How about this idea for the Presidency?

Great Debates
#1

Saw the Palin footage with Couric. Eesh. Not as laughably horrible as everyone on the Board seems to think, but not particularly inspiring, either.

Since half the country seems to worry about McCain’s instability, close ties to Bush and Palin’s inexperience, and the other half worries about Obama’s socialist leanings and Biden’s tendency to wander off into the weeds, why not this?

Let’s put a computer, or robot, into the Oval Office chair. It could be like that ‘Robbie the Robot’ character from the old ‘Lost in Space’ series. And since Robbie only had a few kilobytes of storage at most, we would have to keep the code simple.

SUBROUTINE PRESIDENCY(VETO, WAR)

IF SPENDING(YEAR) > (SPENDING(YEAR-1) * CPI * POP_INCREASE) THEN VETO = “YES”

IF ATTACK_USA OR ATTACK_NATO THEN WAR = “YES”

ENDSUB

And leave it at that. I’d vote for that. Need to figure out how to code up the Supreme Court nominees. But if we kept it simple and just left it 4-4 for the remainder of the term that wouldn’t be so bad either.

Please debug.

#2

How about, “Bob Dole, Being of Pure Energy”?

#3

You would definitely need to keep the program simple, since the computer has to be at least 35 years old, which would predate, say, the Commodore 64 and the Apple II. Probably a Radio Shack model if you needed something smallish and portable, but if was just going to live in the basement of the White House, you could use a mainframe, probably. One that survived Y2k, anyway.

#4

Sure thing. This line is going to blow up on you. Unless you are conservative, It’s just all kinds of bad. =)

First, if CPI and POP_INCREASE are percentages, multiplying them will come up with a smaller number, so the second term is actually going to be a miniscule value, virtually guaranteeing a VETO. I believe what you are looking for is
IF SPENDING(YEAR) > (SPENDING(YEAR-1) + (SPENDING(YEAR-1)*CPI/POP_INCREASE)) THEN VETO = "YES’

If they aren’t percentages, you are going to have a tax and spend liberals dream. =)

And that doesn’t even account for negative CPI or population growths.

#5

Good debugging. Although I think it SHOULD account for negative CPI and population growth.

They are percentages. But I forgot the 1 + on the front. Actually, it’s a libertarian’s dream because they would drive to zero. But let’s be realistic.

Also changing the ATTACK_ variables to accommodate an older version of FORTRAN.

SUBROUTINE PRESIDENCY(VETO, WAR)

IF SPENDING(YEAR) > (SPENDING(YEAR-1) * ( 1 + CPI ) * ( 1 + POP_INCREASE_PCT)) THEN VETO = “YES”

IF ATTACK_USA = “YES” OR ATTACK_NATO = “YES” THEN WAR = “YES”

ENDSUB

#6

Who gets to enter the data that determines the value of Attack_USA and Attack_Nato?

Value may not be the right word. I’m no computer wizard.

#7

What if - C - A - T - really spelled “dog”?

#8

You mean like Asimov’s Stephen Bierley in the short story Evidence?

He turned out to be a fantastic leader in the end.

#9

That’s a good question. I’ll go with a submission (it would have to be on punch cards in the form of ‘0’ or ‘1’) by the highest ranked elective body representative of the people.

For the USA, that would be Congress.

See? We’re getting somewhere. There was a point to this little bit of whimsy, I assure you.