POLL: Would you like these policies carried out by a future administration?

[Jazman]

I've been reading coverage of recent political rallies of a current candidate and/or prospective officials of the same candidate's future administration and numerous policy goals have been put forth...
I'm curious how many of these you would like this candidate and their admin to carry out after they're in office?
Vote for as many or few or none as you wish.
(I'll let you look up any links / transcripts / recordings of recent political rally's where some of these may have been proclaimed, if you want to endure the foul language employed to propose some of these...)

[steve-in-kville]

Explain Federal Civil Service to me. Not familiar with that one.

[Ken]

Explain Federal Civil Service to me. Not familiar with that one.

Ordinary career federal civilian employees (i.e. who are not in the military or in Congress or political appointees).

So everyone from postal carriers to IRS agents to forest rangers to air traffic controllers.

[barnhart]

All of those ideas seem likely to me to bear bad fruit with the possible exception of the import tax. I don't know enough about macro economics to predict the outcome.

[Ken]

All of these ideas are ridiculous and mostly not legal.

Using the military to round up undocumented immigrants: This is not legal. The military is not a domestic police force and their job is not immigration enforcement. Do we want armed solders going door to door in every neighborhood and place of employment checking everyone's ID and documents? Setting up dragnets and internal checkpoints in every city and on every highway like we are a communist dictatorship? Americans are not required to carry ID and citizenship papers anyway. Furthermore, the biggest barrier to deportations is immigration courts anyway. Without ramping up immigration courts, all a roundup would accomplish is millions of people in indefinite detention awaiting deportation hearings that would be months or years away.

Order the National Guard into cities to do police work. Again, not legal. Each state's national guard answers to the governor. Under limited circumstances of national emergency, Congress can declare a national emergency and nationalize the Guard and put them under Federal control such as times of war and emergencies like Katrina. It is doubtful that courts would consider ordinary crime to be adequate justification to federalize state national guards and take them out of the authority of various state governors. So, for example, if the California governor opposes seeing the California national guard nationalized to do crime patrols in Los Angeles or San Francisco it would most certainly land in federal court. And besides, the biggest obstacle to law enforcement is adequate numbers of prosecutors and defense attorneys anyway in many cities. If you want more police on the streets the way to do that is use Federal dollars to hire more police, not deploy national guard who are just weekend warriors who have other jobs and homes.

10% Tariff on all goods. Absurd idea. We have much higher tariffs already on many products and no tariffs on some products. All of which have been negotiated by various trade agreements with other countries like NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. This would mean an enormous drop in tariffs from some countries where they are already higher than 10% (such as China) and a big increase in tariffs in places like Canada where we have free trade agreements on things like auto parts so that car companies can do manufacturing on both sides of the border. And it would start trade wars with many of our closest allies with whom we have negotiated trade agreements over long periods of time, often at OUR OWN URGING.

Special prosecutor to prosecute political opponents. This reflects a misunderstanding of what special prosecutors actually do. They are normally INDEPENDENT prosecutors or special counsels who's job it is to do investigations INDEPENDENTLY of the political process. And just because you appoint an independent prosecutor doesn't mean they are actually going to prosecute. The would investigate and then make an INDEPENDENT and non-political decision as to whether to move forward with prosecution. This is better than simply having the Justice Department prosecute political opponents.

Purge the civil service of political opponents. Again, not legal. The civil service was set up the way it is way back in the 1880s to clean up all the corruption and patronage system where each incoming administration passed out all the federal jobs like candy as rewards to supporters. The civil service act (Pendleton Act of 1883) set up the professional civil service to be somewhat independent in that hiring is to be done on MERIT not political connections. It is sometimes called the Merit System. And that civil service employees are somewhat insulated from being fired for political reasons as well. That is how you have professional career federal employees that span across multiple administrations. There are still political appointees in charge of each agency, thousands of them across the government who answer directly to the president and who can be hired and fired at his/her will. But many of them (at least the higher level ones) are subject to confirmation by the Senate. Civil service employees can still be fired, but it needs to be for cause, not for failure to be of the "wrong" party. There is also a law called the Hatch Act which prohibits federal workers from engaging in politics while employed by the federal government.

Shoot/kill shoplifters? Seriously? Do we need to answer this? You going to gun down people walking out of the store who you suspect of shoplifting even if maybe they didn't shop lift anything at all? Are we going gun down speeders on the highway? Set up snipers along side the freeway and kill anyone going 10 mph over the speed limit? What about tax evaders? Do we gun them down? They are every bit as much thieves as a shoplifter? Can we execute Trump for evading taxes to the tune of millions of dollars? And just do so without a trial? That is theft from the public and a bigger theft than some kid who steals a pair of Nikes.

[Josh]

Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods (Guaranteeing increased prices for consumers).

That's a bit of an assumption there and I think a bit much of a statement for a poll... there is no guarantee prices will go up for consumers. Arguing that is so is basically arguing that domestically-produced goods are somehow inferior per dollar paid to foreign goods, which I think is a rather major assumption.

[Jazman]

Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods (Guaranteeing increased prices for consumers).

That's a bit of an assumption there and I think a bit much of a statement for a poll... there is no guarantee prices will go up for consumers. Arguing that is so is basically arguing that domestically-produced goods are somehow inferior per dollar paid to foreign goods, which I think is a rather major assumption.

I can see your point. Maybe "(Possible increased prices on some things for consumers)" would be better?

[Jazman]

It appears as if more has been said at campaign rallies or other places, but I'm wondering if these claims can be substantiated by actual recorded speech in context... I would also like to know if anyone here is in favor of these suggestions and for what specific reasons... (other than "I generally support this candidate or his party in whatever they do...")

"According to a page one story in The Washington Post Monday, Trump plans on the first day of his new administration to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can dispatch the military to counter any demonstrations that might resist his policies.

Why might he need the Insurrection Act? Well, the piece also notes Trump intends to turbo-politicize the Department of Justice and order prosecutions of his former aides and officials who have criticized him. Perhaps he thinks the country won’t let him go buck wild on the rule of law without a stink, so he wants to be ready to sic troops on the inevitable protestors. Fingered by Trump for legal beat-downs, the Post reports, are one-time Trump stalwarts and staffers like former chief of staff John F. Kelly, former attorney general William Barr, his ex-attorney Ty Cobb, and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark A. Milley. Trump has singled out other officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice for prosecution, the piece adds, as well as President Joe Biden and his family. [...] Over the summer, ABC News compiled a list of plenty of people he wanted indicted or jailed for their crimes, including ex-FBI Director James Comey, former special counsel Robert Mueller, Steele dossier author Christopher Steele, Bill and Hillary Clinton, former national security adviser John Bolton." - Jack Shafer.

[Josh]

Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods (Guaranteeing increased prices for consumers).

That's a bit of an assumption there and I think a bit much of a statement for a poll... there is no guarantee prices will go up for consumers. Arguing that is so is basically arguing that domestically-produced goods are somehow inferior per dollar paid to foreign goods, which I think is a rather major assumption.

I can see your point. Maybe "(Possible increased prices on some things for consumers)" would be better?

Higher prices are a good alternative to buying things produced with slave labour and that cost American jobs.

[Josh]

Maybe Trump wants to prevent insurrections like 1/6? Aren’t you folks against insurrections?