My Question for the Presidential Candidates
Oct 8th, 2008 by mark
Last night’s “town hall” style debate between Senators Obama and McCain got me to thinking about what question I would have posed. And about the answer that would satisfy me. Much has been made of the first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration.
From Wikipedia:
Having won a decisive victory in the United States presidential election of 1932, and with his party having decisively swept Congressional elections across the nation, Roosevelt entered office with unprecedented political capital. Americans of all political persuasions were demanding immediate action, and Roosevelt responded with a remarkable series of new programs in the “first hundred days” of the administration, in which he met with congress for 100 days. During those 100 days of lawmaking, Congress granted every “request” Roosevelt asked.
While I don’t expect either candidate to arrive in office with a mandate like FDR had, I do expect them to have a plan laid out and a willingness to execute it to the best of their ability. So, here then is my question.
What, in order of priority, are the top five initiatives you’ll implement during your first 100 days in office?
I’ve thought about this a lot in the past couple of days, and here are some of the initiative I would hope to hear.
- An executive order closing the Guantanimo Bay detention facility. The order should also require that all persons detained be formally charged and given representation or set free
- An executive order forbidding the use of torture (or “aggressive interrogation techniques”).
- An initiative to bring forward the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards. Within four years no car sold in America should get less then 30 MPG average.
- Signing and full compliance with the Kyoto Protocol regarding global climate change.
- A proposal presented to Congress that details a responsible withdrawal of troops from Iraq within the next two years.
- A “bailout” or relief plan for homeowners caught in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. We’ve helped the banks who created the mess, now let’s help the ordinary citizens.
- Strong, unwavering diplomacy with those nations whose ambitions include nuclear weapons, including a clear statement of consequences should diplomacy fail.
- A clear, unambiguous path for persons living in the United States to become citizens - regardless of how they arrived in this country.
- Regulation and monitoring of the Pharmaceutical and Health Insurance industries.
- Legislation taking away the “free speech” power of money, thus removing the power corporations have that citizens don’t enjoy.
