I am not a political guru by any means. I read the NY times and Wall Street Journal every day from a bit torrent and watch BBC and Al Jazeera when I can. I am a Libertarian to some extent but a registered Independent.


If I were president I would do the following:

1. WAR: Bring the troops back from the Middle East. The Arabs will hate us forever and having our military on their land will just make matters worse. They are the last of a civilization who refuse to become civilized and that will not change with our involvement. The wars bankrupt our country and young, innocent men get killed for nonsense.

2. INFRASTRUCTURE: As the military downsizes, many troops will be out of work. As a result, many will need jobs and they are already skilled workers. Give them priority to get hired to build the countries deteriorating infrastructure. Sure, you will need to hire skilled contractors, engineers, etc and that should also help alleviate the unemployment rate. Rebuild roads, rebuild sewer and water lines, Build sea walls for areas in hurricane danger, build light rail systems for growing cities, remodel some airports(start with LAX and JFK), expand freeways, etc. The money saved in staying out of the middle east can be used to build a crumbling US infrastructure.

3. FOREIGN AID: It's time to stop at least 2/3 of the foreign aid we give to other countries based on military strategy. There are some exceptions like Pakistan but it's time to withhold all aid to countries that will forever despise us like Egypt. Any country with a GDP in the top 30 does not need our aid. Israel is on their own....they are a wealthy per capita nation anyways and can help themselves. Foreign aid should be used as a system of bribery to countries with natural resources that we can exploit. This is what China is doing. Go to third world countries, give them some "aid" and grease the palms of the already corrupt leaders to allow our corporations to mine their copper, tungsten, gold, silver, oil, coal, etc. Now I realize this goes against giving aid to Middle Eastern nations whom have oil but there are plenty of other countries whom have oil that we can exploit that don't want to eradicate the USA.

4. VETERANS BENEFITS: Take the money saved in not giving foreign aid and give that money to a budget to support military veterans and their benefits. It's a shame that we keep using our massive budget to buy more hardware and neglect our veterans, especially the disabled ones. Charities like "The Wounded Warriors" should not have to even exist. Our disabled vets should be using bionic limbs by now(trust me the technology is closer than you might think) Help their dependents by setting up mandatory college scholarships for their children.

5. REBUILD NASA: It's a complete shame that NASA has nearly been dismantled because of a couple politicians involved in the military industrial complex have decided that NASA is no longer necessary. The amount of technology in the private sector that was invented accidentally by NASA is mind blowing. The reason why many of the hardware defense corporations even exist is because of technology invented by engineers at NASA. Having a team of rocket scientists performing extensive research on a continual basis will only expand the ability for the US to be ahead of the game in technology and science. Worst case scenario is that it gives a lot of young people some role models that is much needed in the areas of science in our public school system. Having an active space program expands our base of knowledge and gives a country confidence.

6. GET RID OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS..ie MONSANTO: One of the biggest crimes in the last 50 years was to allow criminal corporations like Monsanto to begin the process of genetic modification of our countries agriculture. They have patented nearly every seed used in the USA and crippled the ability for farmers to make a healthy profit. Genetically modified foods should be illegal and all current and future patents of seeds or anything grown should be illegal.

7. LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AND TAX IT: Cannot really say more than that. Make it a federal law and tax it like a luxury tax. Regulate it like you would alcohol. People are going to smoke it whether we make it illegal or not.

8.DISMANTLE PRIVATELY RUN PRISONS: It is no accident that prisons for profit have completely changed the landscape of crime to where crime is looked at as a way for corporations to make profit. It now costs twice as much to house an inmate than send a child away to college. Prisons now have an incentive to keep them full and thats why they want everything to be illegal. They are gouging the US government and its taxpayers. They have a blank checkbook. There will always need to be prisons but they should never be a resource to make profit by corporations without a concience. This would save a lot in taxes.

9. CLOSE DOWN OBSOLETE MILITARY BASES: Part of the corrupt military industrial complex is to create reasons to continue to have military bases that are in countries that no longer give us any strategic value and are not in or near countries that would be considered a threat to our national security. They are expensive and not necessary. Dont listen to the kool aid drinking republicans who just regurgitate and extrapolate information they hear on Fox news without really analyzing whether it is true or not.

10. GET RID OF ALL LOBBYISTS and CONTROL CAMPAIGN FINANCING : Basically we have an out of control system of bribery and have chosen to call them lobbyists. They represent corporations and narrow special interests but not the American people in general. Let Congress and the Senate do their own research in certain areas that they are unfamiliar with, speak to their constituents and make an informed decision on their own. You can have special interests and corporations be given access to Congress and the Executive Branch but no money can be exchanged. Now the big hurdle to this is that conservative judges in the Supreme Court have determined that lobbyists are exercising freedom of speech when paying bribes and the corporations, unions, etc are defined as "people". The makeup of the Supreme Court is about to change drastically and hopefully this gets resolved. Until this is resolved, we have no democracy at all. Same ideas goes for campaign financing. I would give a limit to each candidate and make television stations have mandatory debates on a weekly basis and question and answers via skype from actual Americans.

There are others like tax breaks for corporations inventing alternative fuel resources, cars etc and to cut down on some unnecessary taxes but I haven't thought those issues through yet.


If that fails then Eric B should be President

http://youtu.be/PnEYVqGmoNY

Well, for a non-political guy, you pretty much nailed it. What you missed is voting rights for EVERY US Citizen including felons and prisoners. All forms of voter suppression must be made illegal and governments must offer FREE PHOTO ID to people that need it. We need vote my mail. We need 9 days of early voting beginning Saturday and assured wait times under ONE hour. On Election day, people should be able to vote at ANY polling place in their county of residence.

(Message edited by Hot4ass2 on November 08, 2012)

Here is my laundry list of things that I hate about our federal government.

1. TSA. We all travel a lot because of what we do here and I have come to abhor the TSA. All the stupid pointless rules and the idiots from our government that enforce them. I vote to end the TSA and replace it with our troops that come home from the corners of the world. I think our troops are far better qualified to figure out a terrorist from a passenger.

2. Fix the FED. The root cause of all of our financial problems is the Fed. Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have created a royal fucking mess and it is going to take a president like Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt to take it on but ultimately the Fed will be the death of our nation if something is not done.

3. Legalize marijuana. I agree with this but I want to take it a step farther. Marijuana has lots of other qualities for hemp for rope and so on. We should make it a goal that America becomes the world leader. Let's develop the technologies and processes to become the best at growing and distributing marijuana and Hemp.

4. Put a ceiling on lobbying. It is so out of control. It is weird that Obama got elected because Romney had far money than Obama. I hope it is not an isolated incident but normally money is able to buy almost any election.

voting rights for EVERY US Citizen including felons and prisoners. - seriously?

Why shouldn't felons and convicts - both out of prison and in prison - be allowed to vote?

My top priority would be to make prostitution legal in all states and persuade Brazilian's businesses to open up termas to stimulate both job growth and stiff dicks. Of course I would address immigration issues with allowing hooker visa's, that could be turned into green cards upon proper evaluation of their enduring work ethic (some type of leg open statistic & BBBJ provided).

(Message edited by lovingmarvin on November 08, 2012)

I strongly agree with BluesTravellers second point. IMO virtually all our economic problems stem from the Fed (particularly the last two guys). Bernanke is doing everything he can to
re-ignite a stock and/or RE bubble. This after the Tech Bubble in the late 90s and the RE bubble in the mid 2000s. If he's successful, the ensuing crash will be worse than the previous two.

For full disclosure, I am a futures trader. People like me typically do well when monetary policy is being conducted 3rd World Style (which it is right now). But it never ends well for the average citizen.

Damn right about letting felons and prisoners vote. Many of them are wrongly convicted or imprisoned for stupid crimes like smoking pot. These people are also victims of the private prison industry and they would rather be in prisons run by an accountable government.

Finally, I forgot one voting related issue. Election Day needs to be a NATIONAL holiday where every business and retail store must remain closed. No turning it into another excuse for a sale.

Totally disagree that Bernake is creating a stock market bubble.

Stocks today are dirt cheap, buuble's occur when stocks are very expensive, like the tech boom which created the most expensive period in history with a whopping 45-1 price to earnings ratio.

By far the most exspensive period for stocks, the previous high was 30-1 just before the great depression in 1930.

2007 saw the 3rd highest in history at 27-1, stock create bubble's when they become very exspensive not when they are dirt cheap as they are now, in fact they are cheaper today then they were last year at this time, they are becoming cheaper because earnings remain at record levels and when earnings are high investor will buy stocks not sell.

This stock market has a long, long way to go before we see any bubbles, which will come again at some point but won't be anytime soon.

Fooled again,

Nowhere did I state we are in a stock market bubble right now.

Maybe the election should be two days with no reports on how the ballots are going until the polls close.

I think it is great that there was so much interest, but some folks had to wait 4 hours in line. Kudos to them for waiting in those lines.

If I were President I imagine I would run things kind of like Ferdinand Marcos ran the Philippines however in an ironic twist of fate I would seek asylum and flee TO Clark Air Base in a C-130 under cover of darkness with all of my looted Billions once I was deposed.

I don't think I would make a very good President. :-(

Sancho, I would assume that spending at NIH to research cures for resistant strains of STDs would go through the roof?