Benevolent Dictator for a Day

[stebo0728]

Ok, hopefully we can have a bit of cheeky fun with this, and not get too carried away, heres the premise:

You are granted benevolent dictatorship for one day, with sole ability to change anything and everything you thought were necessary to change in order to better America. What would you do? Dont just say "oh i like it like it is" because thats BS or you wouldnt be participating in this forum. It could be minor changes, but there has to be at least something. All assumptions are that you have the nations very best interest in mind, so this is no "you unpatriotic" trap, just speak your mind.

So here's mine, and I may be general in some cases, as to not spell out specific policies, but just general ideas:

1) 16th Amendment will be struck down, and a consumption based taxation system, most likely closely resembling the FairTax, would be implemented in its place.

2) 17th Amendment will be struck down, placing the constituency of the Senate back into the State legislatures' hands.

3) Popular vote for US President would cease, returning to Electoral College determination only.

4) Balanced Budget amendment would be implemented.

5) All public services would be terminated, and legislation controlling the outsourcing of said services to private contractors would be implemented.

6) Public service contracting committee(s) would be established within the house, responsible for drafting contracts to be presented to private contractors for the handling of any necessary public services. Any and all contracts drawn up by said committee(s) would require full Congressional approval, and would be subject to Presidential Veto. I say committee(s) because it could be too cumbersome for any one committee to handle all contracts, it may be necessary to have sub committees for varying subjections of services. Any contracts taken on for public services would require quotes from at least 3 providers, or if 3 providers do not exist for said service, then a quote from all providers would be required. Upon unanimous vote of the contracting committee or sub committee, said contract can be revoked for non compliance, or failure to provide adequate service, and the provider quoting 2nd in line from the last quoting period would be immediately provided the contract, provisionally until the next quoting period If 2nd place provider is at that time unable to commit to provision of service, then 3rd place provider will be provided the contract, and so on. The quoting period for any service is to be 2 years. Providers failing to meet contract responsibilities will be henceforth barred from future quoting, unless restoration be passed unanimously by governing committee or subcommittee. Any member of Congress sitting on committee or subcommittee presiding over contract of any particular service is to not have received campaign donations from any quoting provider, nor in a period of 5 years after last contract expiration from said provider. This is a big one here, and admittedly may need some tweaking here and there, so Im open to suggestions.

7) Im not sure how to word this next one, so heres the idea. And Im struggling with it because it will seem like government control of the market place, so I may ditch it after all, but at least for now it seems at least somewhat logical. Employers will be required to staff any non-citizen employees only through the service of a licensed Staffing firm. Any employee found to be employed that is not either a valid citizen, or staffed through said Staffing firm, will incur a fine. Any non-citizen found to be employeed through said firm, and is found to be illegitimately stateside, will result in immediate denouncing of said firm's licensing for a period of 1 year, after which their license can be reinstated upon approval. Any legitimate non-citizen employees staffed by said firm will have 30 days to renegotiate employment with another firm. The firm will actually be the employer of the non-citizen, and will be responsible, as part of the employment contract, to provide any needs of the employee. Such provisions would be part of the structure of the cost incurred by the firms clients who employ these workers. All workers have a 2 year allowed time to work, after which they must return to their originating nation. At this point they may reapply for employment again, and may be brought back as sufficient labor demand exists. Any of these workers may receive unlimited extensions of this permit only at the behest of the employing client. Ok again that one's all still a bit wishy washy in my head, my goal is to limit illegal immigration for employment, and get back to allowing only immigrants who pursue legal avenues of entry. Im open to suggestions here as well, and again I am considering the government control angle of this measure as a large downside to it.

8) Citizenship standards will be changed slightly, in that no longer will birth on American soil automatically grant citizenship, unless one of the biological parents are themselves a citizen. All previous citizenship granted in this manner will be upheld, but citizenship will no longer be granted. Upon naturalization of either biological parent, naturalization of this child will also be granted, regardless of age.

9) Our Southern border (and northern just so we stay legit) will be secured. Some sort of wall or fence will be constructed, not too tacky like the Berlin wall or anything, but something that will actually impede passage in unguarded areas.

10) I have some major campaign reform ideas, along with term limitation stuff, but I just haven't quite got that all noodled out yet, I will edit and post it later as I can noodle out what I think.

[bigbadberry3]

Ok, hopefully we can have a bit of cheeky fun with this, and not get too carried away, heres the premise:


3) Popular vote for US President would cease, returning to Electoral College determination only.

I thought we had the electoral college right now or was this addressed somewhere else in your post?

[stebo0728]

Ok, hopefully we can have a bit of cheeky fun with this, and not get too carried away, heres the premise:


3) Popular vote for US President would cease, returning to Electoral College determination only.

I thought we had the electoral college right now or was this addressed somewhere else in your post?

Yes actually, what I meant was that the popular vote would cease, as it confuses the true nature of the election of the president. We do have the electoral college now, I didnt mean to say we didnt, my intention was that it would be the ONLY thing hereafter, with no popular vote at all.

[IBCoupe]

Eh, I honestly don't have any structural changes in mind. I'm on this forum for the enjoyment of it, not because there's some core function of government I want to change.

So, in the hopes that this doesn't devolve to be a "Let's Criticize Stebo as Benevolent Dictator," I'm going to avoid discussing the specifics of your plan, at least for the moment. What I'd like to ask is this: what makes you think that the popular vote is counter to the purpose of Presidential elections?