I don’t claim to have a thorough knowledge of US government and how laws are made/changed, but some (many) of these seem preposterous. For instance, one is that “for every new federal rule issued, two existing regulations be eliminated.” How would that be implemented?
Another (very worrisome, IMO) one is “Fully repeal ObamaCare and replace it with health savings accounts.” So…just rip coverage away from the 20 million Americans who obtained coverage under the ACA? Kick all the poor/low-income folks off Medicaid, only three years after they got coverage under the Medicaid expansion? :eek:
Is all this just ridiculous bluster from a megalomaniac narcissist who knows nothing about how lawmaking works in the US? Or is it possible some of this could actually be implemented if he becomes president?
6 measures to clean up corruption and special interest collusion in Washington DC:
1 is possible. 2 is empty promise, since “military/public safety/public health” can be stretched to cover most of federal workforce. 3 could not be applied to laws, but could, perhaps, be applied to federal agencies. 4, 5 and 6 would run into constitutional issues.
[ul][li]“Tax forms will be greatly simplified.”[/li][li]“When they know there are consequences, our companies will stop leaving the United States.”[/ul][/li]
As for the first, I can see him directing the IRS to simplify the actual forms, dumbing down the language and such, but he’d need congress to change the various tax laws if he wants to remove, say, the Student Loan Interest deduction in order to make filing taxes “simpler”.
On the second: through executive orders alone, he can probably get pretty punitive against corporations that do things he doesn’t like (though he risks court challenges any time he tries, and if the corporation has few dealings with the federal government, his leverage is greatly reduced), but again, it’s congress who will have to change the laws for a lasting fix.
Supreme Court Justices. Of course he would appoint conservative justices. However, the fear factor in this one doesn’t pan out. Ermagerd, they’re gonna take your guns away is just not realistic. The US is the nation that looked at the massacre of school children and responded by calling for more guns. All the SCOTUS justices could be flaming pinko commie sandal-wearing hippies and they still wouldn’t have the lobbying power of the NRA.
Change immigration rules. The wall and the Muslim ban are both impractical to the point of being unrealistic. As for the idea of Mexicans taking American jobs, it is to laugh. You cannot get an American to do hard labor for dollars a day while treating them like shit and threatening to have them removed from the country if they don’t put up with it. Mexicans are America’s indentured servant class and Americans do not want those jobs.
Energy and drilling restrictions. Get rid of the restrictions and America can get rich off of all those resources! But digging the stuff up is only the first step. From there it has to get to market and if you flood the market it becomes worthless. So Trump wants to expend more effort to make less money.
Obamacare. What exactly is a health savings account? That sounds like it puts the burden on the patient. Sure, go ahead and get cancer… but only if you’ve been topping up your savings account! But I do think Obamacare will eventually be repealed… when the US finally follows the lead of the rest of the world and goes to a single-payer system.
Punish firms that send jobs overseas. So a company wants to avoid US taxes by headquartering somewhere more tax-friendly… and Trump says if you do that I’m gonna raise your taxes! When some mook says stop walking away or I’ll break your fucking kneecaps do you stop in place or do you start walking away faster? Run away perhaps even?
Lower taxes for everyone. Well except the above but they deserve it. But seriously, hasn’t the lower taxes = more jobs idea been debunked to death by now? There’s really millions of employers who are only holding off because they pay too much tax? That seems like something that would be testable… like say if the US was divided into 50 parts and each one had its own set of rules for taxation… and we could see which ones do well with high taxes and which ones do well with low taxes. The US should really look into that.
Ethics rules for the SoS. I know Republicans would love it if Hillary had personally murdered those people in Benghazi while cackling maniacally about how much money she was making off of illegal Clinton Foundation donations from Obama’s secret Muslim friends. And then she wrote long emails about the joy it brought her but because she had her own server she could make her confession of glee simply disappear. But it just didn’t happen that way and no number of investigations will ever make it so. The rules about email DID NOT EXIST when this happened. They now exist. Every SoS going forward will have emails scrutinized more closely than a proctologist scrutinizes a potentially cancerous anal polyp.
Cancel trade rules with other countries. So the SoS has to have ethics but the actual State Department is going to pretend rules don’t exist. How many countries does Trump suppose are out there right now taking advantage of the US but they’ll totally smarten up once the US stops following the rules? This doesn’t even make sense to try. No good could come of it under any circumstance.
Depends on the type of work. For agricultural labor, you may be correct. Though, as you mention it’s for “dollars a day” - if they want Americans to do the job, they’ll have to pay more (and yes, some prices will go up as a result). But you find a lot of Hispanic (don’t know if Mexican) workers in construction and in the hotel maid industry. Americans will do those jobs, have done those jobs for some time. It can be argued that immigrants depress wages for the American workers in the construction industry, too. Of course, paying more may lead to higher prices - is that better or worse in construction or fast food or various other industries? Not sure about cleaning staff.
But you have to go after the employers to achieve any real result, and the wall is just stupid.
Well, it’s possible, but the president has no part (at least no official part) in passing constitutional amendments. He doesn’t have to sign it or approve it or anything.
Furthermore, experience at the state legislative level show that such term limits just move the power from legislators to their staffs and lobbyists. With term limits, congressmen will always be fairly new to their job and be even more dependent on experienced staff than they are now. And more likely to be bamboozled by lobbyists. Term limits sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice it’s a bad one.
A question on treaties: In the US system, can the executive abrogate US membership in an international treaty that has previously be ratified by the legislature or is there a legislative un-ratification process to follow?
It has to be unratified. Any such agreement becomes US law and the president can’t undo that by himself. They can be abrogated by ordinary law and those have to be passed by Congress. However, it should be noted that in US internal law, there are three different levels of what internationally are called treaties. If you want the boring details they’re are in wikipedia, of course. I’ll try to sumarize them below.
Basically it depends on what the agreement calls for. If it’s things that the president has been authorize by the Consitution or Congress to do on his own, then there’s no requirement for a Congressional approval. These are called sole-executive agreements, and the president can put them in force with an executive order and undo them by the same means.
Some agreements require things that Congress is already authorized by the Constitution to do, and those only require ordinary law. They’re called congressional-executive agreements, and they, of course, require Congress to undo them with a law.
Anything not belonging to the above two categories are considered Treaties under the Constitution and require a two-thirds approval by the Senate. Also, a president may submit one to the Senate if he wants to bind future presidents to it. These also may be undone with a law.
Good list and I mostly agree, but assuming Trump* does win, and the GOP does* keep the senate (both of which are now getting like the “What if the Nazis won WWII”)
he* can* do:
1> Nope. Not in 100 days, the Dems can delay a nomination that long.
2, 3, 5, 6, 8: He may propose but the deals and counterdeals will take much longer than 100 days and the results will be watered down.
Yes, if the GOP has control of Congress and the Presidency, they will repeal Obamacare. They will pass nothing significant to take it’s place.
Hobble his own SoS? Maybe. But sure, he can do it.
He’s still going to build that WAL*L with taxpayer money(then send a bill after the fact to Mexico-snerk) right off the bat. There is an initial cost of 15 to 25 billion, with ghod knows how much each year to staff and maintain.
Rebuild the military-Mysteryillions$.
Cut taxes.
Piss of our trade partners.
Hmmmm…either he plans on just printing money with nothing to back it, or part out the whole damn country to Russian investors.
How would that be implemented?