And now, my favorite subject: Revisionist history!
Seriously, how about a little alternate history?
What might have happened if Gore or Romney had been President of the senate after their defeat? Imagine Bush 1 having to serve as the President and full member of the senate, after loosing to Clinton 1! Or Carter after loosing to Reagan, Ford under Carter. (I think most of the rest of the loosing candidates recently were already senators or reps - McCain, Kerry, Dole, Mondale, did I miss any?)
If that position had evolved to be a shadow government, for instance, Gore could have been in a position to do something about the 9/11 attacks. Even without any official authority he could at least yell about them (privately to the appropriate security agency) and prevented the attacks. Then Bush would have had to come up with a different reason to go into Iraq.
What could Bush 1 have done to influence events during the first 4 years of Clinton 1?
[extreme example of where this could go if real history were not a limitation] with enough changes away from the USVP example, I can see the position as “President of the Senate and Loyal adversary” being the audit and enforcement bureaucracy that watches the Executive branch, and helps keep them honest[/extreme stuff]
Thanks for playing! And I am looking forward to responses from all of my specific questions too!
Since Presidents these days don’t seem particularly interested in actually running the executive branch and its endless departments and bureaucracies, I think that VP should be a seperately elected position, with the job description of being in charge, and accountable, for the day-to-day functioning of the executive branch while the President makes speeches, proposes legislation, conducts war and foreign policy, and takes credit(or avoids it) for the economy. In other words, do the jobs that Presidents are required to do under the Constitution, but would prefer not to because it’s boring. Presidents run so they can do big things, grand gestures. Few have been interested in making sure the little things get done and most don’t even have the work ethic to make sure the people they appoint get the little things done until their failure to do so makes headlines. Since most Presidents do not deal much with Cabinet Secretaries, the VP would appoint all domestic Cabinet members, the President only the Secretary of State and Defense. The President would continue to rely primarily on his political team and close advisors, which most do for the vast majority of their work anyway.
So if the President doesn’t want that job, take it away from him and give it to someone who has something to prove. That separation of responsibilities might also focus the minds of voters. “Okay, we can elect this guy who gives great speeches but has no experience as President, but wow, this VP job, that’s serious stuff, let’s go for the boring guy who actually knows what he’s doing.”
This is actually how a lot of private companies run. You have a CEO, the Big Kahuna, and there’s usually a VP of Operations who actually runs the company while the CEO deals in Big Ideas and shareholder relations. Some companies call it COO(and many also have a CFO and CTO). Heck, call it “Hand of the King” if you want, it just needs to happen. Heck, maybe we should divide the Presidency into four: Chief executive, Chief operations, Chief financial, and Chief Technology. Elect all four. The first would be a role for the Obamas and Reagans of the world, the latter three could be fitting ways for industry giants like Bill Gates to end their careers.
Where in hell did you get this strange idea? You been listening to the Donald too much?
The best part of being VP is that you get to observe navels from the comfort of your own home. OK, a government supplied house, but it’s still the VP’s.
It’s not a strange idea. “I found out about my administration’s failure the same way you did. I read it in the paper.” has been standard SOP. The only variation is in the exact words Presidents use to say, “I don’t pay attention to the little things.”
That’s a bit of a mathematical answer to a people question and not quite correct regardless. Mathematically, if the Senate looks to be close to tied, say 49-50, then he basically gets to decide whether the VP gets to vote or not. There’s also the matter that you are basically saying no votes matter unless it’s a tie breaking vote but that’s ridiculous. Every vote is part of the final tally, except almost always the VP’s usually non-existent one.
On a people level, the Senator’s vote WILL be recorded, so he will be subject to persuasion to vote one way or the other. So politically, his actual vote matters more than the VP’s theoretically possible vote.
The US government is a huge organization with lots of people (millions) working in it. It’s impossible for one person or even a small group (the President’s staff) to micromanage it all. But that doesn’t mean that Presidents or candidates have been uninterested in being overall manager. Trump has suggested that he isn’t and will let his VP do it, but he’s the only one.
I seem to remember that Clinton/Gore did some smalification of the bureaucracy, so i don’t buy the “don’t care about the boring stuff”. I think there is a remote possibility that Clinton 2 might get lost in that stuff and not get big stuff done.
Why would voters be sober about the administrator/head of the nation and not the executive/ head of state? Are there people who would think “Trump for the top, he is fun. Clinton for the nuts and bolts, she gets stuff done”?
I get chief executive (I assume head of state with CIC and Ambassador in chief), chief operations (head of nation, domestic except financial), and Chief financial, but why would tech be it’s own thing? Are you suggesting a combined ticket or separate races?
You seem to be going a different direction than me - why do you think different races (that might result in a mixed party executive branch) are a good idea?
So at any given time there would be the President/head of state who is in year 5-6, VP/head of nation in year 3-4, and spare VP in year 1-2.
It seems that at any given time there is a chance for there to be members of more than 1 party in the executive office. That would be returning to the outcome that the original Constitution created, and that was changed PDQ, so I think it is a bad idea. I think a Dem Pres with a Rep VP (or vice versa) would be trouble.
So the person we elect this year will have no power for 2 years, then head of the nation for 2 years (largely head legislator and chief of the bureaucracy) and then head of state for 2 years, starting 4 years from now. I think this puts the wrong person in charge now - I want to vote for next years president, not the president in 5 years.
How does having these overlapping terms smooth out transition from one administration to the next?
They only suggest it when things go wrong and then they seek to avoid blame. Which they usually do, at least when it comes to their supporters, and even their opponents don’t take accountability seriously, they just use it to try to win the next election and then act exactly the same.
Our democracy is worthless if the bureaucracy is not under control of elected officials. If one guy can’t handle the job, you elect someone or multiple someones who can. The Parliamentary system actually does this indirectly.
Since the VP currently does very little, this seems a classic case of matching a need to a highly qualified person(hopefully) who has the time.
Bill Clinton really cared about that kind of stuff, he was one of the rare ones who did.
Because electing the guy whose very job is to take on the boring stuff no one keeps track of is going to lead voters to not care too much if the guy in charge can give a good speech. For the main dude, people these days seem to want someone inspiring and exciting, and I think the candidates internalize that and think their job is primarily to be inspiring and exciting and leave the details to others. The problem is that those others are neither directly elected, nor is the President usually held to account when they drop the ball.
The government needs a CTO as much as a private company, as proven by the government’s incredible backwardness when it comes to tech. The health care website failure was caused primarily by antiquated regulations that no one anticipated would be a problem because no one in the administration had a tech background(aside from possibly a cosmetic position on a tech company’s board).
Some parties are better at different things than others. For example, the Fed, until Yellen, has been exclusively the province of libertarian economic thinkers in the mold of Friedman, and even Yellen seems unwilling to really challenge the orthodoxy of the Fed’s culture. Defense has seen mostly Republicans in charge, even when Democrats have been elected. Clinton had a Republican SecDef for half his time in office, Obama had one for about half as well. Democrats are probably best for most domestic offices, especially HHS and Labor. The only domestic office where a Republican would probably be best is Commerce, and Obama did try to recruit a Republican for the job at first(Judd Gregg).
I figure that if you seperated the four offices, you’d probably usually get Republicans in charge of finance and as CEO, with Democrats handling domestic affairs and tech. Which is fine.
It doesn’t matter who you put in charge, adaher. One person, whether Pres or VP or some other title, cannot manage the entire federal bureaucracy in sufficient detail to avoid untoward actions by low level people at some time or another. It’s absolutely impossible and anyone who expects different is fooling themselves.
It’s not so much that you can prevent such things, as be responsible and corrective when things do go wrong. Large organizations have existed for centuries and wrestled with this problem, and the well-run ones have come up with pretty good solutions. One being clear lines of accountability. In most private organizations that seek to make a profit, when something goes wrong, who is responsible is usually immediately apparent, and how they went wrong and what corrective action is necessary can usually be determined quickly(firing, retraining, reassigning, unavoidable error, uncharacteristic performance due to family problems or something). In most governments, the lines of accountability are intentionally blurred, and if someone must be fired, it’s often not even the person who actually had the most to do with the failure.
Governments are the only organizations where HUGE cockups can happen and no one loses their job. Generally it takes concerted media action to force someone out of the government. When things are working properly, people get removed before the media gets wind of it. When the President didn’t like an Inspector general investigating illegal use of funds in the stimulus program, the President removed him quickly and decisively. Presidents are actually very good at removing people who stand in the way of their political goals. Incompetence generally is not punished so harshly.
Oh, please. In Michigan, there were six current or former state employees charged in the Flint water crisis. One high level official in the Department of Environmental Quality was fired. So yes, people lose their jobs in government. You’ve obviously never gone through being audited by the GAO or by their state equivalents. Let me tell you, they are thorough, they are meticulous, and they make you justify everything. A pain in the ass to go through, but they are very good at keeping you honest and on your toes. This whole “Government really sucks” meme is good red meat for the unknowing masses, but it falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.
Ah yes, let’s talk about the GAO. Like the fact that government agencies have to comply with GAO reporting, and when the GAO finds out that things aren’t working as they should, they dutifully report it, and it gets ignored by elected officials. The GAO has no teeth. Congress needs to give the GAO teeth and make it a felony for Presidents to ignore their recommendations.
Poppycock and balderdash. I personally have seen recommendations the GAO has given to my agency and we move heaven and earth to bring ourselves into compliance with them and they come back to make damn sure we did. The president doesn’t do squat about their recommendations, it’s the career civil servants who do it and for the most part we gladly do so because it’s the right thing to do.
Bolding mine
For every well run company that has survived for centuries, I can show you 100 that did not make it. When a nation fails, it is in the history books, when a corporation fails, it’s parts and or customer base are eaten by the competition. I don’t think that is a very apt comparison.
I agree that in bureaucracy things move slowly, but sometimes that means better accuracy at pinpointing a problem. There probably are people in safe government jobs that are lazy, but I think harmful workers will get weeded out most of the time.
I would say that the party that is blamed is usually publicized quickly, but I bet there are lots of examples of corps blaming/firing round after round of “failed” executives, and still ending up bankrupt/sold at fire sale prices. Not all corporations are this dysfunctional, but using corps as an example and only pointing the very successful ones does not convince me of much of anything.
GAO is an unelected body created by Congress, POTUS is the elected constitutional CEO of the nation. S/He has the executive decision-making authority, criminalizing it is a nonstarter.
Good point, but we do need to make Presidents fully accountable. The GAO consists of the so-called “experts” that supporters of big government believe can make poilcy. When presidents ignore the problems they constantly highlight in their reports, they should be held accountable for it. Starting with Congress holding oversight hearings and having GAO members testify about the problems they found that the President doesn’t want to fix. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems they find are things Congress doesn’t want to fix either, so I guess just blaming the President is misguided. Still, I wish the GAO would play a bigger role in public discourse. They regularly issue extremely scathing reports about government performance and the public is barely aware they even exist.