over a democratic congress. Yet I doubt we would see a new health care reform bill passed during their presidential administration.

Ah, but here's the thing with that. The health care reform that was passed wasn't the version of health care reform that Obama advocated. Obama advocated a reform to health care that would have allowed a public option. Instead, he let Congress negotiate what form health care reform would take. That's how we got the mandatory health insurance and other stuff.

So to blame the President for how a law that Congress wrote is highly disingenuous.

 

[haymarket]

Galt - no disrespect was intended - I was just trying to keep it light and go with what I thought was the idea here to post your own ideas without making a big deal of anything.

To be honest, I enjoy your posts and your thinking. Of all the libertarians here you seem the most principled and least partisan.

Look, I am a very pro union guy who think that phrases like FREEDOM and LIBERTY are used by many right wingers to simply screw the average working guy into giving up the little bits of power than might protect them and their job. I think to institute a system like you advocate would put us on the road to serfdom where we are under the thumb of the corporatists who would run roughshod over all of us.

I cannot force anyone to join a union. I would advocate for the most union friendly laws making it possible to join union. There is a difference.

 

[Mensch]

Ah, but here's the thing with that. The health care reform that was passed wasn't the version of health care reform that Obama advocated. Obama advocated a reform to health care that would have allowed a public option. Instead, he let Congress negotiate what form health care reform would take. That's how we got the mandatory health insurance and other stuff.

So to blame the President for how a law that Congress wrote is highly disingenuous.

I don't place 100% of the blame on the president, but he is responsible for many of the ideas in the new law. After all, he signed it, didn't he? Even though the president is not at the forefront of passing laws, he does have the power to sign them into law. The veto power is an extremely rich power. Obama himself praised the new law, and said that "we" accomplished 90% of what we originally wanted to accomplish.

Again, if Lieberman or Zell Miller somehow got elected and presided over a democrat congress, I doubt either one of them would propose such a reform. Obama has made health care reform the most important agenda of his career, yet he's not a legislator. Imagine that!

Presidents are also powerful enough to sign executive orders, sending our military into long drawn-out wars without a single act of congress. They can also impose martial law and imprison hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians into concentration camps, all without a single act of congress.

We all know the basics of government. But you're diminishing the real power of the president by implying he's just an observer on the sidelines.

 

[Mensch]

Galt - no disrespect was intended - I was just trying to keep it light and go with what I thought was the idea here to post your own ideas without making a big deal of anything.

To be honest, I enjoy your posts and your thinking. Of all the libertarians here you seem the most principled and least partisan.

Look, I am a very pro union guy who think that phrases like FREEDOM and LIBERTY are used by many right wingers to simply screw the average working guy into giving up the little bits of power than might protect them and their job. I think to institute a system like you advocate would put us on the road to serfdom where we are under the thumb of the corporatists who would run roughshod over all of us.

I cannot force anyone to join a union. I would advocate for the most union friendly laws making it possible to join union. There is a difference.

Since less than a third of all employees are a part of a union, I highly doubt unions are so crucial to the debate. And "union friendly laws" usually translates to forcing businesses to keep their stores open if their employees wish to unionize. The whole power to close down a shop or a store should be solely up to the property owner, not the politicians. Therefore, if McDonalds wishes to close down one or more of its stores because there's a high number of employees trying to unionize, I say it is their freedom to do so. If you have a problem with it, then boycott McDonalds. Do not force businesses to remain open per your union demands.

And corporatism exists when you merge the political and economic interests of the state. Owners of corporations would have no use in buying elections if the politicians refused to grant them the subsidies, grants, loans, tariffs, licenses, and regulations that so often benefit them at the expense of emerging competitive forces.

Finally, you should really read the Road to Serfdom by Hayek.

 

[samsmart]

I don't place 100% of the blame on the president, but he is responsible for many of the ideas in the new law. After all, he signed it, didn't he? Even though the president is not at the forefront of passing laws, he does have the power to sign them into law. The veto power is an extremely rich power. Obama himself praised the new law, and said that "we" accomplished 90% of what we originally wanted to accomplish.

Again, if Lieberman or Zell Miller somehow got elected and presided over a democrat congress, I doubt either one of them would propose such a reform. Obama has made health care reform the most important agenda of his career, yet he's not a legislator. Imagine that!

Yes, but the health care reform that was passed by Congress was not the health care reform that he advocated. And while the President does have veto power, that only means he can either accept a law or dismiss a law - his ability to negotiate a law is dependent on Congress.

Presidents are also powerful enough to sign executive orders, sending our military into long drawn-out wars without a single act of congress. They can also impose martial law and imprison hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians into concentration camps, all without a single act of congress.

Executive orders are different from laws. Executive orders are directives to government agencies. Where the President has the strongest executive powers are with regards to foreign policy and the military.

So while the President can easily issue executive orders to wage wars, he cannot issue executive orders to the Department of Health to institute a public option.

We all know the basics of government. But you're diminishing the real power of the president by implying he's just an observer on the sidelines.

I'm not diminishing the real power of the President at all. I'm just pointing out that he's not the only one in government who holds all the power. And our country is lesser for that since everyone blames the President for the government but place very little responsibility for the government on Congress.

 

[Redress]

Forgive me Redress, but you don't appear to be "very liberal."

How so? I feel that the government can work to make the country better, which is to me the definition of being a liberal.

 

[Troubadour]

Presumably the premise of this thread is "What would you do if you were President and had a cooperative Congress," because obviously an agenda doesn't mean much if you can't get it passed.

The core of my administration would be two things: Energy and education. Everything else, I would pretty much defer to the judgment of qualified subordinates. Energy is the fundamental basis of an economy - having it in sustainable abundance means prosperity; being short-sighted on it means your future is in danger. I would basically devote half the US federal budget to investing in renewable energy for all eight years (let's assume two terms) - an investment that would never stop producing returns, and make us the overwhelming world leader in the future of energy.

Education, of course, is as fundamental to strong citizenship as energy is to economic well-being: Its purpose is to train people in critical thinking and social skills, not to fill their heads with factoids and make them obedient consumers and employees. No more teaching to the test, no more compromising quality for convenience of measurement.

However, I would have one major pet project: Space. I am personally of the opinion that extending human civilization into space should be America's purpose as a nation - one for which we are uniquely suited given our frontier pedigree. We may no longer make the best anything, but we are still trailblazers - still people who want to do things first, even if others come later and do them best.

Philosophically, I would strive to make America loved and admired again - strive to show people around the world the fundamental spirit that animates us, in whatever aspect they would find most appealing. And part of that would be showing how much we appreciate others. I'd spend a lot more on citizen diplomacy and cultural exchange.

 

[Mensch]

Yes, but the health care reform that was passed by Congress was not the health care reform that he advocated. And while the President does have veto power, that only means he can either accept a law or dismiss a law - his ability to negotiate a law is dependent on Congress.



Executive orders are different from laws. Executive orders are directives to government agencies. Where the President has the strongest executive powers are with regards to foreign policy and the military.

So while the President can easily issue executive orders to wage wars, he cannot issue executive orders to the Department of Health to institute a public option.



I'm not diminishing the real power of the President at all. I'm just pointing out that he's not the only one in government who holds all the power. And our country is lesser for that since everyone blames the President for the government but place very little responsibility for the government on Congress.

I think we kind of agree. The post is about what you would as president, and pushing laws is one thing that presidents do. For the most part, a president can start the debate (which doesn't mean the president has to start every debate for every new law) and influence the law, but he cannot have the power to make the law absolute until the lawmakers have finished debating the final touches.

 

[Mensch]

How so? I feel that the government can work to make the country better, which is to me the definition of being a liberal.

Is that how you define liberalism? Really? Forget the dictionary, forget history? Liberalism simply equals using governmental means to pursue an end? You'd be better off calling your political platform statism.

And judging by the reforms you proposed in your earlier post, I would say those reforms are hardly what I consider "very liberal" You're far more centrist and moderate, IMHO.

 

[Dittohead not!]

Presidents are also powerful enough to sign executive orders, sending our military into long drawn-out wars without a single act of congress.

That does seem to be the case now, but the Constitution was not written that way.

 

[Grim17]

Presidents are also powerful enough to sign executive orders, sending our military into long drawn-out wars without a single act of congress.

Not true... Well at least that wasn't the case with the 2 wars we are currently fighting.

In 2001 by a vote of 420-1, Congress passed a bill authorizing the president's use of military force in Afghanistan. Then 13 months later, Congress passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq" resolution by a vote of 297-133.