What Would You Do As President?

With the elections continually in the news there is constant discourse on what each candidate has done or will do. However, rarely do people get the chance to say what they would do. Here is your chance, you have been elected President of the US (god help us all), what items go to the head of the class and how would you handle them?

well..

[gangien]

call up Ron Paul and ask him what he'd do, and probably do that :P. I imagine starting with getting all our military home, would be one of the first few things.

Two main concerns

[egarff]

First: Honestly, I would do my best to remove our military presence from Iraq (and yes, I know this would probably lead to civil war, but I think its going to happen anyway, just delayed while we're there). Second: I would see if I could get the ball rolling on government insurance (socialist medicine), our privatized insurance system has become the bane of the under and uninsured people in the country, particularly children in those 2 categories.

legislate to hem in the power of the exec branch

[stevetures]

First thing I would do would be to understand that most people are unhappy with the powers given to the president during these last eight years. I would immediately begin to ask congress for a new checks and balances constitutional amendment.

In all seriousness

[earnest murderer]

Quit doing things that make other people want to knock our buildings down.

Understandably this will make a number of very large corporations unhappy. But knocking a couple zero's off a few dozen people's income doesn't bother me much.

There's lots of other things I'd do, but this is the big one we've been refusing to make eye contact with for about 70 years.

If the economy takes a dive, I'll maybe push for a large domestic project rather than invent a war. Maybe an interstate highway syste... aww damn... I'll come up with something good.

Promise.

Simple answer

[SeanTobin]

In order:

• Have Ron Paul be my VP
  
• Get legislation introduced eliminating the DMCA, Patriot Act
  
• Get legislation introduced mandating consumer copyright bill of rights and resetting copyright terms to the term when the work was created
  
• Resign, enjoy my retirement, pension & SS protection
  
• Watch as Ron Paul fixes the economy, foreign & domestic policy
  

I'd try to get the first four items done within the first 24 hours. I don't think I could handle being president any longer than that.

'In God We Trust'

[CyberBill]

I would remove "In God We Trust" as the national motto, as well as removing the "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. After that, I'd put limits on advertising and marketing which are constantly being shoved in our faces. Then I'd make Network Neutrality a reality. I'd pull out troops out of Iraq. Gay marriage would be legalized at the federal level. Basically I'd pretty much change everything. :)

Hemp

[dave562]

I would legalize hemp for industrial uses and decriminalize marijuana. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it. Marijuana is also far safer than alcohol. Other than that big one I'd probably try to come up with some sort of Peace Corp like serious public works project to take care of the infrastructure in this country. I'd also like to see a similar program setup overseas in countries that would have us. Instead of sending in troops with guns and tanks, we could send in Americans with seeds and tractors. Maybe I'm a bit too idealistic, but I have a hard time believing that we wouldn't be well received around the world if we spent as much on actually improving infrastructure and agriculture and water supplies as we spend on bombs and guns and bullets and other military expenses.

My top 5 priorities, off the top of my head

[jorenko]

1. Kick off investigations of the crimes of the Bush administration.
2. Scale down our forgein military presence (not quite to the extent Paul wants to, but significantly).
3. Do everything in my power to get all of the unconstitutional legislation that has been passed in the last few years repealed (Patriot Act, MCA, etc).
4. Balance the budget. I would lay down absolute ultimatums that government programs justify their existence and their tax cost to the American people, and cut anything that's not convincing. Maybe I'd even call for a vote on what programs get to stay. We would have to leave taxes at close to current for a few years and pay off our debt, though, I'm afraid.
5. Not overstep the bounds of my office with signing statements, etc.

If I was president of the USA

[xtracto]

I would remove all frontiers (incoming of course) between Mexico and Canada. All immigration would be legal and people from all the world would be able to work.

I would increase punishments for non native americans who commit crimes. If they commit a crime, everything they got in the USA will be confiscated, they will be added to a criminals database and they would be deported to their countries (I do not want to make taxpayers fund their prison terms).

I would also bring all of the USA troops back home, all and everyone of them. And I will spend a lot of research and development funding on investigating ways to defend USA soil.

---

Of course, given that I am not an american, I do not think my views are shared by most people here. but hey, not that it really matters what any of us think

If I was President...

[kellyb9]

I would wonder how I got a few million people to vote for me, despite the fact that I refused to be controlled by special interest groups.

Oh nevermind, I'd never get elected.

Experts

[UnderDark]

I would get the EXPERTS on topics (Economy, Warfare, Science...) to tell me what the best course of action is (multiple, independent experts for sample size (exact size from stats experts)) and then act along those lines.

Two.

[Anonymous Coward]

Two chicks at the same time.

Re:well..

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, except that I'd do everything the Ron Paul said except for the crazy stuff that makes no sense.

Not trying be totally flamebait here, I agree with SOME of his ideas but his nutty NAFTA conspiracy theories and the whole dissolving the IRS idea, and of course cutting us off from the rest of the world are way out there.

The common sense things that he agrees with like having a balanced budget, and bringing our troops home I completely agree with. Oh ya and repealing the Patriot Act, I do have to give him points for being one of the few candidates who want to do that, but his motives I disagree with.

Oh, what fun

[gorbachev]

1. Befriend a whole bunch of rich folks
2. Do the whole "small Government" thing
3. Move out of the country and resign (in that order, to make sure I'd be able to escape)
4. Watch and laugh as the whole country (well, not quite the whole country, just the poor and middle class people) slowly plummets into chaos
5. Call a few of those rick folks I made friends with
6. Profit!!

Re:VETO!

[Hatta]

Agreed. Then I'd pardon everyone in jail for simple possession.

Re:My top 10

[EricWright]

9. Require application for parental certificates (the program would be known as "If you can't feed em, don't breed em". It would be based on the financial situation of the parents, as well as their mental well being and relationship status...i.e. do they constantly fight, or are they constantly in love, etc.)

Because all pregnancies are planned, right? Or are you talking about forced abortions?

Re:VETO!

[xstonedogx]

Also agreed. Then I'd severely cripple or remove unrepresentative 'rule-making' bodies under the authority of the executive.

The List

[MBCook]

Here is what I can think of right now. I must say... this would never, ever, make it through congress.

1. Abolish the IRS. I think Steve Forbes has a great plan for fixing government income
2. No more sugar subsidies. The rest can be slowly phased out.
3. Drugs don't go on the market (over the counter) without proof they work in some reasonable fraction of people (say... 25%?)
4. Drugs (prescription) can't be advertised on TV
5. Social Security and Medicare stop. You can stay on, but if you are under 40... you can forget ever using them. They are entitlement and bankrupting the government
6. Vitamins and supplements must prove effectiveness too. No more magic diet pills that don't work.
7. In fact, there will be a little government office dedicated to slapping fines on obvious false advertising.
8. Congress now has a term limits. Lets say... 15 years.
9. All campaign finance reform is lifted. You can raise whatever you want. You can spend on whatever you want. You're free. The catch? Every record, in and out, goes up on the 'net within 24 hours.... and you can't fund raise within 72 hours of the vote
10. Speaking of elections, we can study other methods (e.g. instant runoffs). But whatever happens... paper ballots now. You put a big X in the box you want.
11. Cable lines are nationalized. Comcast et al can lease them from the government. Heck, you can use them for free. We need competition.
12. Net neutrality is mandatory. If you degrade someone else's service because it competes with your own, you get fined BIG.
13. Drivers licenses get harder to get and keep. Too many morons on cell phones that need to learn it's not a right.
14. If you get caught in the country illegally, you get thrown out. Today. No questions... you're on the plane. Each time you sneek in, we send you farther away. If you've been here over 5 years and can speak English, you can stay. You're not a citizen. You're on a permanent visa. No voting. If you want citizenship, you can go back to your country and apply like everyone else.
15. English is the national language. You want a government document in something else? Too bad, go to a country that speaks that language.
16. Mandatory civil service. We can talk about giving you college tuition, but you serve. It can be military, or it can be civil (be a meter maid, that's fine with me). You will do something to give back to your country for a little while.
17. Voting districts are now drawn by computer based on population and area. No more rigging that. You can't do it by race. You can't do it by party affiliation. If the seat isn't completive, then we change the district to make it more competitive.
18. Voting tests. They may have a really bad rap, but that's OK with me. Nothing complex, just some simple stuff. You have to be able to read at a 6th grade level. This discriminated against blacks because it was illegal to teach them to read. These days if you can't read, you can't participate effectively in politics. You also have to pass a ludicrously simple geography test. They will always change so you can't easily be taught to the test. If you can't find Canada on a map, you can't vote in the US.
19. Roe v. Wade is abolished. I'd like to declare one side as right, maybe you can guess which. But what we will do is leave it up to each state. Let the states fight it out. If, after 50 years, it has been stable at a clear majority we can talk about enshrining that into law.
20. You can't get divorced without 6 months of good marriage counseling, preferable faith-based (you choose the faith, obviously). The one exception is abuse. If there is abuse, you can leave today. We'll help. But if you accuse abuse and it is proven that you lied, you're locked up.
21. Also on the marriage front, you can't get married without at least a few sessions of marriage counseling. Talk about kids, values, in-laws, sex, where you want to live, religion, and everything else. The divorce rate is

My View

[usul294]

My main agenda would be to promote personal responsibility. I would also promote states rights, I think alot of bureaucracy could be avoided by having more local control of things. One example for states being healthcare and on an even more local level education. A good policy in one part of the country is often not a good policy on the other side of the country. I'd work to remove federal control of most things, not unlike Ron Paul, I'm not a supporter of his, though I think he has the right philosophy. I'd then work on accomplishing goals to restore people's pride in America by promoting cutting edge science research, aiding developing countries and space exploration. I'd try to take a pragmatic approach to climate issues, trying to find more innovative solutions to climate issues than things like a carbon tax, for example spending money to reforest parts of America. Also, I'd try to simplify the tax code by either having a simpler graduated income tax, with less exemptions and lower percentages, or institute a consumption tax that is somehow graduated. In terms of Iraq and terrorism, I would try to accomplish specific goals and start to reduce US troop levels as soon as it was reasonable to do so, but certainly make sure that the country was stable first. For other threats to security, I'd follow Asimov "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", and try to use our might in more precise ways to achieve a desired goal, one scenario I could imagine is if things go bad in Iran, to simply use our air power to stop anything from entering the country, after a few weeks the country would run out of food and water, so the government would be overthrown, or change itself entirely to stop the blockade. But to sum it all up, basically promote responsibility and fairness,restore American pride, and focus on how to solve our problems without resorting to full-scale invasions.

Re:In all seriousness

[PinkPanther]

But there is a sizable group of people that won't be happy until our men all have beards, and our women are wearing burkas.

What a load of crap. Show me one statement/website/whatever where ANY pseudo-legitimate group has even suggested such a thing (other than home-grown groups)?

You have completely misinterpreted what the rest of the world (not just the Islamic part) has been saying to the West. They want the West to quit meddling in their own affairs...they don't want to convert you...they don't even like you.

;-)

Re:well..

[Retric]

This is my personal to 10 list.

1. Quickly end the war.
2. Limit military spending to 3 times any other country. (Saving ~428 billion a year.)
3. Fiber to the home. Every home.
4. Remove the income limit on SS / Medicare taxes. (It's the #1 reason why the middle class pay a higher tax rate than the super rich and the reason SS is having trouble in the first place.)
5. Invest in proven solar / wind systems that are close to the break even point. (EX: Solar hot water systems and wind farms.)
6. Fund mass transit.
7. Limited universal healthcare (90% coverage up to 10k per person per year.)
8. Increased regulation of the home lending market.
9. Limit maximum APR on any form of lending to 15% over inflation so credit card's are limited to around 17.5% APR / year.
10. Fund ITER and other large science projects.

Re:well..

[Arthur B.]

While I cannot speak for him, I doubt the grandfather is referring to that.

Ron Paul supports opposing immigration with force which is morally unacceptable. Moreover, he does so in a particulary despisable way, implying that "breaking the law" is intrisically evil, invoking concepts of collective responsibility, etc.

There's a very un-sane cult of personality around Ron Paul. By tying good ideas and bad ideas into a person the good ideas will definitely suffer by association.

Re:Tsiangkun 2012

[agm]

1) I will repeal corporate personhood.

2) I will tax the top 5% and distribute the wealth through increased funding for basic academic research, reimburse college loans for students carrying 3.2GPA or higher, national daycare programs, and national health care programs.

As a libertarian I would dispise such a change. I'd reduce tax drastically and make it flat - everyone pays the same amount. I would introduce a complete user-pays system for everything - including education, roading. I would remove the consept of a pension - people should save for themselves.

3) Prosecute the supreme court justices who appointed Bush, and every person in the federal governemnt who continued to aid and abet the terrorist regime.

4) Establish a department of peace, reduce military funding, and give anyone a seat a a negotiating table so we do not have to fight them "over there" or "over here".

5) Reparations for the victims of hurrican katrina who were failed by their governments.

It's not the taxpayers responsibility to fund disaster recovery efforts. A compassionate community should be able to do that without needing to have the government confiscate our property from us (in the form of taxes).

Re:well..

[halivar]

So you say his newsletters were forged for him and signed by his subordinates for the last 20 years without him even reading them? Is that how he plans to run America? Maybe he can hire his Stormfront friends to run domestic policy for him, and sign the bills in his name.

Re:Going back to capitalism.

[Beastmouth]

Abolish unions? Right to peaceably assemble much? How about, instead of becoming President, you actually study what happened the last time assholes like you were in even more control: Ever hear of the Gilded Age?

Re:Tsiangkun 2012

[tthomas48]

"It's not the taxpayers responsibility to fund disaster recovery efforts. A compassionate community should be able to do that without needing to have the government confiscate our property from us (in the form of taxes)."

Do you really think if this was true that we'd have government? War and disaster are the two main reasons governments are created. Both, because the community cannot absorb these kinds of shocks. Who would have been the compassionate community with the ability to help fund disaster relief efforts in the case of Katrina? Neighbors who also don't have houses? Random individual contributions?

Once you start organizing a way for a community to provide services such as disaster relief, you're creating government.

Re:The question is not whether he is a racist

[darjen]

NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/011308_not_racist.htm [prisonplanet.com]

Re:well..

[Sancho]

If I was the President, I'd do 1 and 2. The rest of what you've suggested aren't powers allocated to the president, so he can't do them (though he can try to convince Congress to do them.)

If I was the President, I'd try to return the Executive branch back to its Constitutional roots.

Re:VETO!

[elrous0]

You are aware this would mean that the U.S. government would completely collapse within a year, as you vetoed every budget, right? I'm sure you're also aware that the collapses U.S. government would promptly send the U.S. into an economic collapse, as the dollar became almost completely worthless and people began to starve and riot?

Don't worry, I suspect you wouldn't have long to worry about it anyway, before your impeachment.

Re:well..

[smittyoneeach]

If Ron Paul is such a racist, where are Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and all of the other civil rights leaders who love national attention? How come all of the people throwing accusations at Ron Paul are white, tie wearing, political types?

Keeping their powder dry.
In the game-theoretical match being played out, RP only becomes valuable to the left if they can succeed in getting him the nomination.
If RP gets the nomination, stand by for Jesse and Al to come at you all ahead flank-3, main engines in battle-override.

Re:well..

[plague3106]

Ugh, enough. I'm not a huge fan of Ron Paul myself, but "oppose immigration with force" is misleading, at best. It's illegal immigration he's against, and quite frankly, I agree with him. There's nothing wrong with having a process to get into this country and become a citizen.

Re:well..

[Arthur B.]

Thanks for making my point. Ron Paul's stance on immigration has been breeding the worst kind of legal positivism. Illegal immigration is illegal because the federal government decided it was. Just because the fed govt says something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral. No amount of bold or italic on the word "illegal" is going to change that. And why the hell can't Ron Paul fans understand that immigration != naturalization. Who said anything about becoming a citizen ?

Re:well..

[smittyoneeach]

"Abolish" is not in the realm of the possible.
Now, one could start an education campaign to build popular support for weening ourselves off the federal nanny-state opium. Say that around 2020, all of the services where the federal government knows too much about individual citizens (SSA, IRS, Medi-x) are completely delegated to the states, and they have between now and then to absorb the records, arrange for staffing, and implement the policies.
Of course, such a net increase in civic responsibility would be a system shock to the lumpen proletariat, who would call you Moses and ask why you dragged them off the couch and away from the Wii to die in the desert of details, and couldn't they just go back to their metaphorical Egypt?
More seriously, you can't just flip a switch and disenfranchise those who've been honestly playing along these decades--this is two wrongs not achieving righteousness. There really has to be a transition plan, and one skillful salesperson to convince the bulk of the people.

Re:In all seriousness

[Dr. Manhattan]

you don't NEED very many of them for it to happen. You only need... about 19 of them to knock down some buildings actually.

Of course, they didn't do that alone - they were supported by resources from a lot more people. Money, material support, communications and coordination. Reducing the number of pissed-off people does reduce the risk of terrorist attacks. No policy will eliminate them, but overthrowing elected governments to install totalitarian puppet dictators a la Iran isn't exactly calculated to win friends.

(Note: motive is not the same thing as justification. Homicide investigators look for motive when solving a murder, they don't look for justification. The Islamist lunatics are not justified in attacking innocents by our actions, but they are in part motivated by them.)

Re:Top Three Things

[cHiphead]

Please note that I would only cut the budget on Nasa for the first 2 years, then I would ramp it up past 100B, if we don't get our asses in space and start strip mining other planetoids and asteroids, we're ALL in bigger trouble than deficit spending. In reality, a good chunk of the defense budget would go to NASA as well.

Social Security: 600B (Mandatory)
Defense: 250B
Universal Health Care as part of Health and Human Services : 700B (Mandatory)
Other Mandatory: 350B (a whole bunch of tiny, popular things. A few punching bags are in this category, such as TANF/Food stamps, but they're only ~7B and ~12B, respectively, so not much left to cut there.)
Interest on debt: 239B (Mandatory)
Medicaid/SCHIP: 0B (Mandatory) (see Universal Health Care)
"Global War on Terror": 0B (emergency supplemental)
Education: 100B
Housing and Urban Development: 30B
Veterans Affairs: 30B
Homeland Security: 0B (this is bullshit, covered under Defense spending)
State and other Intl. Programs: 15B
Energy: 100B (includes nuclear weapons)
Agriculture: 20B
Justice: 20B
NASA: 15B (primary budget is covered under Defense for first 2 years)
Labor: 10B
Treasury: 5B
Transportation: 15B
Interior: 10B
Social Security Adminstration: 5B
EPA: 5B
Other Agencies: 5B
Commerce: 5B
National Science Foundation: 5B
Judicial Branch: 5B
Corps of Engineers: 5B
Legislative Branch: 2B
Border Security and Other Suppl.: 0B (once again, bullshit, covered under defense spending)
Small Business Administration: 0.4B
Executive Office: 0.1B
Hurricane response: 0B (emergency supplemental, covered under Health and Human Services)

Re:The question is not whether he is a racist

[CodeBuster]

The race card is almost always played by people who wish to short circuit debate on genuine issues and cut straight to an emotional response designed to override logic and reason when frankly, there are much more important issues at stake in this next election. The race issue in our society has already been well addressed and it has been for at least a decade now if not longer. In my own experience it is rare to uncover the types of institutionalized discriminations that used to be part of the system and if you do experience that sort of discrimination then you have adequate methods of redress and relief via the courts. If you are trying to eliminate all bigotry then you are truly wasting your time. The test of a free society with free speech is the allowance of speech that we may disagree with or which represents a minority point of view. Discrimination is one thing, but free speech, even bigoted speech, should be answered with speech, not banned out of hand. Kicking off one's campaign at Bob Jones U or referring to 'states rights' does not make one a racist, one can speak to groups, even groups with values you don't agree with, without becoming part of that group or endorsing their message. In fact, there may be many groups which support a candidate or run ads for a candidate, but that does not mean that the candidate endorses or is even connected with those groups. Why do you think that candidates generally include the line, "I am candidate name and I approve of this message." in their ads? People should be more careful about labeling someone a racist, that is a serious charge and it is, more often than not, unfounded. Ron Paul is NOT a racist.

Re:The question is not whether he is a racist

[darjen]

Who am I supposed to believe - you, or the NAACP president who has known Paul for 20 years? Tough one there, but I think I'll choose the latter.

It's unfortunate that RP allowed his name to be used for such drivel. He should have paid more attention to what people were writing. But that doesn't give you any license to continue smearing him when he has publicly repudiated those views many times.

Re:My top 10

[nasor]

You realize that it was "president," not "dictator," right? The president can't just order laws changed. Good luck convincing congress to sign off on any of that.

Maybe respect the constitution first of all?

[Fat Cow]

Ironically, there are 2 themes co-existing in comments in this thread...

1) Support for Ron Paul
2) Proposing that the president do a bunch of stuff that he has no power to do (stepping on Congress' toes)

Re:well..

[Goaway]

In fact, Paul dismissed the editors involved, directly upon being informed of the objectionable content.

Sources on that, please. In none of the discussions about it I've seen has he ever said he did so.

Re:Economy?

[Belial6]

"basically shady mortgage brokers forged lending documents and got people into homes they never should have"

That is too narrow in the blame. The problem WAS shady brokers, but it was also, shady lenders. My wife worked for a couple of different direct lenders during the boom, and the number of forgeries that went on at the lenders themselves were amazing. The lenders were giving loans that they knew the borrowers could not afford. They were just counting on the borrower refinancing later when the house went up in value.

There was also the problem of shady real estate agents that would convince buyers that they could afford more house than they could afford. When we were buyers during the boom, we would go through real estate agents like they were used baby diapers. The agents would just flat out refuse to show a house that was not at the absolute limit of what the shady brokers/lenders would give you a loan for.

Then you can't dismiss the buyers themselves. It was common practice for people to buy houses that they knew they couldn't afford. They just assumed that they could sell or refinance after the price went up.

The housing crash is a perfect example of a system that broken on every level.

Re:well..

[Rei]

Let's talk for a moment about "fairness". A person doing hot tar roofing earns $9 an hour. Tiger Woods earns $171 a minute for playing golf. Stephen Spielberg earns $632 a minute. Paris Hilton is set for life for doing absolutely nothing of value. Is that a fair rewarding of labor?

We live in a (mostly) free market economy, and that's generally a good thing. It means that we pay for goods what they're worth. It means we strive to reduce subsidy and get mad when we see it in some form or another. It tends to lead to optimal use of resources. All of this is great, except that it treats people just like another good. The hot tar worker is like sand, available on the cheap, while Tiger Woods and Spielberg are like gold. They're rare, so the market pays more for them, exponentially more, obscenely more. Wages in a free market economy are naturally distributed along an "L" curve. This isn't "fair" in terms of the amount of labor people put in (or even how "smart" they are, or how much risk they were willing to take), but the free market doesn't care about "fairness". It doesn't care about anything. To it, people are just goods.

Now, while wages may be distributed exponentially, human needs are not. A poor person, buying necessities, has no money left over for luxury. A wealthy person simply cannot buy enough necessities to even dent their luxury budget. And if they did buy necessities for other people, that would be "charitable giving". Our income tax is designed to approximate a tax on luxury; the poor, being unable to spend much on luxury, pay the lowest rate, while the wealthy, unable to spend a significant portion on necessity, pay a luxury rate. And if they give to charity, it's deductable.

Now, one might argue that a sales tax that directly taxes luxury would be more equitable than an income tax. I'd agree. The problems, however, come in the implementation. Is a $0.30 cent head of cabbage luxury? I doubt anyone would argue that. Okay -- how about a $1.50 pack of buttom mushrooms? A $5.00 pack of Shiitakes? A $60 pack of truffles? How about a beat-up 86 Olds? A 2001 Saturn? A 2007 Prius? A 2008 Lexus? When you look at the big picture, you can't classify the level of luxury based on the category of an object; it really just doesn't work. Sure, some things lend themselves better to luxury taxes -- groceries having no base level of taxation, jewelry having a high level, and so on -- but you can't capture the extreme level of variation within a given field. Hence, the income tax, having brackets for different income levels, fills in the gaps.

Taxing luxury spending higher than necessity spending is a lot more "fair" than treating people's labor the same way you'd treat a market price for sand versus gold. Flatting out the "L" curve is a lot more "fair" than leaving it in tact. Now, people working harder, taking risks, getting educated, and generally making themselves into the "gold" that the market wants *should* be rewarded. It's only "fair". But it's hard to say that, say, Bill Gates deserves tens of thousands of times the level of reward as a hot tar roofer; it's hard to call that "fairness".

As for the implications on the economy, people need rewards. Without reward, there's little incentive to improve, little incentive to work harder, little incentive to become that "gold" that the market wants. On the other hand, rewards several tens of thousands of times a hot tar roofer's wage distinctly are *not* required. Let's look at history. Anyone here know what our top income tax brackets were doing our nation's biggest boom time (the end of WWII to the late 1960s)? ~80-90%. We had this staggering level of taxation of the top rungs during this time, and yet the economy took off. Now, most of the credit to our boom belongs to the US being the main undamaged producer of goods after the war. But it's hard to argue that such taxation was some significant impediment. While I wouldn't argue for such extreme bracketting of taxation, in general, I feel the case for bracketted income taxes in terms of fairness is quite solid.

Re:well..

[joggle]

Then what? Do you think that by removing government that will automatically 'fix' everything?

1. Abolish the IRS
   • The IRS raises much of the money the Federal government uses to fund the military, subsidize farmers, scientific research, college education (in the form of grants to Universities and subsidized student loans), etc. So how do you go about solving all of the problems such a drastic measure would cause? Force the thousands of college graduates to double or triple the amount they have to spend on their monthly studen loan bill? Force thousands of others to not even go to college because they would not be able to secure loans without the federal Stafford program? Force millions of people to not have access to medical treatment or medication any longer? Leave thousands of troops and billions of dollars of equipment overseas because there would no longer be enough money to bring them home?
2. Abolish the Federal Reserve
   • What the heck would this accomplish? While they aren't great, they definitely serve the purpose for which it was designed--dampen market-driven cycles and try to minimize inflation. Do you wish for a return of runs on the market and severe depressions/recessions?
3. Abolish the Department of Education
   • All industralized nations in the world have some sort of mechanism of implementing national standards for education. There is a reason for this. While the current D of E could do a much, much better job, I don't see how removing them would fix the problem of low education standards in the US.
4. Abolish the FCC
   • And what would this solve? The FCC exists because, like water rights, the radio spectrum is a limited resource that cross state boundaries. How can anything other than a federal department regulate such a resource to prevent states from duking it out?
5. Abolish social security
   • What would you do to compensate the millions of workers who have invested a significant fraction of their income into the program?
6. Abolish medicare
   • How do you propose to give medical treatment to the poor? Leave it to the states? If it were up each state then richer states such as Massachusetts would surely be OK but others like Alabama and Mississippi would surely have little to no medical treatment for the poor due to the much higher portion of the population that is poor and due to having less tax money in order to pay for such a system. This would just cause poor states to get poorer while rich states would be able to keep some money that would have otherwise gone to the poorer ones to fund the program.

So in short, if a guy is 70, poor, living off of social security and live in Mississippi, he's screwed and that's fine with you, right? And if the guy was 60, approaching retirement he'd have no choice but to work until he died since there would be no possibility of retirement and living off of social security. In the US Declaration of Independence you will find the phrase: " All have right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". How the heck can one do this if they were unlucky enough to be born poor and have no hope of attending college to be eligible for better jobs and not be able to afford their own health care?

The government exists to solve problems people cannot solve on their own. Removing the current solutions provided by the government without offering any alternative seems ridiculous from my point of view. By abolishing all of the functions of government you mentioned you will surely 'fix' what ever problem created by these programs. However, each program was formed to solve other problems that will now need to be redressed and would surely cause additional problems due to the strong rippling effect it would have on the rest of government.

Re:Tsiangkun 2012

[hey!]

Which illustrates the problem of being President.

People think the President can do anything. But in fact the office of the President does not have the power to any of the things listed here, not without cooperation from other parts of the government, or in case of #3, a grand jury (which you are not allowed to stack with partisans).

Ideas for solving problems are nearly useless to a President. What a President has to do is frame problems. People have to accept that (a) a problem exists and (b) it is just the way you characterize it. Expecting to get your way on (c) [this is what we're going to do about it!] is excessively optimistic.

So, you have backtrack on your solutions to defining the problem in a way that is politically attractive and leads to the kinds of solutions you favor.

1) "I will repeal corporate personhood." -- "Corporations are using their personhood status to meddle in politics, which is not what it is for."

2) "I will tax the top 5% and distribute the wealth ..." -- "The problem with giving big tax breaks to the wealthiest people is that it doesn't work like it might have in the past. In an era of globalization, putting more capital in the hands of the ultrawealthy is that it can and does go overseas to make people who compete with American workers more productive."

3) "Prosecute the supreme court justices who appointed Bush, and every person in the federal governemnt who continued to aid and abet the terrorist regime." -- "Government is acting as if it is above the law, and institutions that should be politically neutral have become tools of party and in some cases personal interests."

4) "Establish a department of peace..." -- "We're asking the taxpayers to give tons of money for national security, but we're spending it in ways that make the country less secure."

5) "Reparations for the victims of hurricane katrina who were failed by their governments." -- "It's been three years since since Katrina, and we still haven't been able to marshal an effective response. We can't wait anymore for some bureaucratic program, we need to do something immediately that will make a difference right away."

Re:Maybe respect the constitution first of all?

[damn_registrars]

Proposing that the president do a bunch of stuff that he has no power to do (stepping on Congress' toes)

The current administration sets good precedent for being able to do exactly this. Take a look at some of the signing statements and executive orders of the past 2-3 years if you need any proof.

Re:well..

[GnarlyDoug]

I'm all for Natural Law as well and I'm against Positivism as the groundwork for a system of justice. The rights of man are intrinsic, not from law. However the idea that a people and a nation governed by representative means cannot then define and control the borders of that nation (so long as it does not involve invasion of other people's nations) is just silly. It's extreme stances like this that lead people to write libertarians off as nut-jobs. Like it or not, protecting the borders of the nation is one of the few legitimate purposes that a government has. Allowing a large group of people to move into your nation and then not allowing them the rights of citizens is even worse. You wind up with a caste society, the exact opposite of what anybody concerned about human rights should want.

Re:If I was president of the USA

[STrinity]

So you'd apply laws differently to people based on national origin? I take the phrase "equal protection under the law" is unfamiliar to you?

Re:well..

[darkwing_bmf]

You leave out an important point. The roof taring guy only benefits one person/family/business at a time. Obviously he should be paid less than someone like Tiger Woods who benefits thousands of fans per tournament. Same thing with Spielberg, he benefits millions with his movies. And I don't know what Paris makes, but she entertains more people than the roofer, and besides that, her family benefited a lot of people with their hotels. Basically, a free market helps those who are efficient (benefit the most people) at the cost of the less efficient (benefit one person at a time). Also, these efficient producers pay more taxes in absolute terms than their less efficient counterpart. It's hard to say the roofer isn't being rewarded fairly. Calling entertainment or anything else a luxury doesn't change its benefit. Besides, where should we draw the line? Should we call everything other than food or shelter a luxury? Should high quality/priced food then be a luxury? What about big houses? Or pools? Cars? Maybe everything other than a cardboard box and a bowl of rice should be considered a luxury? Point is, luxury good create wealth just as much as necessities. Would the farmer really care about feeding more than his family if he had nothing to buy with his income?

Best President Ever

[infinite jester]

I would literally go down the list of every decision George Bush has made in office, and then do the opposite.

Re:well..

[Cheapy]

Jeez, first reddit turns into ronpaulit, now slashdot too?

Honestly, the one thing that's keeping me from learning about him is how god damn annoying his supporters are.

Re:well..

[b17bmbr]

Shrub is an authentic war coward (daddy may have been near danger but Bush wasn't even present for his entire term of service)

actually, Bush I was a WW2 pilot. he flew a TBF bomber on some very dangerous missions over Japanese occupied islands, and was shot down. in fact, one (perhaps both, I don't recall) of his crew was killed on the mission. and when he splashed down, he was in japanese controlled waters and was in very real danger of being captured, tortured and killed. I'd say he was more than "near" danger.

the difference between between W and Kerry was this: kerry made his wartime service an issue. period. he made it an issue as to his leadership, judgement, etc. and, it wasn't his service, but his anti-war activities that so angered his fellow veterans.

I'm not a fan of W: his record spending, amnesty, and federalization of damn near everything, plus his gross mismanagement of the Iraq campaign (notice I didn't say Iraq war, which would be like saying the African War or the French War when talking about WW2. there was an African campaign, a Western Campaign, etc. Iraq is one campaign in a very long war we've been in for many many years.). however, he did not make his service an issue in 2000 or 2004.

Re:Top Three Things

[Anonymous Coward]

How can a smaller federal govt. with lower tax revenue influence oil or housing prices? Answer, it can't. People need to accept the fact that they paid too much for their houses and move on. No one bails out bad investors in the stock market. Unless you plan to subsidize oil or ration it, both meaning bigger govt. and huge a economic impact, there's nothing you can do about the price of oil. The purpose of govt should not be to regulate the economy.

Re:Two main concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

I would see if I could get the ball rolling on government insurance (socialist medicine), our privatized insurance system has become the bane of the under and uninsured people in the country, particularly children in those 2 categories.

Universal Health Care is the wrong solution to the right problem. The problem of health care isn't who's paying for it (private vs public) it's how damn much it costs. Having taxes pay for everyone healths insurance is a sure fire way to put America in the poor house. So far, America's economy has continued to move people out of lower class into middle class incomes. Putting such a burden on everyone with health insurance taxes will take so much money way from everyone that we'll see more people move from middle class to lower class, because they'll loose even more spending power.

What Gov. needs to do is work on creating better competition in the health care industry. Already the market is developing solutions to these costs with what's known as "fast clinics" (terms will vary). Basically, a fast clinic is a clinic staffed by registered nurses and physician assistants. They will treat anyone over 6 years of age with your average medical needs such as Flu, common cold, physicals, allergies, routine checkups, etc. You know, the stuff you typically go the hospital for. They're not going to do major medical stuff like broken bones or surgeries and if they're going to send you to a fully staffed hospital if they feel your symptoms will need more specific care. All this while not waiting more than 15mins and paying usually $40 (before insurances) and that includes lab work. Again, you're not going to get X-rays or things like that, just your minor medical treatments.

These "fast clinics" have been in test markets in various retail stores such as Wal-Greens, etc. If you ask me, instead of Universal Health Care that will kill the economy, the Gov. should put incentives on businesses for offering medical coverage of this type to all employees. For such a low cost, and some tax breaks, Wal-Mart and other big retailers can give medical coverage to all it's employees, full-time, part-time, etc. This doesn't cover major medical, but major medical insurance can be covered by a high deductible policy.

I think the right step is to start getting medical costs down by driving demand for low cost solutions that the market is already providing. By driving down the price of health care, insurance costs will also be forced down, making health insurance more affordable for everyone. Then Gov. can continue to fund already available programs for those who do no qualify for any of the above options (homeless, unemployed, etc).

That's what I think we should do about Health Care. And I say this having worked for a branch of the Gov. and KNOWING how much they'll spend on consultants that produce nothing for them and give little to no benefit in services. We're talking paying a consultant $50,000 to look at their computer systems and say "you should get a server". The government is well know for throwing money away. The last thing that any intelligent American should want is to let Big Health Care get it's claws into the government, where they'll start charging even MORE for health services and making MORE profit on your health.

You think corruption and scandal is bad now? Imagine what deals can be made to pad Big Health Care's pockets on the tax payers dime when lobbyist's can use Health Care?

MOD PARENT DOWN

[ahuard]

Why should I be forced to pay, at gunpoint, for some poor guy's health care? What are those taxes doing for me? The original purpose of taxes were not to redistribute wealth, but to provide basic community services such as police protection and national defense. Taxes are not supposed to be taken entirely from one group to support another.

Attention Moderators!

[Torodung]

Thank you for giving up your shot at the presidency to moderate this discussion. ;^)

--
Toro

Re:well..

[darjen]

Your whole post seems to be based on the faulty labor theory of value... which would make sense, except that value is subjective [wikipedia.org]. Any random person doesn't necessarily deserve Bill Gates' or Paris Hilton's money any more than they do. Economics isn't a zero sum game. It doesn't matter how rich someone is... if people are free to make their own opportunities, that is about as fair as you can get.

Re:well..

[bogjobber]

You act as if your definition of fairness is objective. It most definitely is not. Let me give you this:

The reason a hot tar roofer makes shit wages is because he doesn't do anything special. He gets paid what his work is worth. Bill Gates took the time and effort to get educated, took the risk to start a company, and put in the time to build it into what it is today. The roofer did none of that. How is it fair that he has to pay a higher portion of his income to taxes just because he was more successful?

You see what I did there? That makes just as much sense as your argument. It's unfair that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet had a significant advantage of a wealthy, educated upbringing over a poor wage laborer. But it's also unfair to take more from someone simply because they did well with their life.

Fairness has absolutely nothing to do with it. We should do what is best for society, with deference to personal liberty. I happen to believe that this means taxing the rich more than the poor. But all this talk about fairness is ridiculous.

Re:VETO!

[Scrameustache]

The president can only pardon people who have been convicted of violating federal laws. Since most people in prision for drug posession were charged under state drug laws, there wouldn't be anything you could do about it.

You can: Cut their federal-monies by 2x the internment costs of each of these victims of the system.
Also, bomb them.

Re:In all seriousness

[PinkPanther]

he was told that they can not stop doing that. Allah requires it.

And in history, "we" were told that black people were not part of "God's people" by various churches. Just because one fool states something doesn't mean that has anything at all to do with the religion they claim to be a part.

Western civilization is the best thing to ever happen to the world

And it got that way because the people THEMSELVES took up the charge and established that civilization. It was not thrust down their throat, it was not created by an external FOREIGN force. Western civilization could NOT have come about by people who didn't fundamentally understand the people who encompass that civilization.

Learn history? Learn history?? Like what, the formation of Isreal? Pakistan? Afghanistan?

Learn history? Like learn what happens when a foreign force intervenes in Iraq (I'm talking 30 years ago...oh, 15 years ago...oh, today).

C'mon. This isn't a GWB slam-a-thon. This is a Western-leaders-listen-to-your-own-experts-a-thon. GWB is just the latest.

Re:Two main concerns

[ChrisMaple]

Do you really hate the poor and the sick so much that you want to inflict government medicine upon them?

And to be precise, our insurance system is not "privatized", it is private. Privatization is the process of making a government orgnanization non-governmental. It is the reverse of "nationalization". The insurance industry has never been a government function.

Re:Resign

[novakyu]

So although Bush may seem stupid (and maybe he finished at the bottom of his class) he still graduated from the same school as Kennedy and other notable Presidents.

A C-average student graduating from a private university? That says only one thing—if he had not been born into the Bush family, he would have been lucky to have been a high-school drop-out.

Did you know that MIT has a space in its application form asking whether a member of family or a relative has attended MIT (and I'd assume something similar for most prestigious private colleges)? While I agree that a great number of brilliant people have graduated from, have taught at, and have worket at Yale (and many others), you would be a fool not to realize that a significant fraction of students are there only on the strength of their (mostly social) background, not on academic merit.

Re:In all seriousness

[Skim123]

We are trying to help establish a democracy in Iraq! Damned if we do; damned if we don't.

We shouldn't ever be waging war to promote democracy. And if going into Iraq was just about "spreading freedom" - which is a laughable claim - then why aren't we "spreading freedom" to other countries in the world that are led by despots?

We shouldn't be dicking with other countries' governments at all. We shouldn't be supplying arms and money to unpopular dictators. We shouldn't be sending in tanks and bombs to unseat a government we dislike. European powers shouldn't have carved up the Middle East 150 years ago into Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc., etc. They shouldn't have created Israel after WWII. They shouldn't have carved up Eastern Europe like they did after WWI. Britain shouldn't have been such meanies over in India. France shouldn't have tried to control Indochina. The US shouldn't have forced Japan to trade and modernize back in the early 20th century.

I know I'm rambling here, but what I'm trying to say is that when one nation takes it upon themselves to direct the peoples of another nation, bad stuff is bound to happen. It might be minor bad stuff, or it might be major bad stuff. It might happen in 5 years, it might happen in 25 years, or it might happen in 100 years. But nothing good will comes of bullying other people around.

Re:Economy?

[tic!lock]

Replace "was" with "is" and "are" and you have the perfect post.

  In the last two months I've had four real estate agents lie straight-faced to me about houses they were showing, and when I called them on it they flat out told me to get off of "their" property. One of the houses that was being shown had major structural problems, but the agent showing it to me assured me that it had passed a "city inspection", yet none of the qualified local inspectors had ever heard of the asshole showing it to me, and the structural defects were glaringly obvious to anyone with any experience in the field.

  Strangely enough those realtors aren't returning my calls. I wonder why?

  These people are state-licensed - at least, that's what they claim. Funny, that. I'm an experienced contractor... from out of state. I guess I failed to mention that to them.

  (and yes, I did report them to the local authorities. I had one callback about a week ago, who assured me he'd look into it. After some research I found he used to work for the same local realtor I was dealing with. Not surprising, this is the same shit I was dealing with in the last state I lived in. )

  A local city councilperson confided to me not long ago that the city just doesn't have the resources to pursue these people - the agents have better lawyers than the city can afford to hire. Big surprise.

  You do mean "the impending" housing crash, yes? It's the 80s all over again, but worse :*(

  tic

Re:Resign

[The One and Only]

Plato's Republic: Philosopher suggests philosophers should be put in charge, decries the influence of political ambition.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[An Onerous Coward]

Typical American response, indicating that the poster clearly doesn't believe that he will ever be "some poor guy". He will never become too sick or injured to work. He will never have his business fold beneath him, or his employer collapse above him. If the unwashed masses need more assistance than the wealthy see fit to voluntarily give [foundationcenter.org], then they are leeches.

He is America Man!