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?

Comments

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.

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[dave562]

Don't buy into the smear. Even the President of the Austin, TX branch of the NAACP came out in support of Ron Paul and said that he has known him for 20 years and he knows that he isn't a racist.

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[dave562]

Alright smart ass... 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? How come the strongest attack is coming from The New Republic, a neo-conservative online magazine? Why is it that even Wolff Blitzer on CNN said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "You're right Ron Paul, I've known you for a while now and those newsletters really don't sound like your words. I've never heard you say anything like that."?? Yet despite that, why did CNN then turn around and on the Anderson Cooper show, only repeat the allegation and out of 5+ minutes worth of quotable material from Ron Paul, why did they only use the few seconds worth of him saying that he didn't write the letters surrounded by a bunch of contextual spin to imply that his denial makes him guilty?

The charges are baseless bullshit. The South Carolina primary is coming up. It is being touted as the "indicator of the black vote". Ron Paul has more support among the African American community than any other Republican candidate. It's telling that the information is coming out right now.

Of course you posted AC. You're a worthless chicken shit who can't even associate himself with the slander that you're throwing around. Go fuck yourself.

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[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.

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[Linux_ho]

call up Ron Paul and ask him what he'd do

Now that's leadership.

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[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.

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[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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The head of the NAACP in Texas...come on isn't that a little like being the Head of the Committee for Jewish Relations in Nazi Germany? You've never been to Austin, have you? It's kind of ironic that the capital of Texas is the one city that is the least similar to the rest of the state. It's easily the most liberal city in the state by a wide margin.

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[DrXym]

I think you have as much chance of being president as he does.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[dave562]

If you dig into the issue a little bit more you will realize that the remarks were made during a very short period of time, spanning maybe a year or two. According to what Paul has said, that was a time of transition in the newsletter and he wasn't at all involved in the day to day operations. They had to go all the way back to 1996 to dig up dirt, and it wasn't even new dirt, it was rehashed old dirt. Like I said, if it's such a big deal, where are Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton? Look at it this way, do you think that Jimmy Dean personally inspects all of the sausage that goes out under his name? Maybe Sara Lee really comes up with all of the recipes for her desserts too.

Over the last couple of years I've heard all sorts of main stream candidates claim to not have read the intelligence reports before voting to go into Iraq. I've heard candidates claim to have not read the PATRIOT Act before voting for it. What's the big deal about some newsletters? You're a complete tool if you let this bias you against Ron Paul. He's the only candidate from both parties who has any clue about what is going on with the economy and our foreign policy. He is the only candidate out there who is being honest with the American people. He is on the record numerous times talking about how the War on Drugs unfairly targets minorities. His record speaks for itself.

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[aminorex]

That would be wrong. Ron Paul doesn't associate with Stormfront, firstly; The New York Times was forced to publish a retraction on that claim when it was disproven. Secondly, you're pretending that a single incident was extended over a period of decades. In fact, Paul dismissed the editors involved, directly upon being informed of the objectionable content.

It's a transparent smear.

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[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 ?

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[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.

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[Leftist Troll]

The charges [of racism] are baseless bullshit.

Let's talk about the underlying issue then.

Regardless of his own views on race, Ron Paul is the favorite candidate of racist "White Nationalist" groups like Stormfront and the National Alliance. This is because Ron Paul's anti-Federalist agenda would go so far as to gut society's ability to clamp down on violent racist groups. Read the history of the Klan, and you'll understand why their idealogical descendants are so keen on the idea of decimating the Federal government as Paul advocates.

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[plague3106]

I don't really see that I'm making your point. Laws also don't always reflect morality or right and wrong. Every country has proceedures for immigration and there's not wrong with having them. People that come into the country for visits are refered to as expatriats, not immigrants. Good god..

So you're going to argue that people should come and go to the US as they please? Sorry, I am for minimal government, and not even I would go that far.

I even said I didn't care for Ron Paul!

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[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.

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[halivar]

What's the big deal about some newsletters? You're a complete tool if you let this bias you against Ron Paul.

It's yet another sign that Ron Paul is not discriminating enough in who he chooses to associate himself with. A president doesn't rule alone: an administration is run, by and large, by the advisers and cabinet members a president surrounds himself with. I don't like the people who surround Ron Paul.

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[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.

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[plague3106]

I don't see how any government has any right or business telling who can cross and not cross an imaginary line.

It doesn't sound like you believe a government has any right to to tell anyone what they can or can't do.

According to the Webster, an immigrant is a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence. I don't why that would imply citizenship.

Fortunately Wikipedia explains how the word is actually used: "While human migration has existed throughout human history, immigration implies long-term, legal and permanent residence (and often eventual citizenship) by the immigrants."

I am arguing that people should go and come as they please as long as they do not trespass on people's property. I am also arguing that the "the US" is by no mean the legitimate property of the US government.

Well, tough shit. Whether you like it or not, the current boundries of the US are legitimate to everyone else.

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[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.

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[VinitAdhopia]

I'd give up the US' UN veto. The US has clearly shown it is unable to use the veto in an honest and ethical manner.

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[STrinity]

If you dig into the issue a little bit more you will realize that the remarks were made during a very short period of time, spanning maybe a year or two. According to what Paul has said, that was a time of transition in the newsletter and he wasn't at all involved in the day to day operations.

Oh please, would you believe George Bush if he offered an excuse as stupid as that. And even assuming, arguendo, that his version is true, that doesn't bode well for his managerial skills.

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[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.

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[GnarlyDoug]

Self defense. First rule of natural law is not just keeping your rights intact, but it is also about survival. You do not have to wait to be attacked to attack so long as their is a credible threat to your survival. Doing away with any form of organized defense and ignoring the truth that geographical dominance is integral to being able to defend yourself against large scale threats such as war or invasion (even peacable) is suicide.

In other words our government is presumably our mechanism by which we secure protection of our rights. (Granted, this is changing and badly so, but that is another matter.) One requirement for this to happen is that we be able to defend ourselves. Now, it's nice to imagine that a bunch of independent and scattered people living on their land in an Anarcho-Capitalist utopia could do this, but I don't buy it. Once a large enough group of people who don't hold to your ideals have moved in and they have sufficient numbers and are scattered through your 'nation' and they decide to change things, you don't have a say anymore. Let alone what happens if you face an actual invasion by an organized army when you've gotten rid of such things in pursuit of utopia.

I'll embrace concepts like Anarcho-Capitalism and borderless states when technology exists that allows a man to be an island onto himself. When I can guard myself and my plot of land against an organized force many, many times more massive and well funded. Until that time comes and geographical mastery is no longer an aspect of armed conflict, I'll live with nation states protecting their borders as a necessity to survival.

I believe that philosophy exists to serve man, not vice-versa. Natural Law can lead us to a much better place the Positivism. But like all abstractions, it leaks. This is one place where it leaks. Getting rid of borders, at least in todays world (and maybe forever), leads to likely death and slavery. If most of the world embraced the ideals of Natural Law then it wouldn't be an issue. But it doesn't and it is. Allowing yourself to be surrounded and intersected many times over by people who think Natural Law is a bunch of BS or who have never even ran into the concept before and then expecting they will leave you alone instead of forcing their own philosophy on you is naive.

In short, I'll not embrace a philosohy to an extent that it leads to my destruction. I am not a zealot willing to martyr myself for the cause. In any event, I do believe that an argument can be made with Natural Law that when faced with credible threat, seizing the means to defend yourself is justified. Borders are a regrettable necessity. Maybe one day they won't be.

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[uncqual]

1. Abolish the IRS... response

The notion here is to create a simpler tax system that does not require the IRS as we know it today. No reasonable person is proposing eliminating all collection of Federal taxes and, hence, some infrastructure to collect those would of course be needed.

As far as subsidized college loans is concerned (which really has little to do with the IRS)... The free and easy access to student aid is a vicious cycle -- the colleges just raise their tuition to match the available money, making it harder and harder for students who don't quite qualify for aid to get an advanced education. If someone needs a loan for college, let them go out and get one -- let the market decide if pursuing a degree in Ancient Interpretive Literature is likely to result in enough income that the student can pay back the loan. It's not my responsibility as a taxpayer in State X to fund the hobby of another person in State Y. The Feds could perhaps, via the power of the interstate commerce clause, have a role in making the student loan market more viable by making sure that a student can't just jump across the state border to avoid repaying a student loan (existing laws probably deal with this fine but might need some changes).

2. Abolish the Federal Reserve... response

Meddling in interest rates, for example, creates it's own set of problems. Recessions are inevitable and not necessarily the worst thing - ask someone who has just lost all the equity (and retirement nest egg) in their house and just got foreclosed on if they could care less if we are not in a recession (yet)? Let the market work it out - yes, it may be volatile at times, but the "propping up" of the system by the Feds results in big bubbles instead of more little ones that burst early. We have a global economy now -- the Fed really can't change that and will be increasingly less able to achieve their goals anyway.

3. Abolish the Department of Education... response

Funny, I've never heard the Governor of a state say "We here in Hickstate are too stoopid to figure out how to lurn our kids - we need the Feds to tell us this". Instead it sounds more like "We here in Hickstate want money forcibly extracted from any state but Hickstate to help pay to educate our kids". States are free to band together to share R&D costs of education if they wish to, the Feds are not needed for that and the Constitution doesn't give them the power to IMHO.

4. Abolish the FCC... response

Ah, finally something we agree at least partially on -- the allocation of frequencies and technical broadcasting standards seems to fall well within the scope of the interstate commerce clause as RF doesn't respect state boundaries.

5. Abolish social security... response

Of course the sunsetting of Social Security will require a staged process so those that have put money into the plan will receive partial benefits and those that are already retired will continue to receive benefits until death. Yes, since the plan is basically bankrupt, there will be some combination of life support (covering shortfalls with general taxation) and benefit reductions during the phase out -- but not as bad if we continue the ponzi scheme for another 30 years. Not pleasant, but better to amputate the gangrenous lower leg now than to wait for the infection to spread up into the torso and internal organs - we infected ourselves with this disease decades ago and our attempts at fighting the infection have failed so drastic action is now needed.

6. Abolish medicare... response

Phasing out Medicare would need to be done much the same way as phasing out Social Security would be done -- in a staged fashion. As far as state-to-state disparity - that's life. People are free to migrate from one state to another state to seek a better life and have historically done so in the Unite

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[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?

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[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.

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[demonlapin]

Sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Using arguendo in a sentence, correctly, is not appropriate to this forum. Take your dirty Latin elsewhere.

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[Skim123]

Yes, yes, in theory the country is a patchwork of individual land, but we both know better that that doesn't work in practice. And if you became the US Supreme Dictator and could enact such silliness, I would promptly buy the land on all sides of your's and threaten to shoot you for trespassing if you tried to leave your residence, just to make my point.

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[demonlapin]

People with that level of wealth have opportunities that the average high-income professional (who isn't, generally, very wealthy) doesn't. As a doctor, I will certainly have a high income, but I have incurred significant debt to do so and won't earn more than a pittance until age 35 (yeah, I didn't go straight to med school from college). The situation is similar (though not quite as extreme) for a lot of lawyers - although our incomes are high, the tax system is very good at capturing income and doesn't seem to care that I spent eight years living on a shoestring in order to earn that money (I can't, for example, go back and retroactively fund my IRA for those eight years.).

If you have a billion dollars, though, you can pretty easily set up a nonprofit foundation that - oh so coincidentally - employs your descendants to do a lot of not very difficult jobs for rather more than competitive salaries. Maybe there can be foundation-owned housing they can live in rent-free - again, only available to family members. Once you own the properties, you'd be surprised how little it takes to live on.

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[darjen]

Your whole post seems to be based on the faulty labor theory of value... which would make sense, except that value is subjective. 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.

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[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.

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[tic!lock]

Obviously he should be paid less than someone like Tiger Woods who benefits thousands of fans per tournament.

  Oh pshaw. You're valuing mindless entertainment over a necessity (rain-proof shelter). There's no comparison in any real assessment of what's important.

  That's the point - shelter, food, clean water are necessities to existence whereas TW and Spielberg are not.

  What the hell are you kids being taught nowadays?

tic

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[samantha]

Everything the Founding Fathers said and did is extreme as hell relative to what we have now. Hell, it was extreme back then too. Nothing is more extreme than saying the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect and secure your freedoms and that your freedom includes the right and responsibility to bring down any government that fails in this. It is really extreme to say that you, and I, and each person are the only sovereigns and government is our servant that serves at our pleasure.

Lets hear it for extremism.

Resign

[CrazyJim1]

And let someone who knows what they're doing operate.

Re:Resign

[PinkPanther]

employ a shadow government that holds all the power, and then operate merely as a figurehead

Wow, what a concept. Could you imagine the president of the most powerful nation in the world not actually being smart enough for the position?

...er...wait a sec....

Re:Resign

[apt142]

Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our politicians learning?

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:Resign

[The One and Only]

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

Top Three Things

[Mr.Intel]

1) Straighten out the economy. Oil prices, housing slump, and the mess that is the Federal Banking Commission. 2) Scale back the size of the Federal Government and lower taxes accordingly. 3) Get a kick-ass foreign relations team into the embassies and capitals to repair our good name.

Re:Top Three Things

[192939495969798999]

0) get in a time machine because you have to be at least 35 years old to be president.

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)

Since you asked...

[Crash McBang]

... any time I was in doubt as to what to do, President McBang would post the question to Slashdot and use the top-moderated answer for guidance.

Oh, and I'd ask Cmdr Taco what he thought as well.

Re:Since you asked...

[Tumbleweed]

... any time I was in doubt as to what to do, President McBang would post the question to Slashdot and use the top-moderated answer for guidance.

I'm pretty sure 'Cowboy Neal' won't be the answer to any of the problems facing this country. Or at least, not many of them.

Elected on Fri, Assassinated on Sat, Buried on Sun

[PrescriptionWarning]

If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.

If I was president...
If I was president

An old man told me, instead of spending billions on the war,
we can use some of that money, in the ghetto.
I know some so poor, they use the spring as the shower,
when screaming "fight the power".
That's when the vulture devoured

[chorus]
If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assasinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.

If I was president...
If I was president...
If I was president...
If I was president

But the radio won't play this.
They call this rebel music.
How can you refuse it, children of moses?

[chorus]
If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.

If I was president...
If i was president

Tell the children the truth, the truth.
Christopher Columbus didn't discover America.
Tell them the truth.
The truth
YEAH! Tell them about Marcus Garvey.
The truth YEAH! The truth.
Tell them about Martin Luther King.
Tell them the truth.
The Truth.
Tell them about JFK

If I was President
[chorus]
If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
and buried on Sunday.

If I was president...
If I was president

VETO!

[mooingyak]

Veto everything. With exceptions for bills that repeal earlier laws.

Re:VETO!

[Hatta]

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

Re:VETO!

[xstonedogx]

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

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:VETO!

[nasor]

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.

Re:VETO!

[corbettw]

Don't worry, I suspect you wouldn't have long to worry about it anyway, before your impeachment. You misspelled "assassination", just so you know.

Re:VETO!

[geschild]

disclaimer: I'm European, haven't been to the US and given the circumstances will not travel there for the forseeable future.

"Agreed. Then I'd pardon everyone in jail for simple possession." Why not go several steps further and end the war on drugs altogether? Change it to a commercial model where distribution is legalized and FDA controlled. Everyone who wants to buy/use has to follow a course much like drivers-ed and get a license to use, perhaps even per-substance and perhaps with a practical exam (using under supervision) to make sure there are no adverse reactions? The 'license' would hold biometric data, only to make sure it's the original holder that is buying and you could put quota on it.

Such a system would yield major advantages for everyone:
- Educate users. I'm a firm believer in education as a way to reduce harm and raise awareness.
- take away income from criminals and put it into the taxable real economy.
- use said income to mitigate medical and social consequences of (a)buse
- get rid of a lot of 'criminals' (small time dealers are usually opportunity criminals. no opportunity, no criminals.)
- not throwing away a lot of human potential over petty crime like posession or use
- police would have a lot of capacity to battle drugsrelated crime like theft, robbery, DUI, etc. as well as check the fringes like reselling to people without a license (meaning you get a fine and forfeit your license to buy)

After everyone has come to terms with that, perhaps you can put alcohol and tobacco in the same system as they are (hard)drugs themselves.

Will this end all problems? No. There will always be people trying to abuse the system for higher gain. There will always be addicts and their related problems. Issues with home-producers (meth labs, etc., not home growers of pot.) Lots more that I'm too tired to think of right now.

Anyway, 'The State' is harming users that get caught a lot more than most drugs will ever do. End that and you've done at least one good thing as a president.

more disclaimers: I don't see marihuana as 'completely innocent', I think all recreational psychoactive substances should only be available to people over the age of 18. Taxes should be imposed in relation to the cost to society.

Re:VETO!

[tic!lock]

Completely dismantle the DEA and return control of drug laws to local jurisdictions, with the overall understanding that no rights of due process shall be violated, and that no unjust or draconian penalties shall be set. One way to begin that perhaps would be to tell the states that yes, you can set your own drug laws, but you have to first offer any offenders, especially first time offenders, the option of medical treatment at the states expense if they so wish. Just to balance that, mandatory treatment/jail time for any drug offender who injures or kills other people while under the influence.

  And completely decriminalize marijuana/hemp. Leave it to the states whether or not they wish to regulate the sales of the intoxicating form of it, but make it clear that no law shall be passed that will make the sale or use of cannabis for medical purposes illegal, and also that any attempt by anyone to monopolize sales or produce tainted product will not go unpunished. This bullshit has gone on for entirely too many generations and it's time that it was stopped. We regulate alcohol sales (with varying success) and cannabis has been medically shown to be less destructive than alcohol.

  There's lots more that needs to be done there and what I said above isn't the best by any means... but drug abuse should be a medical problem, not a legislative one. The only thing that legislation has done has been to create artificial black markets that have done tremendous damage to our country and this is not acceptable.

tic (a NORML member since 1988)

Re:VETO!

[LoztInSpace]

This is very similar to my own views. However I had not considered a 'test'. I am not convinced it is necessary but could be worth considering for some of the harder/more addictive/psycoactive types.
I'd also argue that rather than freeing up police to "battle drugs related crime" that type of crime would reduce significantly. Although I can't prove it, I believe that most theft/robbery that is drugs related is due to the exhorbitant prices commanded by the illegal market. A federally regulated system would (should) reduce the cost to something more reasonable. This stuff typically costs nothing to grow & produce. The cost comes from rewarding the risk of those people willing to get it into the country and onto the market.

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.

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.

Re:Two main concerns

[nrich239]

I'm with you on both points. I work in the "healthcare" (bunch of crap) industry. Our company makes a profit from developing software to help find ways to deny more claims to make more money for our clients. Even people that are properly insured get screwed over by most insurance companies.

Re:Two main concerns

[Zerth]

Knowing a people on either end of the insurance billing industry, I've heard some horror stories. One family member worked at a hospital that went under because they couldn't process insurance forms fast enough. Not because the hospital didn't have enough people, but because the insurance companies turn around was so unreliable. They were lucky to get 70% of their paperwork back. They had a party any month where 90% cleared.

My dentist sends all his paperwork registered mail after headhunting a claim processor from the biggest PITA he dealt with and finding out that the particular company had a "clean desk" policy: any envelope not opened by the end of her shift got trashed unless it was sent registered mail.

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.

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.

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:In all seriousness

[ricegf]

So you would pass the 'Let's All Become Muslim' Bill?

Show me one statement/website/whatever where ANY pseudo-legitimate group has even suggested such a thing

Not sure if you consider them "pseudo-legitimate", but you might try this BBC's report on a video statement made by Osama Bin Laden in September 2007:

The speaker tells the American public that there are two ways to end the war in Iraq: "The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you."

The second way, he continues, is to reject America's democratic system and convert to Islam.

Sure sounds like he plans to keep knocking down buildings until we all embrace his religion to me. At least, I didn't notice a "we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone" clause anywhere in his statement.

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:In all seriousness

[Skim123]

Although you have to seriously wonder if OBL (or his ilk) would have even bothered the West if the West hadn't:

• Propped up the Shah in Iran
• Propped up the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia
• Supplied Israel with advanced weaponry
• Supplied Saddam with weaponry to wage war with Iran

Our foreign policy over the past 75 years has been screwy and downright slimey at times. We like to preach democracy, but we don't hesitate to help prop up un-popular dictators who will bend to our will.

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: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.

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.

Re:Elected on Fri, Assassinated on Sat, Buried on

[PrescriptionWarning]

FYI Lyrics by Wyclef Jean, "If I Was President"

'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.

Re:Hemp

[dave562]

A person is elected President for four years. The legalization of hemp is something that could conceivably happen during the course of a single administration. The legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use would provide a source of tax revenue for the government. That will help with finances. It can be used to produce hemp oil that can be used as a lubricant for machinery. That will help with the energy crisis. It grows faster than trees and produces more fiber per acre that can be used for paper and lumber. It also requires less water than cotton and produces more cloth than cotton per acre. It also doesn't require the extreme amounts of pesticides that cotton does. All of those are good for the environment and will help to provide clothing and shelter the growing population. The hemp seed can be processed into food and it is very reach in essential amino acids. The radicalization of Muslims... well, lets all just sit around and smoke some weed. That will calm them down. ;) In all seriousness, no... hemp won't address that. Removing the incentive of them to attack us and providing them with propaganda (like killing hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Iraq) will help address that. Medical care crisis... ya, boo hoo freakin hoo. Cry me a river over expensive drugs and treatments that don't work. The answer to the medical crisis is healthy, nutrient rich food grown in fertile soil, clean water and exercise. All of those promote a healthy immune system.

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.

What would I do?

[Sciros]

Interns.

Re:What would I do?

[mathletics]

Two interns at the same time?

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.

Re:If I was President...

[pseudorand]

> 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.

Wonder, schmunder. Your pondering can be ended with one simple word: diebold.

Two words

[ProppaT]

Your mom

Number One Thing

[spun]

Absolute number one thing, first day on the job: get a blowjob from a cuter intern than Monica, then post pics of it on MySpace. You know, just to get that out of the way.

Re:Number One Thing

[xSauronx]

Not me dude:

Two chicks at the same time, man.

Re:Number One Thing

[Zeinfeld]

Absolute number one thing, first day on the job: get a blowjob from a cuter intern than Monica, then post pics of it on MySpace. You know, just to get that out of the way.

You americans are so tediously moralistic, the French have their guy on an 'incentive' program. The more manifesto promises he makes, the more 'rewards'. Mitterand had four mistresses.

I don't qualify under current law, but the first thing I would do is to look at how to make the current US problem in Iraq someone else's problem. Over the past five years Iraq has all but destroyed the US army. Whose army do we most want to destroy most (or care least about)? That would be Iran. So the US says to Iran 'your problem now', withdraw to Kuwait, see whether Iran prefers to have a festering civil war on its border or gets sucked in.

Second foreign policy position: Cuba. Eliminate all sanctions with immediate effect. They have not worked in 40 years and it is obvious that they never will. It is equally obvious that the Cuban political system can hardly survive if there is a massive influx of capitalist spending. Close Gitmo while we are at it and sign a retroactive extradition treaty. Let those who committed torture face a criminal system that is no worse than the one they created themselves.

Third position: Al Zawahiri and Bin Laden get a slotting. The US needs to withdraw from lost and irrelevant conflicts to concentrate resources on the conflicts that matter. Al Zawahiri has now had a major role in the murder of two US-friendly world leaders (Sadat, Bhutto). He cannot be allowed to survive. These problems cannot be dealt with by simply creating a bigger military, do that and some idiot neocons will come along and decide to use it for their own pet purposes.

Fourth: halt the deficit spending program. Congress will not lower spending, under the GOP earmarks and spending exploded under the Democrats the difference is that spending is rising less quickly. The deficits are causing interest rates to soar, they are tipping the country into recession. The only way to reduce the deficit is for the country to live within its means and raise revenues. So unless you believe in the tax fairy the choice is between raising taxes and crashing the economy. Don't wait for the Bush tax cuts to expire, repeal them immediately and institute a 2% war tax. Time to remind people that deficit spending is merely a deferred tax rise.

Fifth: comprehensive review of earmark projects, no-bid contracts and other potential graft. It appears that Haliburton and Blackwater owe the government rather a lot of money, we would like it back. Also Alaska can whistle if they think they are getting the idiot Stephens bridge to nowhere.

Sixth: Implement measures to protect the Internet economy against Internet crime and the risk that terrorists use the Internet for fundraising. (Full program described in The dotCrime Manifesto.

Seventh: New Orleans, remember?

Eighth: Healthcare.

Re:Number One Thing

[Weh]

The deficits are causing interest rates to soar, they are tipping the country into recession

US interest rates are like what? 4-6% ? hardly what I call soaring. One of the main reasons the usa is heading for a recession is that the interest rates were/are so low, they made ninja (no income, no job, no assets) loans too hard for financial institutions to resist and now they're stuck with the mess.

Re:Number One Thing

[Zeinfeld]

Living in Alaska will teach you the following: that the Anchorage Bowl (the city and surrounding area) is packed. And getting more packed. And you can't go east because there are mountains there. You can't go south because there's water there. You can't go north because the military has it staked out. And you can't go west because there's water there. This bridge, however, would let you go west and expand the city more. It actually has a use.

That may be so. Why does that make it the best way for the Federal government to spend over a billion dollars?

Government spending needs to be judged against a more accurate yardstick than which state happens to have the most powerful Senator with the largest mouth. The same money could have a much greater effect to a much larger number of people in much greater need down in New Orleans.

Ted Stephens is not the sort of person you want to make such choices. His son is facing federal corruption charges. He is almost certainly facing charges himself after a contractor benefiting from his earmarks gifted him an extension of his house.

Every earmark made by Ted Stephens should be put on hold. The Vecco relationship looks like a bribe smells like a bribe and should be considered a bribe unless and until proven otherwise.

Re:Number One Thing

[HornWumpus]

In fact the first time (recently anyhow) it was stated that taxes should be cut to raise revenue (Reagan) taxes were lowered and revenue did rise. There is clearly such a thing as too much taxation for an economy (I suspect that value changes over time).

As to the trade between the Clinton economy vs the Bush tax cuts. Which Clinton economy are we talking about, the one he had when he started (basically the end of the Reagan boom discussed above) or the one he had when he finished? (a shallow recession and a .com bubble in the process of bursting.) The answer to your question depends on that clarification.

But don't let history get in the way of your rant, please continue.

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.

bio-fuels and nuke plants

[fifedrum]

3 year plan to institute a nation-wide algae based bio fuel farming and processing industry modeled after the rural farming unions and co-ops that drive our dairy industry. That is, anyone with the open land could create an algae farm with free seed algae from the gubermint, and cheap loans to build the infrastructure. Every so many days a truck from your local co-op fuel depot would pull up, siphon off your fuel and bring it to the distribution center, where the locals could then buy the fuel for their cars/trucks. Figure 250,000 fuel growing tanks, 1 acre each providing all the fuel the nation needs.

3 year plan to create thousands of small community owned pebble bed reactors situated in every army, marine, national guard and air-force armory in the nation. The reactors are small, the armories are (should be anyway) well guarded, so they do double-duty as power stations.

write huge incentive cheques to small inventors for producing commercially viable diesel electric hybrid cars running on the above two fuel sources.

Once those are in place, remove the IRS and current tax law, replace with a 3% flat tax. The huge increase in GDP caused by the above two will more than offset the taxes lost through the current corrupt system.

Jail many lawyers, politicians. Use them to feed the algae from #1 above.

Honest answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Put SCIENCE back in the classroom.

Tax religions like any other business.

Put people before corporations. (I love Capitalism but we've denigrated to Corporatism)

Move the US to metric. :)

List in order

[nondisclosure007]

1. fund the creation of MagLev wind turbines (google it) and solar cells based on what Konerka (again, google it) is doing in that arena.
2. There has got to be a better battery technology than what is in use today. If we could get the wind and solar to the point of creating 250% of what we use, then we can store the extra for night-time use (and when the wind isn't blowing). Under current wind and solar technology this is just technically impossible. Thus see number 1.
3. Once you have the battery question solved (along w/ the wind and solar in place); switch all non-heavy-duty vehicles over to electric w/ the new battery and smaller versions of the MagLev turbine. So they charge when they're being driven.

enough about energy.

4. abolish the Federal Reserve. It was setup illegally; it's a private bank. Did you know, for every dollar that the Federal Reserve prints, it charges the US gov't $1 + interest? over 90% of the US govt debt is owed to this private bank. And why? Because the US doesn't regulate it's own currency. Countries in the world w/ no debt, like say Russia, print and maintain their own currency. I'm just saying.
5. Then w/ all that in place; bring home every last soldier. They don't need to be anywhere but here, guarding OUR borders, not someone else's.

Screw the IRS! They're just the "heavy" for the private bank. 'No taxation w/out representation' my @$$.

Tsiangkun 2012

[Tsiangkun]

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.

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.

Re:Tsiangkun 2012

[grumpygrodyguy]

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.

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.

Excellent start, here's a few more if I may add to your list:

6) Introduce and pass a bill eliminating campaign contributions once and for all. Also ensure that any elected public official gives up the right to privacy of their financial information. Pass strict laws (including jail terms) for politicians who take bribes from interest groups.

7) Abolish the electoral college system. Create a new system in which No president can be elected without at least 60% of the popular vote. Perhaps allow voters to choose their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4rth, and so on choice. Use weighted averaging to determine which candidate is most popular.

8) Completely re-write copyright and patent law. Reduce copyright terms to 5 years, place far greater weight on prior art. If a "one-click" type patent can be proved identical to an algorithm written in 1975 in some obscure computer science textbook then that patent is immediately and irrevocably dissolved.

9) Federalize technologies like these and dramatically increase funding for alternative energy technologies. Create awards and grants that provide generous wealth incentives for innovators.

10) Legalize file-sharing and constitutionally equate it to freedom of speech, write net-neutrality into law. Clean sweep of the FCC and recreate it as a body which exists solely for the promotion of faster, more reliable, ubiquitous communication services to individual citizens.

11) In the same way Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System; fund and build a massive fiber layout to solve the last mile problem once and for all. Include provisions for alternative solutions like wireless hubs and repeaters. Portion a federal budget for the continuous maintenance of this network.

Re:Tsiangkun 2012

[sconeu]

1) I will repeal corporate personhood.

Good idea, but requires legislation.


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.


Requires legislation. You can have your pet congressman introduce legislation to do so.

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.

a) Sovereign Immunity
b) Someone else has pointed out that the fraud (if any) was not the USSC's fault, and someone had to cut the Gordian Knot.

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".

a) Requires legislation (see 1 and 2).
b) Who is "anyone"?
c) Define "negotiating table"

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

Again, requires legislation. Congress has the power of the purse.


6) Introduce and pass a bill eliminating campaign contributions once and for all. Also ensure that any elected public official gives up the right to privacy of their financial information. Pass strict laws (including jail terms) for politicians who take bribes from interest groups.


Good luck getting that past the inevitable court challenge.


7) Abolish the electoral college system. Create a new system in which No president can be elected without at least 60% of the popular vote. Perhaps allow voters to choose their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4rth, and so on choice. Use weighted averaging to determine which candidate is most popular.

Damn near impossible. Requires a Constitutional Amendment. Good luck with that. Let me know 40 years from now how you did.

8) Completely re-write copyright and patent law. Reduce copyright terms to 5 years, place far greater weight on prior art. If a "one-click" type patent can be proved identical to an algorithm written in 1975 in some obscure computer science textbook then that patent is immediately and irrevocably dissolved.

a) Requires legislation. Copyright is explicitly listed as a Congressional power.
b) Puts us in violation of the Berne Convention, which according to Article VI of the Constitution is co-equal with laws passed by Congress.


9) Federalize technologies like these and dramatically increase funding for alternative energy technologies. Create awards and grants that provide generous wealth incentives for innovators.

You were planning on paying/compensating the "owners" of such technologies, weren't you? Or do you also think that the Constitution (specifically Amendment 5) is just a piece of paper.

10) Legalize file-sharing and constitutionally equate it to freedom of speech, write net-neutrality into law. Clean sweep of the FCC and recreate it as a body which exists solely for the promotion of faster, more reliable, ubiquitous communication services to individual citizens.

a) The first part requires legislation and then a Constitutional Amendment (your words, not mine).
b) The second is doable, but may require legislation, depending on the charter of the FCC as currently legislated by Congress.

11) In the same way Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System; fund and build a massive fiber layout to solve the last mile problem once and for all. Include provisions for alternative solutions like wireless hubs and repeaters. Portion a federal budget for the continuous maintenance of this network.

Again, requires legislation. As I said before, Congress has the power of the purse, NOT the president.

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: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: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?

That's easy

[0xdeadbeef]

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

Might as well...

[kallisti777]

Consider this a platform, since I'll be 35 fairly soon.

1. Use our armed forces for national defense, not the world's police
2. Divert savings from needless wars into balancing the budget and paying down the debt
3. Reverse laws that punish victimless crimes and legislate personal morality
4. Pardon and release non-violent drug offenders to help with prison overcrowding
5. Revise the tax code to bring fairness and relief to the working/middle classes

Since it doesn't look like Dr. Paul will get the nomination, vote me in 2016... if we're still here.

Grand scale and vision

[Liquidrage]

Every election is the same thing. Candidates with speech writers talk the talk of "at home" issues. They can almost never do anything about it because "at home" issues are mostly local issues. Outside of coming up with a way to tax more more, and going to war, Washington doesn't do much for me. When the fed cuts rates or raises them, that impacts me at home. Most of the at home issues they don't belong in anyways.

But what ever happened to thinking big. Last time we thought big was the 60's I guess and the space race. We're a large country, I want a large project. One that inspires us (try putting a price on inspiration), and that becomes a legacy for an entire generation. One whose impact will last for decades.

I would love to see some grand project. Lunar colony (not in 20 years, but like, let's start doing it now). New space vehicle. Particle accelerator bigger then anything on the drawing board today. Something. Anything that inspires us and improves the planet.

I know!

[jollyreaper]

That smokin' hot deaf chick on West Wing.

Oh, I thought you asked "who."

Let's see, what would I do as president? I think the speech would go a little something like this.

"Hey, folks, you know how they say there's nothing that gets an economy moving like a war? Let's consider that for a moment. We're talking about uniting the entire nation behind one goal. We're talking about reordering the economy to meet this goal, every working man and woman either directly engaging in the mission or serving in a supporting role. We train the flower of our youth, equip them with our treasure and send them thousands and thousands of miles away to foreign lands, all this effort just to drop a bomb in someone's lap. Could you imagine going to this sort of effort to give that same guy a helping hand, rebuild a house, provide a hot meal or maybe just a cold beer? It's laughable! And what a sad joke we are as a species that we feel this way.

"So, what's on the agenda for the next four years? We're going to go to war. Not any of this silly war on drugs and terror nonsense, much more effective than the war on poverty. No, we're going to war on business as usual, the way we've always been doing things. We spend $500 billion on the military and what we have to show for it is worth maybe a tenth of that number. Our nation has lost its leading role in science and industry. The solution to these problems is not just throwing money at 'em, the solution is to use that money intelligently.

"It's a simple truth that centralized organizations are among the most efficient forms of human effort we've ever seen. The Soviet Union's economy fell apart because bureaucrats in Moscow tried to make decisions on how business on the other side of the empire should be conducted. The former genius of the capitalist system was the decentralization of authority to the periphery of the economy, let the businesses make decisions on what they need to produce and how to do it. Efficient organizations succeed, inefficient ones are allowed to fail, their capital and employees and resources free to be used by more efficient enterprises. Folks, the consolidation we're seeing with today's megacorporations is simply a repeat of the Soviet folly. And the growing wasteful bureaucracy in Washington is no better.

"Government needs to concentrate on what government does best in a 21st century nation-state. Such duties include providing for the common defense, making treaties with foreign powers, providing regulation and inspection of private enterprise to ensure those organizations operate in the public interest, national health care and retirement funds, and conducting basic research in the sciences.

"Government is not to be a piggy bank for special interests to raid. It is not a cash cow to be tapped by connected contractors who have made big donations to politicians. To that end, all political campaigns will be publicly funded. Anyone money recieved from outside the election funding system will be seen as a bribe and the criminal penalties will follow from that."

That's just a few thoughts I had off the cuff. I would assume if I ever were president and tried to say something like that, I'd be taken aside into a smoke-filled room and shown that film of the Kennedy assassination, but shot from a view I've never seen before, a view that looks like it's from the Grassy Knoll. "Any questions?"*

*With apologies to Bill Hicks.

Here goes...

[jpatters]

My first act after being sworn in would be to bring all US troops home from Iraq.

My second act would be to issue a presidential pardon for all non-violent drug offenders.

My legislative priorities, assuming like-minded people have been also been elected to the House and Senate, would be:
1) The end of the War on Some Drugs. The money currently spent on that would go toward drug treatment, see item 3 below.
2) Repeal of the DMCA, and systematic reform of the copyright, trademark and patent laws. Copyright would be an initial term of five years, renewable for one additional term of five years, with an open format preservation requirement for the renewal. The scope of what is protected by trademark law would be substantially narrowed. Software patents would be kaput.
3) A single payer comprehensive national health care plan. Neither employers, nor university presidents would be permitted access to people's medical records.
4) The current tax code would be scrapped, and replaced by a simple progressive income tax with no loopholes. I am also open to using a national sales tax with a progressive, income sensitive prebate program.
5) Immigrants who want to come to the US for a better life would be welcome, without quotas or limits, even if they have darker skin than me or speak a different language.
6) New education standards, with a heavy emphasis on math and science. Schools receiving federal funds would be prohibited from having ID as part of the science curriculum, and would be required to have as much resources put into arts, music and such as are put into sports.

I have some detailed plans for my run....

[crhylove]

...when I'm eligible in 2012:

1. Have a camera and public feed of me at all times, as a true servant of the people.
2. Remove all surveillance cameras and traffic cameras.
3. Fiber to every home and free national internet.
4. No more war unless we are directly under attack.
5. Solar Power.
6. Break up the corporate monopolies.
7. Free the radio and television spectrums for public use.
8. Give the public the truth about JFK and Roswell and 9/11 (I'm not saying I know what it is, but as president, I would, right?).
9. Completely restore the constitution.
10. Go back to the Gold standard.
11. Eliminate the current credit card system.
12. National Health Care
13. Make copyright last no longer than 5 years, for any design or art.
14. Fix our defunct education system (something along the lines of OLPC/wikipedia).
15. Invest more in NASA.
16. Move from airplanes to a slower, cheaper, safer, more environmentally friendly zeppelin system.
17. Expand the peace corp.
18. Give every American a free cellular video phone.
19. Lock up all the criminals currently in power.
20. Repair our international relations with every country not actively involved in a genocide.
21. Give incentives for electric vehicles, like the Tesla Motor Car.

I have a few other goals, and I think they are actually realistic. Some will be harder than others, obviously. A lot of money will be saved over the current system as we are eliminating much of the corporate profiteering (health insurance, cellular companies, internet providers, cable companies), and by implementing a superior video phone infrastructure, there will be less need to travel or commute. Plus, once the solar infrastructure is all in place, it will be much cheaper to maintain than our current oil based infrastructure. After all the ground work is done I'd like to focus on safer and healthier food, quality of life, and mental health issues, as well as an improved food pyramid that reflects more of the true benefits of eating higher quantities of hormone free meat, and chemical free vegetables and fruit. There is plenty of evidence showing that the current food pyramid is dead wrong.

I'd also like it if as an aptitude test for graduating high school, kids could build a simple radio, fix a car, perform CPR, write a basic software application, and read music on at least one instrument. I also think reading, writing, and arithmetic are important, but we should be farther along by now.

Another area of research we should invest more in is automated vehicles. The traffic and mortality rates here in southern California are pretty atrocious. My carbon-fiber solar powered zeppelin designs could go a long way to assisting in this endeavor as well.

Re:My top 10

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be nice to be 16

Re:Going back to capitalism.

[sktea]

Take the US mail for instance - it used to be a government ran cooperation, but went under private ownership and saved a ton of money by working for profits.

Are you high?

The U.S. Postal Service is an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States," according to statute; it is wholly government-owned and, as such, is exempt from prosecution under the Sherman Act, according to the Supreme Court. I quote from this link: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=540&page=736

"The Postal Service has different goals, obligations, and powers from private corporations. Its goals are not those of private enterprise. The most important difference is that it does not seek profits, but only to break even...."

PUH-leeze. Get the facts wrong, and you're MY meat.

I would tax the poor.

[LibertineR]

I'm not kidding. Anything you want less of in America, you should just tax it. Nothing works better.

Rich people are EXPERT at staying rich. They tax the poor all the time, and because economic education in America sucks, few realize it.

Next, I would bring back the F-14 Tomcat, just because of the cool-factor, but also because the Hornet cant carry enough gas to do anything bad-ass.

FORCE every child in America to pass Logic 101, thus ending all public protests, unions, strikes, and Geraldo Rivera.

To halt Drunk driving, I would remove parking lots from all bars and liquor stores. Walk it off, bitches.

I would last, institute the "Apple Act" where if a corporation cannot prove what it claims in its advertisements, an F-14 drops a JDAM on their headquarters building.

Re:Couldn't do it.

[techpawn]

"What would you do as King?"

It's good ta be da King!

10 Steps -- Whole Lotta Humility

[eepok]

Step #1 - Get the resumes of each of the people who have the opportunity to directly influence my decisions. Get rid of the people whose resumes are not up to my standards. Well, maybe not, "get rid". Possibly just bench them.

Step #2 - Neuter the Department of Homeland Security. Start finding different places for their employees to go because I would shut them down before my term is over.

Step #3 - Address the country and read to them the Bill of Rights and first bit of the Declaration of Independence... then apologize for the lies of many of my predecessors while thanking them for creating such a stable staging ground for the next era of development of the nation.

Step #4 - Befriend the ACLU and the NRA

Step #5 - Slowly, begin to trim the fat from various auxiliary military budgets and reinvest that money in raising the quality of Intermediate, Elementary, Pre-K education/childcare. (New Teacher Initiatives, Federal bonuses for X many years as a teacher, etc.)

Step #6 - Add debt forgiveness incentives against higher education loans if the student enters industries of high need and/or learns Arabic, Chinese (either), Korean, Spanish, Japanese.

Step #7 - Begin swapping US troops for UN Peacekeepers (2:1) in Iraq and sponsor a system of reconstruction that will allow for schools and infrastructure over profit-focused industry. (They can do that on their own)

Step #8 - Address the UN. State that the US has been wrong on many occasions and we will often continue to be wrong. However, today, we begin to acknowledge our shortcomings and will begin the long trek to become the nation we always wanted to be.

Step #9 - Re-regulate energy companies around the nation (If you want guaranteed profit, don't expect it to be a lot).

Step #10 - Sit down with the automotive industry and tell them that I will not be covering any of their butts for any reason until they allow their engineers low-fuel-consumption automobiles to hit the production line WITH attractive exteriors.

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.

Non-Native Americans?

[tepples]

I would increase punishments for non native americans who commit crimes. At what fraction of "Indian" blood would you draw the line? Or by "native" did you mean a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment?

Actionable Items List

[justanyone]

Quick priorities:
- Carbon tax that feeds R&D and subsidies to clean tech;
- NASA reforms including purchases of commodity products as-delivered-to-orbit with no spec on how to get them there;
- Foreign aid money governed by transparency index (Transparency International at transparency.org);
- Emissions taxes that self-finance the EPA (tax all emissions and fines go to further enforcement);
- Net neutrality and passenger bill-of-rights acts;
- Repeal of monopoly power over broadband re: cable modems, etc.
- College subsidies for U.S. citizens or foreigners that intend to locate here;
- Strict enforcement of current INS laws requiring workers to show proof of employability before being allowed to work here coupled with green card lottery (worldwide, not just to Mexico);
- Repeal of Patriot act provisions for search without warrents;
- Redeployment of almost all U.S. troops from South Korea;
- Change from a Class A to a Class B drug (legalization, under inpatient Doctor's supervision), of the Heroin addiction cure Ibogaine ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine/rel=url2html-972http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine/ >;
- No Child Left Behind act changes to ease regulatory burden and channel money where its needed;
- Expansion of the Peace Corps.;
- Possible construction of a Trans-Alaska highway / railway that can lead to a cross-Bearing straights bridge;
- Possible approval of a nuclear pebble bed reactor design and reprocessing facilities;
- A balanced budget.

Just some ideas.

I would lead by THESE TWO WORDS

[Dystopian Rebel]

"Ask Slashdot"

Top ten things

[Quiet_Desperation]

1. Everyone who ever picked on me as a kid would receive all expense paid accommodations in Gitmo.

2. A Manhatten Project level of effort to develop realistic sexbots.

3. Presidential Security: Bye-bye Secret Service. Hello Mord'Sith.

4. New Marine units composed of the Islamic extremists worst nightmare: superbutch lesbians locked into eternal PMS synchronization. Name? The Crimson Tide.

5. The immediate carpet bombing of Hollywood.

6. Churches? Tax 'em, and require every claim they make about their deities be backed up by documented proof.

7. Abortions would be free for all at sidewalk kiosks and in malls. No age limit. No question asked.

8. Power? Breeder reactors (and other advanced types) that double as desalination plants. More power? Gentetically bred giant superhampsters.

9. Lawyers who lose frivolous lawsuit would be able to keep their license to practice, but they'd have to fight a lion using nothing but a spork.

10. Everytime I get something like "Slow down, Cowboy. It has been X minutes since you last posted!" where X is anything greater than 2, a Slashdot editor is waterboarded.

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:Communism

[thatskinnyguy]

In Soviet Russia, all of these things happened.

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

At least I'm self aware...

[nick_davison]

...Get impeached.

Re:Elected on Fri, Assassinated on Sat, Buried on

[cmpalmer]

To the tune of "If I Only Had A Brain"...

I could get myself a blowjob
Deny it with a snowjob
Or some story I invent
F*** the interns that they send me
then have my wife defend me
If I was the president...

Oh they cant do nothing to me
unless she says she blew me
and knows my cock is bent
I would orally debrief her
Sit back and smoke some reefer
If I was the president...

Climate Change, anyone?

[Gauchito]

After reading everyone's posts, I'm worried that policies to fight climate change aren't on most (not even many!) of the lists! And this on a site that caters to the theoretically better educated portion of the population.

I can think of no issue that is larger today than global warming. At least to me, everything else seems petty and moot, especially if climate change is just going to undo in a really big way the strides made in the areas the other posters seem to care about.

I'm consistently more concerned and depressed by our lemming-like walk to the climate catastrophe cliff, but I had hoped that at least our part of the general population was aware and worried and, given the opportunity, would act in anyway they could to prevent it. If I were president, I would scale down on all the wastes of money this government currently has enacted, devote much of the money currently spent on petty projects into research and infrastructure so we can leave something behind for our kids. I would fight tooth and nail to get the corn and coal lobbies off the government's back so progress can finally be made in constructive action.

Bush has wasted so much of our time to act, why aren't we feeling the sense of urgency more widely by now?

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: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:The question is not whether he is a racist

[Zeinfeld]

Why do you think that candidates generally include the line, "I am candidate name and I approve of this message." in their ads?

Because it is a legal requirement that they do so. mcCain Feingold introduced that requirement to stop the practice of anonymous attack ads.

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.

If you have a forum you can invite others without necessarily endorsing their message. But that is not what Bush and Reagan did. They choose the forums they did in order to send an express but coded message of support for those racist institutions.

Whether Ron Paul wrote the articles that appeared under his name is frankly irrelevant. The President of the Oxford Union can invite Gerry Adams or David Irving to speak if he chooses without necessarily endorsing his position. But publishing an written by one of them in a newsletter that only carries his name and has no indication that it is an outside contribution is an express endorsement of the position.

I have yet to hear if Ron Paul is or is not repudiating the positions in the newsletter. If he does not repudiate them he is a racist, lets not waste any more time arguing the point. If he does repudiate the positions we should be told what else he is likely to be repudiating in the future.

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.

Homey's master plan to bop the Man

[Tumbleweed]

In no particular order:

1) Recall U.S. troops from Iraq and probably Afghanistan, and any secret troops in Iran
2) Reinstitute Habeas Corpus
3) Initiate investigation into war crimes on the part of previous administration officials, as well as charges of treason (The Bush administration has gone WAY beyond 'impeachable offenses')
4) Release political prisoners in U.S. (of course this also includes Gitmo/Abuwhatever type places, but let's not forget people like Leonard Peltier, etc.)
5) Honor existing treaties with Native American tribes.
6) Appoint N.M. Governor Bill Richardson as Secretary of State, and send his ass out on a very long trip to start repairing U.S. relations abroad. I doubt this dude will be back by the end of my administration.
7) Find lackeys in Congress to start legislation I suggest, such as: no Congressional payraises unless a proportional increase in the minimum wage is approved at the same time.
8) Enforcement of the Constitution: try to get laws in place that forbid the kind of things W has been up to. Immediate legal penalties on politicians (including the President) if these laws are broken.
9) Fix the voting machine mess; mandate a auditable paper trail.
10) Fix the gerrymandering of voting districts - by either side.
11) Fix the EPA, and allow states to implement stricter pollution standards (but disallow looser standards)
12) Legalize, regulate, and tax the holy hell out of Marijuana.
13) Fully legalize hemp, and provide incentives to switch as much cotton production as is feasible over to hemp. (better for the environment, and actually more profitable for agribusiness.)
14) Legalize, regulate, and tax the holy hell out of prostitution.
15) Make lobbying a felony
16) Change the law so that corporations are not legal entities on a par with an actual human
17) Make animal abuse a felony, and make people convicted of it tracked; they often have serial killer tendencies.
18) No more subsidies to corn agribusiness
19) No more subsidies to oil producers
20) Much higher energy efficiency standards

And that's all I have time for now. I got a million of these, though.

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?

The New Republic

[JDAustin]

How come the strongest attack is coming from The New Republic, a neo-conservative online magazine?

Point of order here. The New Republic is NOT a neo-con site. It is in fact quite liberal. You a probably confusing it with the Free Republic or even the National Review.

Re:The question is not whether he is a racist

[frank_adrian314159]

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.

And so we want a person for President who can't even be bothered to look at what people put out under his own name? Sounds a bit too much like the current one for my tastes.

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.

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.

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, then they are leeches.

He is America Man!

Attention Moderators!

[Torodung]

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

--
Toro

LALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALA!!!!

[Scrameustache]

I have yet to hear if Ron Paul is or is not repudiating the positions in the newsletter. Press Releases Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters

January 8, 2008 5:28 am EST

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA - In response to an article published by The New Republic, Ron Paul issued the following statement:

"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'

"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name."

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

What I would do...

[hittman007]

In no particular order here is what I would do:

1) I would help send forth the powers of capitalism with more tax cuts.
It seems every time our taxes are cut within a year the economy gets stronger. This strength remains with the economy for years. There also gets to be fewer and fewer among the unemployed, and the wages of the working class person go up. As a side effect this also lets companies put more into research and development and produce better products and sell them for less money.

2) I would stop payments of federal monies to any educational institution who refused to have our military come and recruit.
The money given is a privilege not a right. The military organizations are responsible for the defence of this country, and throughout our history have done a great job. Without them we would not enjoy the freedoms that we take for granted. To openly deny them the chance to talk to potential volunteers only hurts our country further.

3) I would withdraw any monies that we freely give to any country who's leaders openly hate us.
We are part of the most generous nation and have done more good for others than any in the history of the planet. No nation has ever given away so much to so many other nations that open hate us. This funding should be cut off until suck time that the countries we freely give our money at least hide their hate.
3a) I would withdraw from the United Nations.
This organization has accomplished nothing that is worthwhile in recent times. Since the US won the cold war, and even before that it has done little to no good. Virtually all off the members hate us and actively try to drag us down and limit us.

4) I would invest in education, but not just with money.
Throwing money at the education problem has yet to fix it or even make it better. I would have standards that are required to be maintained. Students of a certain grade level will be expected to know such and such material, and if enough in a class don't the teacher would be held responsible. This is of utmost importance as every citizen of this country should have an equal opportunity at whatever it is they want to do.

5) I would shut down the border to stop the flow of people breaking our laws by entering our country without going through the proper channels.
5a) I would also withhold any federal money to any state or city that openly violates federal law and allows illegal immigrants to stay there.
5b) I would institute stiff federal fines for any company that hires any illegal immigrant.
5c) I would seek an amendment to the constitution that would make the children of illegal immigrants not US citizens.
I am not against immigration, I am against illegal immigration. I am also not a racist (although from the stand that I have taken on this issue many of you will automatically think I am no matter what I say). There have been many problems in regard to these issues, and some say that these people are a necessity in todays world. If it is such a necessity (which I personally don't believe) then come up with a program where we can issue greencards, and do background checks on the people coming in.

6) I would continue taking the war on terror to the enemy.
Terrorism is the biggest external threat to our nation today. I would actively oppose it with the use of intelligence, economic pressure, international pressure via our allies, and even military force if need be. I would maintain a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan until they can handle their own defence. To leave these two theaters of war before they can defend themselves would be asking for terrorist regimes to attack them and attempt to take control again. The people in both countries are better off now than they were before, and we need to fight to let them be better of under their own governments.

7) I would actively fight to remedy and prevent obvious failures.
7a) Universal Health Care.
This has been tried by many other