Are policy decisions about economic, social, energy & ecological matters best made by Presidential edicts?

Question

This is the fully worded Q : Are policy decisions about economic, social, energy & ecological matters best made by Presidential edicts or by democratic consensus? Does it make me a liberal to favor the latter rather than the former in most cases?

(Having admitted to the existence of a few necessary exceptions- there is no need to go there to avoid the Q.

This is a broad Question about the government accentuated by the behavior of the Partisan Republican Bush43 administration but Bush43 is not the issue---but the style of government is!)

Answer 1

Basically, the decisions should be made in the Congress.  However given the current political situation where congress have their collective heads up their a@@, persidential edicts are the only way to make real progress some times.

Modern examples:  

EPA, under Clinton the rule was if a power utility were to do ANY upgrade to a power plant they were requried to modernize the ENTIRE plant.  

Result, NO MODERNIZATIONS at all due to cost.

Under Bush the rule changed (simple change) Any modification by a power utility had to meet modern standrds for high efficiency.  The entire plant does not have to be upgraded only systems chosen by the compnaies.

Result more power for less pollution from existing power plant.  A perfectly green reult that all programs should seek to emulate.

Next example:

EISA 2007, Any major consturciton undertaken by the govt msut be 100% sefl sufficient through the use and application of renewable energy.

Result, without waivers there will be no new major consturciton in the government.  Cost of major constion has just been escalated by as much as a factor of 10.  No projects currently in que have nearly enough money in their budgets to cover this requirement.

Would be more practicla to require some portion of renewable energy (more economically feasible) and scale that up over time as technology catches up with the new world energy requirements.

Here is my last example.  (joke about committees)  

Q:  What do you call a Platypus?  

A:  A duck designed by committee.

What else could you call congress if not a committe.  Committees ahve their place, micro management is NOT it.

Answer 2

No. Democratic Consensus.  Speaking of which on issues of what has come to have the term National Security a training program run by volunteers could supply citizens with what is required to disarm bombsin potential terrorist attacks if that what The Government has on it's agenda. If Gov speaks for The People. If not then what it talks of as a broad based network is but resistance to it's policies. Citizens can then run things themselves simply set up their own currency and repair their cities. It can be done without a Government. Without  other things too.