If I were President

We all daydream about being President from time to time. I've been daydreaming lately about what I would do differently than the current administration:

First of all, I would get the troops out of Iraq, but that's nothing different than anyone OTHER than George W. Bush would do.

I would try to get a bill introduced to end the production of completely internal combustion engines in the US. I would like it to say "OK, by Jan 1, 2008, all new cars sold in the US have to be either E85, hybrid electric, completely electric, or hydrogen. They CANNOT run 100% on gas (unless it's E85)." The bill would also need to say that in X number of years (preferably 5, but possibly 10) that new cars sold in the US could not run on gasoline at all--they would have to be 100% electric or 100% hydrogen. Get some movement toward ending our dependence on oil! Of course most of the current administration earned their fortunes from oil, so they don't do anything than give a little bit of lip service towards ending our oil dependence.

Next, instead of just throwing our military toward every problem the US has (or creates), I would sit down with other world leaders to find out 1) why everyone hates the US and 2) what we could do about it. I would sit down with the presidents of Iran and Syria and Venezuela. Why not? They can't bite. Find out exactly what they want from their own mouths and what we would do to work better together. Chavez seems to be the darling of the world right now, making deals with Cuba, China and Iran (mostly to piss off the US--I think it's hilarious). I think a US administration could learn something from him.

I would also end our embargo of Cuba. Come on now, being pissed at Castro for the Cuban missile Crisis is getting a little old. OK, so he's an oppressive regime. So what? Business is business. Oh, he's Communist? Well, we can fucking well vote China as "most favored nation" but we can't sell Cuba engine parts? Get over yourself, it's not that serious. Hell, after Castro dies, we could probably make Cuba our 51st state and not too many would mind. Wouldn't that be cool?

I would try to legalize pot. I think smoking pot is kinda dumb, but overall, I don't think it's that harmful. We would have to have laws about driving or working high, but if people want to smoke some weed at home, what's the big deal? Oh, and I would tax the hell out of it and pay off the federal deficit.

I would throw all the money I possible could toward stem cell research and HIV prevention/research.

How to solve the social security problem? That's easy. Right now, if you make over something like $94,000/year or something like that, you don't pay SS tax on the additional amount. I would at least double it. Ok, let's make it $200,000. No, how about $500,000. Why not just make it an even $1 million. The Social Security program would have so much money coming out their ears, they wouldn't know what to do with it all. Then I would have them take the extra money and make sure that everyone drawing Social Security had full health coverage, including prescription drugs. Hell, since we can't get universal health care passed, why not at least give health coverage to every dependent child? The poor need SOME help!

While I'm at it, why not just get rid of the Income Tax altogether and just make a sales tax instead?

Since we're talking about helping the poor, let's try to help end some of the predatory practices that make poor people automatically into criminals just for being poor. Let's add "economic status" or "credit score" to the anti-discrimination clauses. Did you know many jobs run a CREDIT SCORE on potential applicants and will refuse to hire applicants with a low credit score? Did you know it's perfectly legal to charge people with a low credit score thousands of dollars more in interest than those with good scores? So, the people who can least afford it can't get hired at many jobs and can't pay off the debts or loans they have. This just creates a circle of poverty that is impossible to escape simply because they aren't allowed to.

Let's start naming names of Congressman who won't vote for bills that will actually help people out because the lobbyists don't want them to. If I got a bill introduced (the car one, for example) and certain Congressmen didn't vote for it because they were in the pockets of oil companies or other lobbyists, I would call a press conference and name their names and what companies are paying them off to vote it down. Stop playing Mr. Nice guy.

Oh, I'm sure this wouldn't pass, but I would also try to get a bill introduced that would restrict all bills to one subject only. Oh, you can make the bill as wordy as you want to, but don't include abortion laws in a minimum wage bill (like Bill Frist did to kill the minimum wage bill). They have NOTHING to do with each other. Congressmen would say that it saves time, but that's bullshit. That's just rhetoric to get pork barrel laws passed on page 497 of a bill about fishing and wildlife that no one reads. You want to pass a 1,500 page law that declares the pissing bitch shrew endangered in Wyoming? Sure. Oh, page 1,498 includes a $3 billion retirement package for Congressmen, but you won't notice.

And how about starting some contests? The private contest for $10 million for the first private vehicle into space was so successful, people finished way ahead of of the contest end-date. What if the federal government started making contests for things we need? $25 million for a non-gas burning car that can drive 500 miles on one tank/charge whatever. I think we would see an explosion of creativity not seen in years in this country.

And how about reading the news to see what "experts" think you are doing wrong? I mean we know Bush doesn't give a shit about what anyone else thinks--it's his way or the highway, but how about if the president actually watched CNN or read the blogs and listened to people once in a while? That would be novel.