Since Congress cannot navigate the complexities of, well legislating by themselves; and they can’t competently negotiate legislation in concert with the President, they have remarkably exceeded the expectations of most Americans and demonstrated a higher level of ineptitude and stupidity than we have come to depend on from them. The national debt limit crisis seems to have illuminated sections of the vast and empty craniums in Congress that had gone heretofore not known to even exist. How can the American people keep finding such vacuous individuals to represent them? Alas, there appears to be an ample source of lesser minded, morally devoid and spiritually deprived souls to fill the office seeker ranks of the political parties. And the voters seem content with accepting these insipid and vapid choices. But let’s leave the dilemma of the voters’ psychotic and dysfunctional behavior for a later time.
The important question at this moment is: What should the Executive do in these times of pending economic disaster when confronted with the best and brightest talent provided by the Congressional leadership and backbench team? The answer is: Save America.
Now I am not being quixotic or flippant, I contend that there is a simple three step plan that the President should elect to use as a recovery campaign to return America to a solid footing. It’s unfortunate that he is constrained by the advice and input of generations of the tried and true political wonks that orchestrated the creation of the colossal governmental abomination which wrought the pending economic Armageddon. But that is not a valid or acceptable reason why the three step plan should not be put before the American people. And who knows maybe something will penetrate the extremely dense barriers to innovation and creativity that are the bulwark of our government.
Step 1. The President should exercise his executive power via executive orders directing various government agencies to curtail the rapidity with which they are expending their authorized budgets. In essence, the President will cut government spending by simply slowing it down. The execution of these orders will necessitate find unique approaches and solutions that will apply to and work for different departments, agencies and organizations. But slowing government spending which is an Executive Branch function is under his authority, so he can affect the change without requesting Congress to do anything. And since Congress doesn’t do anything useful anyway, this won’t interfere with their normal activities.
Step 2. The President must explain to the American public, and the world, why he has taken these actions. It is imperative that he makes it clear that he has only taken these steps because Congress has utterly failed to step up to the challenges confronting the nation, refused to deliver on their promises of “making the hard choices” in service to America, and dishonored their Constitutional oath to fulfill their responsibilities defined by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The President must convince the public that they need to look to Congress when it cannot deliver an affordable budget, explicitly approve or reject an authorization of the national debt limit, and establish a fair tax system. The American people then need to understand that it is up to them to find representatives who can deliver on these responsibilities. This is not a question of political party; it is an issue of sending people to Congress who can do their job.
Step 3. The last step is the most crucial, and thus the hardest to accomplish and to understand. The President needs to establish some select commissions to prepare strategies and plans to restructure the methods and operational procedures to be used to manage and improve the execution and administration of governmental agencies and programs. One aspect that makes this difficult is that the individuals that you need to perform these tasks are neither typical of political and policy advisors, nor found among governmental, lobbyist or special interest groups; and they are likely to view popular political ideologies as narrow-minded and shortsighted. A second aspect that may be an insurmountable hurdle is that even though they could develop superior and more efficient approaches to deliver the government’s functions, Congress would be required to eventually accept their plans and more pointedly to restrain themselves from creating their own required plans for implementing government policies.
Three steps to save America. They are not easy steps. They would not be popular steps initially, but would gain recognized value with time. And they would require the acceptance of political leaders that they are not qualified to achieve the goals and objectives that they set for the country. They may be qualified to represent the American people’s interests, desires and aspirations; but being the CEO’s of government doesn’t mean you can do the work of government, only that they can set the direction and vision of government.
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