Mystery Topic Challenge #4

If I were President for a day, with the power to do anything, I would interview and test all 435 members of Congress on their level of understanding and appreciation for the limits on Federal government authority and power. Those that test at less than 90 % will be dismissed from the Congress and ineligible to hold Federal office until they test above 95% on 10 separate tests.

Those that test less than 50% are jailed, and those that test less than 20% are summarily executed as tyrant wannabes.

With the 4 members still standing, I will create a committee to review the entire US Code, and repeal all laws that violate the Constitution. All programs, departments, and agencies that do not meet the powers granted to the Federal government will be immediately disbanded, all agency buildings not needed for valid constitutional Federal use will be sold to either various state governments, or private sector, and proceeds deposited in the Treasury to repay all debts incurred by the disbanded government.

As an example, Dept of Education - gone. Dept of Health and Human services - Bye bye. National Endowments for the Arts, Public Broadcasting Corporation, NPR - adios. Alaskan Bridges to nowhere - auf wiedersehen. Congress will take back the power over the economy now exercised by an unaccountable Federal Reserve Bank.

My next step would be to convene a web conference of all 50 governors, to explain that although the Federal government does not have the constitutional power to run the disbanded departments and programs, there is nothing in the US Constitution that prevents the states from doing so, assuming they want to tax their own citizens for those things. At the end of the first web conference, all 50 governors would email a list with their nominees, 2 people for each congressional vacancy, for their states.

I would followup with all the nominees in a second web conference, with me and the 4 incumbent legislators. We would interview them, then I will appoint temporary replacements for the 431 House and Senate vacancies, choosing the candidate with the best grasp of the Constitution from the Governor's nominee lists.

After calling the new Congress into session later that day, I would work with them to pass 2 amendments the Constitution to outlaw pork barrel spending, and add a mechanism to quickly remove from office any Federal office holder that attempts to circumvent the Constitutional limits henceforth. Powers granted to the President and the Congress can only be added to by further amending the Constitution in the manner listed in the Constitution.

After these amendments are passed by 2/3 of both Houses of Congress, I would forward the text to the states.

The next to last thing I would do would be to ask Congress for a bill to reconfigure the federal budget to one better fitting the proper Constitutional limits to federal power. This bill would allow for previously nderfunded constitutional agencies to be fully funded, and the remainder of unnecessary tax revenues would be refunded to the tax payers. This bill would not go into effect until the Constitutional amendments were ratified by 2/3 of the States.

On my last act of the day, I would issue two executive orders stating that all surplus federal employees that have their jobs eliminated can apply for any open positions in the remaining departments, including the Department of Defense. This executive order called for all remaining department managers and Cabinet Secretaries to provide assistance to all former Federal employees as possible, and to provide referrals to any State government programs that perform a similar function to the illegitimate former Federal one.
The second executive order mandated that all remaining federal employees will have to go through a thorough customer service re-training to understand that they serve the citizens, who are in effect their customers. All federal employees will be required to master good customer service techniques, and undergo periodic customer service refresher training.

Then I woke up.