If you were elected president, what would you do?

[Massacure]

Here is what I would do:

Health:

- Max cap on suing for mistakes. If a doctor screws up, the victim shouldn't get hundreds of millions of dollars. No amount of money is going to fix anything. It just raises the costs of malpractice insurance which is passed on to everyone.

Social Security:

- I don't have an views on this.

Environment:

- Tougher mercury, sulfur, nitrate, and carbon emissions on power plants. This in turn will help public health.
- Increase research money in renewable energies.
- Continue with the Yucca Mountain depository for nuclear waste.
- Require that all SUVs and Light Trucks get 21 miles to the gallon by 2006, and 25 miles to the gallon by 2010. Right now dealers only have to offer a line-up with an average of 20.7 mpg
- Require that all cars get 30 mpg by 2006, and 35 by 2010. Get rid of the line-up average, and force it on all cars.

Economy:

- Give tax breaks to companies that keep jobs in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
- Penalize companies who send jobs overseas.

Education:

- I don't have any views on this either.

Defense:

- Cut huge amounts of money out of the military and force them to restructure so that they are not such big hogs. They spend billions of things like Comanche, Crusader, etc but nothing comes out of them.
- Increase funds for Customs and Immigrations. I hear that they are having a tough time with all the paper work.

Foreign Policies:

- Make up with all the countries that were alienated because of the war with Iraq.
- Increase international support in Iraq.

[freetobegay]

1. Party like it's 1999!

I mean that!

[qwertyMike]

2. End the war

Bring the troops Home
Apologize to the world
Turn Bush PNAC over to the Hague

Play golf for 4 years

[Eric J in MN]

3. If there is a cap of $250,000 for medical malpractice, there will be

If there is a cap of $250,000 for medical malpractice, and the mistake of a doctor or hospital kills someone, there will be no justice.

[Massacure]

5. No amount of money can bring somebody back.

So suing a hospital for $100 million only drives medical costs up.

[troublemaker]

12. Devils advocate

Money must have some effect on practices. For whatever reason they are not well targeted in the system today; it way be that malpractice judgements aren't directed where they should be, or that they may be smoothed away by insurance so they don't really threaten individuals, and the awards themselves may be granted to less deserving cases... but that doesn't negate the concept of discouraging bad behavior.

Also, more importantly, since we don't have a cradle-to-grave health system we have arrived at a bizarre use of trials to achieve something similar with great inequities and inefficiencies... it's horrid, but it's easy to see how it arose. Jurors know that if the same thing happened to them (whatever that injury is) they'd be screwed. Real medical security is prerequisite to tort reform.

[Eric J in MN]

17. No one is proposing a cap of $100 million. Bush is proposing a

No one is proposing a cap of $100 million. Bush is proposing a cap of $250,000.

[Don_G]

4. Hold A Double-Secret Probation Meeting

With the Attourny-General and the best forensic accountant available to unravel the "Who got what from where and why" game.

I have an idea they stood a lot more to gain than Nixon and his "Checkers" dog/speech.

[happynewyear]

6. to hell with all of that

simply say we are going to be attacked! Works every time!

:dem: :kick:

[DemSigns]

7. Bring Monica back!

'nuff said :smoke:

[patricia92243]

8. Appoint Howard Dean as my VP.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. Can the tort reform bullshit

Health:

- Max cap on suing for mistakes. If a doctor screws up, the victim shouldn't get hundreds of millions of dollars. No amount of money is going to fix anything. It just raises the costs of malpractice insurance which is passed on to everyone

Bullshit. Cite me a single case where the victim actually collected hundreds of millions of dollars. You can't. The reason you can't is because even if a jury awards that in punitive damages, it is either reduced on appeal or settled during the appeal and more often than not the result is kept confidentail.

What raises malpractice premiums is insurers losing money in the stock market. Period. Not malpractice cases.

Insurance reform is what is needed...not limiting the rights of those harmed by sloppy medicine.

There was a study done last year that attributed somewhere between 45,000 and 95,000 deaths a year to medical mistakes...why the GROSS spread?...because the problems and carelessness run deep.

[JHBowden]

10. Being limited by a Republican Congress,

I'd meet with foreign leaders and restore the credibility of the United States. I'd also vocally use the bully pulpit against government waste, an issue that is hard to do but resonates well with centrists. Lastly, I'd renegotiate our bad trade agreements and fight for greater transparency in addition to the environment and workers.

[Hamlette]

11. show me

"Max cap on suing for mistakes. If a doctor screws up, the victim shouldn't get hundreds of millions of dollars. No amount of money is going to fix anything. It just raises the costs of malpractice insurance which is passed on to everyone."

There is NO case where a victim got hundreds of millions of dollars in a malpractice case. The average award or settlement for a malpractice case is $200,000 (give or take).

Malpractice costs account for less than 2% of all medical spending in the US. Seems like there are better things to put at the top of your list if you want to cut costs.

(Even in the big dollar cases it DOES fix things, like pays for the ungoing medical bills as a result of the malpractice and replaces lost income for the victim and his/her family. The bigest awards are punitive in nature, ie. to punish the offending doctor or sometimes the HMO or insurance company which wrongly denied care. You gonna take that away to reduce medical spending by less than 1%?)

[Robbien]

13. I would put Dennis Kucinich in charge

and sit back and watch him do it right.

[Tellurian]

14. Issue Executive Order #2005

By the power vested in me, as the President of the United States, I, yada,yada, hereby declare the former United States, due to a people's petition of popular demand known as World Foreclosure by unanimous agreement from this day forward, The former USofA, shall be known as the United States of Canada in the North American Hemisphere.

sorry, enough is enough!

[Cascadian]

15. I would do 12 things first.

1. Restore ties and trade with Cuba.
2. Go on a world tour to make up with countries we alienated because of the war.
3. Pull all forces out of Iraq. Increase funding to reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructure and economy.
4. Estabish a "one-payer" national health care system. The private health care system would remain but the NHCS would be there for low income people, unemployed, and seniors.
5. Decriminalization of Marijuana.
6. Tax breaks to companies that keep jobs here.
7. Cut military funding to allocate money to education, health care, and research for energy alternatives.
8. Promote a program to humanize globalization of the economy. The priorities of the multinationals have been more about profit over people. There needs to be a balance.
9. An amendment that solidifies the separation of Church and State.
10.An even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No more currying favor to Israel.
11. End capital punishment.
12. End the ability for politicans to give themselves pay raises.

There you go!

John

[Taylor Mason Powell]

16. Executive Order #1092382947420

In which I pardon everybody in jail for any non-violent drug offenses, and anybody in jail for selling marijuana and probably a few other drugs as well.

Then I get impeached. But it's too late!

[Generator]

18. Legalize all drugs then

appoint Al Gore as my vice-prez, resign, and give him the job that WAS his.

Then I'd party like it was the 2001 that never was. (I realize this is giving the neo con thugs and Bushies a free pass what with all the drugs they would imbibe and kill themselves with, but hey, I'm a compassionate liberal)

[zbird]

19. My 6-year-old daughter said that when she grows up...

she is going to be President, and if the war is still going on, she was going to end it.

I am very proud of her!

OTOH, my dear husband is a Bush* lover and tells the kids that * is just protecting us from terra and that they hate us for our freedoms (you know, the typical Rush/Boortz/Pat White crap). I, of course, counter with the truth, and explain that her dad and I have very different views of what is happening in the world.

[calimary]

20. NUMBER ONE: I'd sign an executive order reinstituting The Fairness

Doctrine. When the expected howls of outrage began from the limbots of the world, I'd seize my mandate, fresh from the election, to do a huge and ruthless PR push, with LOTS of surrogates (enlisting the good Dr. Dean, among many, AND people like republican Chuck Hagel - who's growing more moderate and reasonable by the day), to help spread the good word. I'd go on EVERY show from Oprah to Letterman to Jon Stewart to help spread the word, taking care to build the appeal and, indeed, the "chic-ness" of it. I'd start working, FIERCELY and RELENTLESSLY to make it cool and hip to be a liberal.

Next, I'd sign an executive order opening up all those sealed presidential records and documents that bushie boy locked away. Reagan's, bush-the-first, and PARTICULARLY bush-the-second. Oh yes, AND the cheney energy task force papers. ALL OUT IN THE OPEN.

Then, I'd build a consensus to prosecute those responsible for the MULTIPLE violations of our Constitution, and all who shat upon it while wrapping themselves in the flag. I'd name the names in the Valerie Plame affair, AND the Chalabi mess, and the Office of Special Plans, and all the other felonious groupings that took us over the cliff.

I'd make a VERY large and noisy deal out of announcing especially to "Old Europe" and our other previously shunned, ridiculed, and ignored allies that The United States of America is UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. So Let's Talk, Folks! I'd extend that to the Israelis and the Palestinians together, making clear to Israel that we'll talk to 'em any time they want, and help them any way they want, but they'll have to understand that everything we do for them, we have to do something for the Palestinians as well.

Then, I'd make another big-deal extravaganza out of a REAL New American Century, where we have a NEW national goal: weaning ourselves off of oil. I'd make it a new national quest, like Kennedy did, challenging us to go to the moon by the end of the decade. By the end of MY decade, I'd want the US off the oil standard, having pioneered multiple new energy sources and the engines that run on them; the resulting research and development creating many hundreds of thousands of jobs in America, and fresh new markets for those goods that we will once again be manufacturing and producing to sell all over the world, everything from cars to microwave ovens. I'd call for a scientific revolution to get us to a new energy plane. We would thereby cement our leadership in the most positive, creative, and productive way possible, harnessing the best of "Yankee Ingenuity" and the famous "can-do" attitude that we Americans were previously so famous for. It would add "glamour" and another level of chic to our country and what it stands for, and we'd lead the world in this new technological front. I'd call upon all Americans to become Pioneers of the New Century. By the end of my (hopefully) second term, I'd have this country weaned OFF of oil. Time's UP. OVER and OUT! Good-BYE and Good Riddance! OPEC? Take it and stuff it! THAT is what we need to change the balance of power in the Middle East. If nobody needs oil anymore, there goes THEIR power and influence, and their ability to hold the rest of the planet by the nuts. And our industry? First of all, I'd be twisting their arms all over Christendom to bend to my will, and using all my powers of persuasion in the media to further that goal. I'd make them look positively UNAMERICAN if they drag their heels. YES, I would stoop to that. About time that technique was used to further a positive, life-affirming, forward-looking, everybody-wins agenda that's NOT forced down people's throats through the barrel of a gun, or by threatening them with some vaporous boogeyman that's gonna GIT 'em. I'd grant tax breaks and other incentives to companies - without compromising their employees - to retool and redesign, so they could meet this challenge. Face it, the corporate world will simply NOT go for something that isn't somehow in their own selfish, myopic interests. So that would be my job - to figure out a way to show them that THIS IS MOST DEFINITELY in their interests.

I'd encourage the arts, especially my own little personal crusade - making art objects out of recyclables - great kid projects. I'd engage the musicians of our country to do concerts to benefit these causes, and Hollywood to incorporate these themes into their TV and film production. I'd figure out a way to use the Gropenator and Jesse Ventura and other semi-reasonable people from the other side to be my team mates - anybody with the currency of mass personal appeal. I'd get 'em all on my team and do my damnedest to keep them there.

AND I'd incorporate a lot of the excellent ideas mentioned above - like the further securing of the SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Plus, I'd encourage research and development of a morning-after pill, and stem-cell research. Plus, if anyone wanted to resume the attempts to legislate a woman's body, I'd immediately bring up the idea of examining corresponding binding legislation that covers the scrotum at the same time. I'd tell 'em to go ahead with whatever they wanna do regarding a woman's private parts, so long as they understand that a man's private parts would be equally and simultaneously regulated as well.

Plus, I'd put somebody like Wesley Clark in charge of the Defense Department, with Max Cleland as his second in command (OR perhaps Cleland - or perhaps John McCain as Defense Secretary and Clark as National Security Advisor). Maybe John Edwards or some such as AG. Dr. Dean as either Secretary of Health and Human Services or Surgeon-General. Bill Clinton either as Secretary of State or our UN Ambassador. However, I might lobby equally hard to make him Secretary-General of the UN. He might do just as much good there. In that case, Jimmy Carter might make a good UN rep or Secretary of State. Robert Kennedy Junior might be interesting as Interior Secretary, with Dennis Kucinich as Energy Secretary. I might be tempted to do something wild like Donald Trump or Bill Gates for Commerce Secretary. Labor Secretary: maybe Ben Cohen? Education Secretary? Maybe Jim Jeffords or Marian Wright Edelman. Not sure. Treasury Secretary - Paul Krugman. And I might tap somebody like Bill Moyers or Garrison Keillor as FCC Chief, with Elliot Spitzer as SEC chair. And, I'd find SOME way to get Richard Clarke and Joseph Wilson back on the company payroll. I think their contributions, perspective, experience, and wisdom would be invaluable. I'd invite somebody sexy like Steven Spielberg or Jeffrey Katzenberg as chairman of the NEA, or maybe I'd make it into a revolving assignment, bestowed upon a different member of the theatrical/musical/literary/artistic community each year. Actually, the more I think about it, somebody like Steve Martin, or Rob Reiner, or Tom Hanks or his wife, Rita Wilson, or maybe Billy Crystal, or some other prominent performer, would be good. Heck - Steve Martin would be absolutely OUTSTANDING.

Plus, I'd recruit most, if not all, of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors to come back to work. AND I'd offer Ralph Nader a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redeem himself, by putting him in charge of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

This'd be fun.