If elected President, my first official act would be to declare all Gum't associated unions as illegal RICO enterprises, and put people in jail for stealing from thye taxpayers. I might even declare ALL unions illegal... and let them fight from inside prisons!Your heart may be in the right place but the President has no such Constitutional authority to make it so by simple declaration. (If the executive order applied as a lawmaking tool was unconstitutional when wielded so promiscuously by Messrs. Clinton and Bush, and potentially by His Excellency Al-Hashish Field Marshmallow Dr. Barack Obama Dada, COD, RIP, LSMFT, Would-Be Life President of the Republic Formerly Known as the United States, and Chairman of the Organisation of Halfrican Unity, it's unconstitutional wielded by any President.) It would require legislation written and passed by Congress---though here is where you could make the recommendation, it being understood that merely because the President may recommend legislation under his formal Constitutional authority it does not follow that Congress is required to pass it. The Constitution did not grant the President any further lawmaking ground than that, any more than the Constitution declared the President to be the suprerogatory representative of "the people," contrary to what a few too many Presidents of any party or their sycophancies have deluded themselves into believing.
For myself, if this country were crazy enough to elect me, I'd recommend but one law: Resolved, that no legislation passed by Congress or signed by the President shall be considered legal and binding until or unless every member of Congress and the President can prove he or she has read it, in its entirety, at least once.
One thing we do need, and badly, is a President who is willing to tell Congress that he or she has no intention of signing any further new law but has every intention of vetoing any and every piece of legislation sent his way that is aimed at anything other than repealing law. James Bovard had it quite right in his splendid "feeling your pain": The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years when he wrote:
The vast majority of government agencies can neither be reinvented nor reformed. If Americans want good government, hundreds of failed government programs must be abolished and legions of laws that turn government into a public nuisance must be repealed. All other "reforms" will merely prolong the abuse of the American people. (Emphasis added.---BD.)
I've seen nothing among the prospective candidates just yet that suggests any of them has any such inclination. But there is still time enough between now and 2012 . . .
The vast majority of government agencies can neither be reinvented nor reformed. If Americans want good government, hundreds of failed government programs must be abolished and legions of laws that turn government into a public nuisance must be repealed. All other “reforms” will merely prolong the abuse of the American people. (Emphasis added.-—BD.)
Damn shame that’s too long for a sig line.