We all talk about what we like and dislike about the various Presidential candidates, but I haven't really seen us get down to this: if you were President, what would you do? What would your priorities be? In replying, try and touch on major areas (foreign and domestic policy, taxation, social issues, education, immigration, etc.). If you've got articles and citations behind your viewpoints, cool, but this isn't an academic showdown. It's purely hypothetical, and might help us understand where we're all coming from a little bit more. I'll get the ball rolling.
If I were President, the first thing I'd do is dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. Its very existence is an insult to our rights and liberties. The NSA would be eliminated and its leaders subjected to criminal investigations into their practices, with everything being conducted in full view of the American public. Functionally, the DOJ would take over much of the DHS' umbrella, with certain agencies (like the TSA) being returned to the private sector. There would be a complete revamp of the concept of "national security" so that individual rights and civil liberties are placed above the hunt for the boogeyman. Many DHS agencies would continue to exist, and there would still be domestic anti-terror operations, but they would not be the all-out assault on our rights that they are today.
I would also make a strong effort to push through legislation mandating a few changes to police procedures:
1. Every on-duty officer operating outside of the police station, with certain exceptions made for undercover felony investigators, must wear a body camera. Any officer not wearing a body camera that is on and recording is not able to participate in any police activity outside of immediate threats to public lives.
2. Unmarked and undercover police vehicles are allowed to function in investigative roles only. They are not to participate in routine traffic stops. Any police vehicle initiating routine contact with a civilian must be fully marked with a lightbar on top of the vehicle. This is to ensure public safety and prevent misunderstandings that could escalate an otherwise unremarkable interaction.
3. Lying to a suspect as part of a routine interaction or interrogation at the precinct is grounds to throw the case out. If an undercover officer is asked by a perp if they're a cop, certainly they wouldn't be required to say yes, but it would be illegal for an officer to tell someone they've pulled over that they will "help you out" if that person admits to having drugs in the car.
4. Any officer who fires their weapon in the line of duty is to be subjected to criminal investigation first, and an administrative investigation later.
Once we get past that, we move into taxes. I would push to completely eliminate income tax in this country, instead replacing it with a flat consumption tax. State and local income taxes would also be rendered illegal (we're talking Constitutional amendment territory here), though they would be able to set their own consumption tax rates.
Foreign policy would come next, and it would be a controlled withdrawal from the Middle East first and foremost, along with a draw-down of support for Israel. I think those two actions alone would make Arab powers like Iran more willing to talk about ending the staredown with us and normalizing relations. I also think that dialing back our involvement in the Middle East would warm things up with Russia. We should strive to achieve cooperation, not dominance. The days of the US telling the West what to do are over. It's a collaboration now, and the sooner we sit at the table instead of standing on it, the bigger our voice will end up being.
I would dramatically cut military spending. We've given Lockheed $400 billion--with a B--for a jet that loses to a 40-year-old fighter in combat and is beset with problems ranging from engine failures to a Cobra Commander-esque helmet that makes pilots puke. Why do we need this? We could take down any country in the world. Why are we continuing to pour unlimited funds into a bloated military that's more focused on getting new toys than it is on taking care of its vets once they leave? Military leadership needs to be torn apart with more oversight, more restrictions on spending, cancellation of pork barrel bloat projects and a focus on making what we have work rather than getting technology that even our allies won't have for another ten years.
Immigration reform, for me, would consist of stopping work on the border wall and diverting those funds to additional Customs and Border Patrol officers on the ground within 100 miles of the border. I would eliminate unconstitutional interior checkpoints, and use that funding and those officers to beef up security at border checkpoints and in the field. I'd also push to beef up e-Verify and mandate its use by every company nationwide employing more than one person. I'd also install a guest worker program that allowed a certain number of illegal immigrants into a lottery based upon the needs of the individual state. Companies that employ unregistered, undocumented immigrants after these procedures have been put in place would be subject to large, crippling fines, and in repeat or particularly egregious cases, company owners and executives might be subject to criminal charges. Immigration status/citizenship checks during routine police interactions would be mandatory for all people stopped in border states on reasonable suspicion of a crime or traffic violation. "Stop-and-identify" interactions would be illegal.
Education is simple: drop Common Core, leave curriculum up to the individual states. Instead of turning Bachelor's Degrees into toilet paper by funneling every kid in America into college, instead funnel them towards two-year degrees or trade schools where students who would struggle at a four-year school (and ultimately be a waste of taxpayer dollars) can go into a career in a hands-on field like welding, carpentry or auto repair, something that's a dying industry at current and needs capable young replacements for the veterans who are on their way out. College should not, not be free, nor should trade schools, but the interest paid on student loans should be no higher than what you'd pay for a house (typically 4-5%).
In terms of the big social issues--abortion, healthcare and same-sex marriage--I'd leave them more or less alone. Abortion is settled law after Roe v. Wade, the ACA will either succeed or fail on its own merits once Obama leaves office (I might tweak it, though, to put some of the savings realized by slashing military budgets to bring premiums down even further), and while there is plenty yet to be determined about same-sex marriage, the decision itself is what it is, and it isn't changing. My thoughts on how the private sector should react are pretty clear here. If your doors are open, they're open to everyone, but you can't be forced to do something that would clearly compromise your morals.
Campaign finance reform is a factor for me, too, and while I would push to ban SuperPACs and put a firm limit on how much any single entity, person or corporation, can contribute to an individual campaign, it wouldn't be on my "first-year" list. I would also end corporate welfare and the "too big to fail" doctrine.
There's plenty more I'd go after, things like eliminating the CFPB and tearing Dodd Frank up to start over, but that's my really big list of priorities. I'll be curious to see what you guys put down at the top of your list, and what you'd do to change them.
