opinions-political-whatIWouldDoIfIWerePresidentOfTheUnitedStatesOfAmerica-chapter8specifivDomesticPolicies

WRITTEN IN 2007

As I've said earlier, I believe that domestic policy is the job of Congress, not of the President, with three exceptions:

• policing Congress/fighting corruption in the legislature
• forcing Congress to deal with important issues which are politically advantageous to ignore
• passing on to Congress legislative suggestions which originate from federal employees (that is, drawing attention to the ideas of the people who actually do the work)
• calling attention to issues that the president thinks are personally important through communication with the public

I also recognize, however, that our political traditions require presidential candidates to provide "leadership" by putting forward a legislative agenda. While I would prefer to avoid this, I recognize that a presidential candidate is constrained to offer at least some opinions on legislative matters in order to be elected.

So, here are some specific issues that would be on my legislative agenda as president:

• very strict congressional ethics regulations
• reform redistricting to prevent gerrymandering
• voter-verifiable ballots
• civil rights
• transparency in government
• public election financing
• possibly: switch to a vote-counting method which doesn't disadvantage moderates and maybe third parties
• reduce national debt without increasing taxes for people with incomes below one S.D. of the average, and without increasing taxes for the rich above 1950s levels
• increase teacher pay

The national debt would be one of the hardest ones to achieve. Perhaps I would pledge to veto all spending bills until the projected budget is running a surplus of at least 1/20 of the debt. This proportion would increase each year that I was in office. I would make an exception for bills that I thought addressed a major unexpected emergency (almost any large decrease in government spending would lead to some loss of life, so loss of thousands of lives must not be considered an "emergency"). I would also make an exception for bills which merely were repassed versions of last year's spending bills.

Perhaps I would have to pledge to veto all bills, not just spending bills. Maybe with an exception for my very favorite bills, at least, for those of my favorites whose objective are clearly nonpartisan, for instance the anti-corruption ones.