If you were prez
Oddball thought experiment:
By some bizarre set of circumstances, you are the president as of now. Name the first 5 things you’d do. Level of difficulty: it must actually be stuff the president is constitutionally allowed to do. My list:
1 – Issue an executive order rescinding all other executive orders noting that: no such authority is in the constitution; the making of law rests with the legislative branch; and the interpretation of law is up to the judicial branch. Then note the irony of using said means to address said end.
2 – Fire Gonzales
3 – Un-nominate John Roberts and nominate Alex Kozinski
4 – Veto every thing for the foreseeable future.
5 – Call Jacques Chirac on the direct line and ask for Michael Hunt, who goes by Mike. Hang up. Go down list of other people who I have direct line to. Repeat until bored.
August 19th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Fire Norman Mineta, dump the TSA, PROFILE, PROFILE, PROFILE, DEPORT, DEPORT, DEPORT. Sorry, that’s more than five.
August 19th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
If I may bastardize Duke Phillips I would :
A- Drop a whole mess of bombs
B- Put Merle Haggard on Supreme Court
C-Put on some leather and spank someone.
August 19th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
1. A comprehensive national energy policy commited to reducing the use of fossil fuel by 50% within 15 years, requiring 50% of all new cars to obtain 50 MPG or better if powerd by gas or diesel. Governement backed research into fuel cell cars, and deployment of hydrogen fueling stations. Elimination of multi grade gasoline auto fuels. 1 fuel, 1 octane rating. Period. Zero taxes on the develpoment and operation of nuclear power generating facilities for the first 10 years of operation and construction. All hybrid vehicals must be plug in capable. Progressive taxation for non business motor vehicals with a gross weight of over three thousand pounds. Business users must show substantial proof of the requirement for such a vehical to avoid taxation I.E. NO H2’s for real estate agents and amway salesmen.
2. Progressive and punative taxation of american corperations for every job offloaded overseas.
3. 100% control of America’s boarders, and an immediate halt to illeagal immigration.
4. Expansion of the Army by 2 combat divisions, Navy by 100 ships (primarily fleet oilers and fast sealift) Marine Corps by the equivalent of 1 substantial marine expeditionary force. Airforce to resume production of A-10 aircraft with updated avionics and weapons, with carrier varient for Navy and Marines. Increase purchase of c-17 aircrfat by 100 units. Immediate adoption of the XM-8 rifle in 6.8mm caliber. Replacement of m-9 pistol with pistol in 45 caliber. Replacement of M-249 SAW with same weapon in 6.8mm caliber. Retention of the m-240 LMG in 7.62mm caliber. Adoption of the M-113 APC (upgraded) to replace the uparmord humvee in combat units refurbisment of the entire M-1 tank fleet to m1-a2HA TUSK varient.
And a retro look dress uniform for the army. The current one looks like shit. Troops looked smarter in 1944.
5. Invoke criminal penalties with mandatory minumum sentences for corperate CEO’s and membesr of their respective boards of directors for ANY criminal wrongdoing committed by said corperation.
August 19th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
1. Seal the Mexican Border and immediately start apprehending and deporting folks in the US Illegally.
2. Announce the end to all Federal efforts under the “drug War” umbrella.
3. Announce that you will presidential pardon all federal tax violators until Congress repeals and replaces the system with a simple and fair Federal Tax.
4. Start vetoing. Anything. Everything.
5. Announce that from this moment on, all DOMESTIC activities by the Exucutive branch will exactly conform to the Constitution and Bill of Rights- Not case law or legal precedent, but a 10th grade reading of the exact meaning of each of the Amendments.
August 20th, 2005 at 12:08 am
1. Executive orders don’t make law, they simply command the agency’s to act in a certain way (which must already be authorized by law). That said, the first thing I would do is use executive orders to shrink the size of the federal government – by eliminating 75% of the Department of Education and 75% of the Department of Labor and then combining the remaining staffers into a smaller and more efficient Department of Labor with a focus on preparing the workforce to face the challenges of the marketplace in the future (ie: educating them). Id also do away with the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA and send all the constituent parts back to where they came from and require them to share all information between themselves.
2. I’d invite Willie Nelson over to the White House and ask that he become the Drug Czar.
3. I’d close the borders down and only allow skilled workers who have the intention of staying and becoming citizens entry. Then, as the economy demands it, I would begin to regulate the numbers of unskilled foreign nationals in (ensuring they had passed criminal background tests and were instructed in basic english skills) to ensure the demands for low skill jobs were met. Of course, since Willie was the Drug Czar I assume there would be an outpouring of millions of new workers who were unfairly incarcerated over the years and were looking to land some sort of employment till they got back on their feet. They would have first dibs before the unskilled foreign nationals of course.
4. I’d take the money Willie Nelson would save us on the War on Drugs and apply it first to pay off the debt, then to increase surveillance of likely terrorists and ask that police, military and the intelligence community begin profiling in earnest.
5. I would issue an executive order requiring the military, the Justice Department, and all other federal law enforcement agency’s to form a new armed citizens corps composed of all able bodied men and women between the age of 17 and 65 who were interested and such participants would be given training in firearms and surveillance techniques, be deputized as federal law enforcement marshals, and receive a hand gun and a homeland defense gun (perhaps in Lieu of the $500 tax rebate we’ve received the last few years).
6. (Bonus) I would join Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House to watch the sunset.
August 20th, 2005 at 12:29 am
1. Repeal 1934 Federal Firearms Act, 1968 Gun Control Act, 1986 Hughes Amendment, Brady Bill, oh, and what the hell, the other 22,000+ gun control laws on the books.
2. End the War on Drugs. Immediately. Time to start taxing drugs and making money off it.
3. Using some of the old War on Drugs money, start offering up crazy incentive money for working fuel alternatives. If we can get private investors interested in space exploration, we can DAMN sure move away from oil as our primary energy source. Time to wean us from the Saudi teat.
4. Find a way to bring Harley Earl back from the dead and have him design some REAL cars, not the crap currently rolling off the assembly lines. Two words: Tail. Fins.
5. Someone’s gonna get nuked. And soon. Just to show that we mean business. I’m thinking Venezuela – Chavez needs to get stuffed.
(okay, I’m joking about #5. I would, of course, nuke the French).
August 20th, 2005 at 12:50 am
The Power To Veto Is A Good Thing
SaysUncle brings us a nifty meme to comment on: By some bizarre set of circumstances, you are the president as of now. Name the first 5 things you’d do. Level of difficulty: it must actually be stuff the president is…
August 20th, 2005 at 1:59 am
If I were prez
SayUncle offers a thought experiment: If you were prez:By some bizarre set of circumstances, you are the president as of now. Name the first 5 things you’d do. Level of difficulty: it must actually be stuff the president is constitutionally allowed to …
August 20th, 2005 at 6:11 am
1. End the drug war.
2. Fire somebody. Doesn’t matter who, really. Gonzales is a good bet, but if you have to rehire ex-CIA head Tenet in order to fire him, that’s fine, too.
3. Ask to get the low down on the whole Area 51 thing.
4. End the Cuban embargo with an express statement that the whole point of the exercise is to see Fidel swinging from a lamppost.
5. Give the line-item veto a test.
August 20th, 2005 at 9:40 am
1. Mandate that all executive and legislative salaries be indexed to the median salary in D.C. or, even better, the median salary in the U.S. Voting for pay raises or special allowances would be left to nationwide ballots that would require 75% participation of eligible voters to pass.
2. Provide for 51% of the national budget to be allocated among various departments according to the averaging of individual taxpayer choices on their return forms.
3. Require that the legislative and executive branches conduct their business in a war zone for at least one month for every twelve we are at war.
4. Officially change the term “tax” to “membership dues” on all official documents.
5. Require businesses who offshore jobs to pay membership dues equivalent to the membership dues that each of the offshore workers would pay were they working on U.S. soil. They’ll still save money, but it might make the decision a little more thoughtful if they are unsure about the quality of the outsourced work.
6. Dramatically diminish the laws that reduce personal accountability of corporate officers for malfeasance or deriliction of duty. That’s why they get paid the big bucks.
7. Give every U.S. citizen a “share” of national assets (like ANWAR) and put any major policy decisions to a national vote.
8. Abolish the electoral college.
August 20th, 2005 at 9:44 am
Oh…
9. Make Eminent Domain is service of private development illegal and any condemnations for truly public uses would be subject to a vote of the affected constitutional club members (formally taxpayers).
10. Set a national standard for “right to carry” permits, so that responsible club members who prefer to travel armed can do so regardless of which U.S. state they were in. Of course, private establishments could set whatever rules they wanted.
August 20th, 2005 at 9:47 am
11. Set up a special office of policy review headed by Penn and Teller.
August 20th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
1. End the Drug War. Legalize all drugs and make money off them by selling them at liquor stores. If you can’t keep drugs out of prison, you can’t have a drug war!
2. Abolish the present tax system and institute a simple sales tax. You spend a lot, you pay a lot. You save a lot you don’t pay as much tax.
3. Appoint high school kids to the Supreme Court. If they can’t find it in the Constitution, it ain’t in there.
4, Determine that the only job of Federal Government is to protect us from outside enemies and protect our borders. All other activities are now subject to sunset laws of ten years.
5. Require all government employees in the nation to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and write a book review about how their particular department does not conform to her teachings. As part of #5, require all children from pre-school on to be tested on their knowledge and ability to argue Ayn Rands Objectivist philosophy.
August 21st, 2005 at 2:54 am
Executive orders are not, as you suggest, unconstitutional. When article II states that, ‘The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America’, it’s pretty obvious that includes the ability to issue orders to the executive departments under his control. The problem isn’t the use of executive orders to weild the powers congress has chosen to vest in the executive departments, it’s that Congress has chosen to yield most of it’s legislative power to those executive departments to begin with.
Your solution is only dealing with a symptom, not the problem. And even to the extent that repealing many of the orders would be a good thing, that’s due to prudence, not constutionality or lack thereof.
‘Unconstitutional’ doesn’t just mean ‘something I don’t like’.
August 21st, 2005 at 9:21 am
Executive orders are not, as you suggest, unconstitutional
But they are not mentioned in the constitution. And the constitution grants no such authority, which is what i said. EOs do carry the power of law, try importing something from Cuba if you don’t think so.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:26 am
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August 26th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
If I were POTUS
1. My very fist act as president would be to pardon all persons convicted of consensual crimes
2.I would recommend to congress for the money saved from the release of the pardoned ‘criminals’ to be spent securing the boarders and the…
August 27th, 2005 at 9:12 am
If I was the President…
Hmm. My first thought is to ask for a ride to space. But since I don’t trust the Shuttle or Russian engineering, I’d have to find another way (more on that later). So here’s my five:
August 28th, 2005 at 10:36 am
If I Were President
Many of my fellow LLP’ers have been answering the following question:
December 22nd, 2005 at 10:02 am
[…] In the spirit of oddball though experiments (like this one that got a lot of play in the blogosphere), here’s a new one I’ve been pondering: […]