If I Was President I would...

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

If you were President how would you tackle the big hot button issues? How would you do better? What is your policy page going to say? 

I've done enough bitching, criticism, and accusations of fascism without much of a provided "better way" to do things. I can bitch about Trump, but where's my policy page, and what would I do differently? 

Basically its a put up or shut up thread.

So here's my hypothetical Candidate page.

Immigration:

Enforced border. Yes, even a wall, but still an ease to the process that makes people WANT to just stand in line. Get a temporary stay (if they pass the Global Background check created for fast processing and flagging) until their court date. If they pass that assessment, they can stay. 

Devote resources to vetting and processing entrants, not indiscriminate enforcement and removal.

Women's Rights: 

Honestly, any compromise answer I can come up with meets a death from the supremacy clause.

I think we should have a federal protected right to self-determination and the states should have rights to say "do it elsewhere" at the same time.

Reestablishing federal protection under the 14th prevents states from prosecuting women who go elsewhere.

But the supremacy clause gets in the way and forces everyone to provide whether they want to or not, which is why they used Dobbs to overturn Roe. 

LGBT:

Right to marry. Right to serve. Right to IVF. Right to adopt. Right to put whatever you want on your ID or passport.

Now to the really contentious transgender issue. 

I would adopt Israel's approach to the transgender. While anyone over 18 can qualify for state-funded sex changes, they have strict guidelines for surgical procedures under 18, and generally offer ONLY hormone therapy until 18 without special approval by a medical/psychological board. 

They have also developed an "open" division for transathletes. No real Israeli opposition either. We could be like Israel and do that here. And then no one would dwell on it anymore. 

I don't see much against traditional lesbians and gays. The rollbacks only go to the Biden era additions for the transgender. 

Healthcare:

Continued use of our hybrid Swiss model, and the ACA, because it's the closest 335 million plus will ever get (or should want to get) to Bernie Sander's single payer dream.

Environmental:

Back to climate accords. While there's a lot we don't know about interglacial periods, there's still as much causation evidence for anthropogenic climate change as there is for every noted volcanic cooling evident. Its real, and it will get worse. Fund innovation in fuels like Hydrogen and shoot for Fusion by 2050.

Wind and solar are nice to provide a boost. Nuclear over fossil fuels, even with the waste. 

Move away from petroleum dependence.

End hydraulic fracturing. Unless you like reawakened aulocogens and intraplate nightmares. The myth being cambrian era mid-plate points of weakness can't unleash induced destruction.

Use a created endoheic basin to divert salt water and build inland desalination plants away from currents that can be screwed up by salinity changes.

Like build a pipeline from the pacific to the Salton Sea and line it with desalination plants and salt companies. It's a mistake that it exists anyway. 

Law and Order:

Well funded police protect better than ones who are not. Felonies for shoplifting sounds fine. 20 years for 200 pills of fentanyl on first offense sounds fine too. Mercy only for users.

End private for profit correctional facilities.

Church/State Separation:

Deal with the TST's winged hermoprodite  after school and I'll defend the football team praying if they choose. Everyone or no one. (including practices that still use legal sacrifice with limits to decency - mock rituals) Like the real reason "Botanica" stores exist every 5 blocks in every barrio.

No one religion to be made superior.

Education:

Keep Department of Education. Keep public funds flowing. But offer whatever they want. Stop being so freaking rigid and allow for religious charters, montessori charters, godless science charters, all funded the same in the name of secularism and equality. All or nothing. Allow for the parent to choose their values in education.  

Government Size: 

Smaller is ideal. But streamlining it shouldn't be used as a partisan purge device.  Waste isn't necessarily done through larger number of employees either. The CA high speed rail wasted federal money on impact surveys, too many levels of bureaucracy, greedy collective bargaining, and too many greased hands to build every bridge to nowhere way over budget. Contractor inefficiency and everyone trying to get a piece for as long as possible. Overvalued and underbudgeted by greedy design. That's what you go after. 

Social programs:

Medicare, medicade, and social security saved even if a slightly larger paycheck deduction is eventually needed.

SNAP/WIC/EBT likewise preserved as has always been done.  Combat abuse of programs. Create efficiency division to crack down on "Dole Bludgers,"  my favorite Aussie slang word. 

Ecomonic:

No more trade tariffs. As close to global free trade as possible. Low regulations. Interconnected commerce. Even outsourcing for Cambodian Walmart Huffys. 

Taxes:

* edited since first posting. (Math estimates had to work towards surpluss with low income taxes)

High Tax/Low Tax Hyrbid Reagan-Obama plan

14% & 21% - Long-term Capital gains. 
35% - Top income tax bracket. (Now @ 37%)
32% - Second highest bracket (now @ 35%)
28% - Third highest bracket (now @ 32%)
21% - Everyone above low income (Now @ 24% and 22%)
10%  -  low income (now @ 10 and 12%) 
35% -  Top corporate bracket
28% -  Middle corporate bracket
21% -  Low corporate bracket.

5 year expatriate penalty for moving your company overseas to avoid higher than wanted but still profitable corporate taxes.
​​​
This will give you the Reaganomic growth effect and you'll make it up off the top revenues In corporate tax on the backend. Simultaneously stimulate the economy with middle and upper class cuts of 1 to 4%. 

We get way more revenue from corporate tax than anyone else. NVIDIA and Alphabet saved California's shortfall last year. And they were still massively in the green. Companies will have less profit, but their personal income will be better, and they'll have less regulations. 

This uses the: "But your company is dereuglated and laissez faire as shit, so STFU and pay your 35% rate, you'll still be in the green, I promise" 

Foreign Policy:

Transparency first of all. I probably wouldn't use cryptic tweets that cause cognitive dissonance anymore. Or railroad foreign heads of state over internet falsehoods. 

Emphasis on strengthening international ties and relations through free trade and cordial behavior.  Increase military interconnectivity within NATO and Pacific military allies like Japan, South Korea, Austrailia, and The Phillipines.

End the "lucky to have our support" mindset we're leveraging NATO with. Have more public diplomatic respect.

Defense:

A trillion sounds fine. I don't want to be killed with Lockheed money. I won't even push them to answer why a doorknob costs us 300 dollars.

There's lots more which I didn't cover. 

But there you mostly have it.  These are my actual views. A lot of tweaking was needed on a workable deficit reducing growth stimulating tax plan. 

You can do yours or not. I just wanted to post my mock Canidate Policy Page at least once, just so it's out there the next time I'm called a commie over my immigration views.

[Ignorant]

Great idea for a thread. I'll do mine, but differently.

I don't want to get too distracted by policy details. Us democrats always fall into that trap. I have taken one of Pete Buttigieg's points to heart: We should instead restart the values argument that we gave up in the 80s. What do we stand for? Does America even know? LGBT issues, black lives matter? No. That's what the right wants everyone to think we stand for, because it makes for an easy target, and it's selling ourselves short. What we stand for is freedom. The democratic party is the party of freedom. It's time to take back that word.

Another reason not to dive too deep into policy is that as president we can't do whatever we want. We have concerns about what could pass congress, and about setting the party up for success in the future. I see the presidency more as a leadership role. He needs to be saying the right things to reach the hearts and minds of the population. His role in lawmaking is not so much inventing the laws himself, more leading the party (ideally the entire government, but bipartisanship is dead) and thereby steering congress to focus on the areas he would like to focus on. And of course he should be worried about re-election. We should favor spending political capital to do popular things that also happen to be right, rather than doing the best possible thing even if it's unpopular, unless it's particularly urgent. Why? Because if we spend 4 years doing the right thing and then another Trump gets elected because we angered too many voters, was our contribution really a positive one?

In other words, the idealist in us will have to make way for the pragmatist. I'll structure my post as follows:

1) The most important issues
2) What I would like to do
3) What, out of the things I would like to do, is popular enough to pursue
4) How I would try to set my party up for success

1) The most important issues

Right away I should start with what I think will be humanity's biggest challenge in the coming decades: AI. If it doesn't end our species, it will at the very least change our economy to such an extent that very radical reforms will be needed. And no, I'm not talking about the current LLM's, I'm talking about future models that will be smart enough to replace every single human office worker. How far away is this? We don't know, but it's coming, that is a certainty in my mind, and it could be a matter of years. We have to be prepared.

To properly address the radical and swift economic changes the world is facing, a well-functioning representative democracy is needed. This is at the top of my list. America's democracy is ailing. It is under direct attack right now, but it was ailing even before. Structural reforms are needed to reduce the influence of money in politics, make the government more representative overall, and strengthen the rule of law. Every single other issue depends on this. If the government doesn't work for the people, we might as well wrap it up.

To understand what I mean, imagine a scenario where AI automates 90% of office work in the span of months. Imagine the reforms that will be needed (think major taxation overhaul, UBI, etcetera). If the government is beholden to big tech lobbyists (who will be very rich indeed in this scenario), can we trust it to make the necessary changes? Or will it enable big tech to essentially remove half of the population from the economy, pushing them into poverty? If, at that point, the government is not ready to step up in order to protect the millions of people who will be out of a job overnight, we're looking at a dark future where the function of government is to oppress the people, not to serve them.

2) What I would like to do

My focus, then, is on democratic reform. As for reforms to prepare us for the radical economic changes that are coming, none are needed yet. Most important there is to set up the government so that it's working for the people, because only then can we rely on it to do the right thing when the need arises.

Here's what I would like to do in order to fix America's democracy:

a) Abolish primaries.
b) Reform the supreme court such that it is no longer allowed to check laws against the constitution. It took that role upon itself and I believe it was wrong to do so.
c) Fix the filibuster loophole.
d) Change the electoral system such that densely populated areas are more influential.
e) Make it easier to vote

No doubt some explanation is needed. For (a) you might think: How would abolishing primaries make our democracy more representative? Isn't this undemocratic? More about that here. To summarize, primaries make parties weak, and weak parties lead to high demand for money in politics. Abolishing primaries will reduce that demand.

There is another reason weak parties are bad. I'm not sure I can explain this in just a few sentences but I'll give it a shot. In short, weak parties enable populists and pull parties away from the center. When you don't have primaries, parties will be focused on selecting a candidate that has the broadest possible appeal in the general election (after all there is only a general election). This tends to pull them towards the center because the further you go towards the extremes, the larger the slice of the political spectrum you are alienating. When you have primaries on the other hand, candidates can position themselves on the fringes and still come out on top. We need not look far to see the detrimental effects of this: Trump, a shockingly unqualified populist, was elected twice. Without primaries, he would have never stood a chance.

Then (b). I think the constitution should be considered a guideline. It's vague and outdated and I worry that, with the big changes our society is facing, it's going to become a roadblock to necessary change. With rulings like Buckley and Citizens United, which enabled lobbyists to wield massive influence over politicians, we see a court that is out of step with what the people actually want, in this case preventing campaign finance law to get to where it needs to be. This is a problem. To fix it, and prevent any other disastrous rulings that are sure to follow if we allow this to continue, I would reform the court to no longer have the authority to deem laws passed by congress unconstitutional (e.g. Citizens United v FEC). It would also lose the ability to "invent" laws based on the constitution (e.g. Roe v Wade). It would be the highest court of appeals and nothing more.

I think © should go without saying but I can explain if requested. As for the electoral system (d), I would change many things, all intended to reduce the influence of rural areas and increase the influence of densely populated areas. The current system creates a situation where rural areas which have very little impact on the economy have a disproportionally big impact on election results. I am neither qualified nor have the time to go into detail about what I would like to change. The intent is what matters, anyway.

3) What's popular enough to pursue

This, I think, is the hardest question to answer as president. What's worth pursuing? For now I'll focus on what I think is popular enough to pursue. Whether or not it's actually worth pursuing depends on other things as well, which I'll go into later. For now:

a) Abolishing primaries would not be popular, and besides, it's not really the place of the government to tell parties how to organize themselves. I would not pursue this in any way.
b) SCOTUS reform requires a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority. In the current political climate that is a pipe dream, so this is getting abandoned also.
c) The thing about the filibuster is that most Americans don't realize how big of a problem it is. This means spending political capital to fix it gets us relatively little reward, making it a painful thing to pursue. Also, we have to admit to ourselves that political gridlock isn't necessarily a bad thing if the other problems aren't fixed yet. If government isn't working for the people, best it not work at all. I might want to pursue this, but not first.
d) This kind of reform would be fought tooth and nail by republicans, and would therefore be politically costly to pursue. That doesn't necessarily disqualify it from contention, but I'd tread carefully. Clear majorities in both houses would be needed.
e) Republicans would fight this too, but they can be relatively small, gradual changes. I would try to fit these in wherever I could.

4) How I would try to set my party up for success

You might have noticed that my presidency faces a rather glaring issue: Nothing I want to do qualifies as a centerpiece achievement that gets people excited to come out and vote for my re-election, and to vote for my party again. I risk people asking, after my 4 year term, "did he really do anything?". People care a lot about health care, wealth inequality, inflation, immigration, you name it. For the record I believe these are important issues, but the urgency is elsewhere. None of them can be addressed properly without fixing American democracy first.

So how to approach this? Basically I would try to effect the necessary reforms in the background, if at all possible (in fact I'm guessing it's probably not politically viable to get anything significant done that I consider important). In the foreground, I would pick a hot issue that people care about and pursue things with a high reward to cost ratio, meaning the political cost is low and the reward is high. This means I would be pursuing mostly symbolic political successes while trying to do the important stuff in the background. Think of it as gaining political capital with quick wins, and spending it on important things in the background.

Rhetoric is important. A president, perhaps above all, has a responsibility to use his greatly amplified voice for good. Beyond pursuing the aforementioned policies and symbolic victories, I would talk about freedom and equal opportunity. A lot. Whatever the hot issues are that I pick to get my quick wins, it will have to be something that ties into this. This is where the left has an edge ideologically. I want to get the country on board with the fact that freedom from government is not the only important kind of freedom. There is also practical freedom, the broader kind of freedom of being able to live a life of our choosing. That means getting the best treatment, not worrying about which treatment we're able to afford. It means not growing up in poverty or being stuck in an abysmal public school system. It means being free to marry whomever we want, etcetera. It means setting people up for success. I would talk about this whenever I could, and hopefully get through to people. After all, if people take this on board, it promises a bright future for the democratic party and by extension the country.

Another thing I would need a rhetorical answer to is the issue of dying neoliberalism. The country is ready to admit that trickle down economics don't work for the majority, and while I don't think it's prudent to pursue explicitly anti-neoliberal economic policy (I'm a firm believer of free trade, for one), I do think I need some kind of economic message to reach voters in the midwest who were left behind by decades of neoliberal policy. A strong pro-union, pro-social security message might go a long way in showing the dying middle class that I'm on their side. Perhaps even whispers of UBI, knowing full well that this will be necessary soon enough.

Also, I might as well talk as much as possible about the things republicans don't want to talk about, such as abortion rights, citizens united, wealth inequality, etcetera. Who knows, maybe it makes a dent.

How all of that fits together, well, that's a question for my staff.

[putnam6]

This was a great idea, IP, and Im looking forward to reading this...

i could get behind 24% tax rate

Here's my absolutes.... Im sure I'll return for a proper reply

#1  end the 2 party system monopoly

#2 end corporate lobbyists

#3 2-4 year terms  maximum

[Ignorant]

Maybe this is premature, after all you did say you were probably coming back for a proper reply, but hey, maybe you need a little push, and to know people are interested.

#1  end the 2 party system monopoly

Why do you think the 2 party system is bad, and how would you end it?

#2 end corporate lobbyists

How?

[Sirius]

So basically you want to keep the current system in place

[putnam6]

Maybe this is premature, after all you did say you were probably coming back for a proper reply, but hey, maybe you need a little push, and to know people are interested.

Why do you think the 2 party system is bad, and how would you end it?

How?

Haha,but remember you asked for it

I got sidetracked, discussing Iran and Israel, which still has some devastating possibilities 

All bets are off if we stumble into World War III. 


When most of your population identifies with being independent or chooses not to participate in the process at all, it probably highlights that they don't believe in or trust the process

Elections shouldn't take a year. We have the same election timeline as the 1860s; it took so long then because we didn't have instant communication

That's way too long to fund a new organization with the hopes of being accepted to just attend the debates. As it is, the networks choose the candidates their corporation wants to show debating for President; the corporation didn't want RFK Jr., so they didn't have to let him debate. Let's not forget both RNC and DNC candidates throw thier weight around in discussing just the debate format too.

All of that needs to be standardized...

But there's so much more; only the RNC and the DNC get federal funding. Yeah, that sounds like a free and fair people's election

Generally, the hoops a third party needs to jump through need to be eliminated. FEDERAL funding needs to be curtailed and cut back. The days of spending a billion dollars on a losing campaign are over; all campaigns should have the same Federal funding. There should be lower caps on total donations and individual donation totals

3 months max for the PRIMARY, 3 months max for the GENERAL elections are so obnoxiously expensive because it takes too long.

RFKjr wanted to run independently, but he knew there was no way, so he had to compromise and be absorbed into the Trump campaign.

Ask yourself how much the defection of RFKjr from the DNC helped Trump? 

His going to the Trump campaign was better for the DNC than him running as a 3rd party, though, as they would have likely lost even more states.

There is so much more here, and it goes down to the state and local levels. We have to inspire and encourage more independent candidates who aren't molded by the RNC, DNC party apparatus. Im not suggesting the European model of dozens of different parties either, but a couple of more candidates thrown into the fray would force the DNC and RNC to acknowledge those parties' constituents. 

Thats just federally, state, and locally, it's even more difficult

While Im not a proponent of eliminating the electoral system, we need to identify flaws and quirks in the system. As it is, it's estimated California's undocumented population gives them 5 more electoral college "votes". Those 5 votes are more than some states' total electoral votes, all just because of the census. Now, imagine how that population affects state districting. It's all a convoluted mess that needs some restructuring. 

This is just off the top of my head

Grok summarizes the difficulties a 3rd party candidate faces.
 

 
Breaking the monopoly of the American two-party system as a third-party presidential candidate is extremely difficult due to structural, legal, and cultural barriers. Here's a concise breakdown:

• Electoral System: The U.S. uses a "winner-take-all" system for presidential elections via the Electoral College. This favors major parties, as third-party candidates rarely win entire states to secure electoral votes. For example, Ross Perot in 1992 won 18.9% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes.
  
• Ballot Access Laws: Each state has different, often stringent, requirements for third-party candidates to appear on ballots, such as collecting thousands of signatures within tight deadlines. These rules are costly and time-consuming, designed to favor established parties.
  
• Funding and Media: Major parties have vast donor networks and public funding. Third-party candidates struggle to raise competitive funds and are often excluded from debates, limiting visibility. The Commission on Presidential Debates, controlled by Democrats and Republicans, sets high polling thresholds (e.g., 15%) for inclusion.
  
• Voter Psychology: Many voters view third-party votes as "wasted" due to the spoiler effect, where supporting a third party might indirectly help the least-preferred major candidate. This entrenches loyalty to the two-party system.
  
• Historical Precedent: No third-party candidate has won the presidency since the modern two-party system solidified in the mid-19th century. The last significant disruption was the Republican Party's rise in 1860, replacing the Whigs, but this required a major realignment not seen since.
  
• Party Infrastructure: Democrats and Republicans have deep-rooted organizations at local, state, and national levels, with loyal voter bases and experienced operatives. Third parties lack comparable networks.
  

Potential Pathways: 

• A charismatic, well-funded candidate with broad appeal could gain traction, as Perot did.
  
• A major party collapsing or splitting could create an opening, though this is rare.
  
• Grassroots movements leveraging social media might bypass traditional barriers, but sustaining momentum is tough.
  

Difficulty Level: Near-insurmountable without systemic reform (e.g., ranked-choice voting, proportional representation) or a massive societal shift. Third parties more often influence policy by forcing major parties to adopt their ideas rather than winning outright.

[Ignorant]

I'm not as against the two party system as you are, but even so, your suggestions sound mostly fine to me. The thing is, it's easy for us armchair presidents to make suggestions. We owe it to the spirit of the thread, I think, to give realistic suggestions and make some attempt at laying out a path to their implementation (this is actually what I meant when I asked "How?" but I understand that you interpreted the question the way you did, I wasn't clear). You realize almost all of your suggestions require constitutional amendments? Pretty much non-starters, the lot of them. If you were president, would you spend your political capital on non-starters? I'll give you some credit and assume the pragmatist in you would quickly abandon them.

So what would you actually (try to) do?