Do we ask too much of our Presidents? Is the office out of date?

Question

Maybe we should have a Home Secretary over all domestic affairs, health, the economy, etc., a Foreign Secretary with more direct control over international relations than our current Secretary of State, and a President/Prime Minister who is more of an adminstrator and less of a "decider." Pros, cons?

Answer 1

That would HAVE to include a complete makeover of the Constitution. Highly unlikely. Actually, we haven't had these types of 'problems' that would predispose your solution, except with the last administration, and the one forced into resignation.

Answer 2

Actually, the president shouldn't be involved in all that. The whole federal government shouldn't be involved in all that. Read the Constitution.

If the president enforce and respect the Constitution, there's not much work to do. The president is the administrator of the republic, the public things. Executive action is reserved to the administration of the federal government, it doesn't have jurisdiction beyond that. The superpowers granted by the congress are explicitly prohibited. The declaration of war and the authorization to send troops outside the borders is allowed only to the congress. Drug control, education, gun control, public safety, etc, are issues that the Constitution doesn't put under federal jurisdiction and the tenth amendment is clear. If it's not explicitly put under federal jurisdiction or prohibited to the states, it's in the hands of the states or the people.

So, the solution is easy. Put the Constitution back in place, enforce it, reduce the federal government, put the power back in the states and the people and the president can have a relaxed term in office.

Listen to Ron Paul. He's the only one who has read the Constitution.

Answer 3

We don't ask enough of our President.

Look at the rule book, he is only there to conduct foreign relations, and veto stuff, and in case of war, which Congress must declare , be the C-in-C.

Everything else the President does, he basically isn't suppose to.

So when 9/11 happened and he just sat there he did the right thing. And when Katrina hit and nothing, he did the right thing.

Answer 4

No.  As Harry Truman said: "the buck stops here."

Who are we going to blame if we don't have a leader?

Answer 5

No. We don't ask too much if we permit the person holding the office of President to carry out the duties of that office set down in Article Two of the Constitution. Our problem has been, since the Spring of 1933, to view the President as some sort of Federal Wizard King, elected to office so he can solve all of our problems while we abandon all traces of active citizenship and go back to our lives without ever having a role in the process of governance.

Given the hard-core presence of the "nativist gene" among our people, a switch to anything resembling a parliamentary system would be viewed as a "foreign plot" meant to rob us of our sovereignty.

The President is permitted to have cabinet officers to manage the various agencies of the Executive Branch. If there must be any change to that, I would prefer to see the Department of Commerce replaced by a Department of International Trade and Industry.

Answer 6

someone has to be the one to make the final decision. just look at congress and you can see too many chefs in the kitchen and nothing gets cooked.