Posts by People Over Party
Leading for All the People: Why the Power of the Purse Is Not a Personal Reward System
There’s a phrase we used to hear that nearly every president has said on their first day in office, in some form or another: I will be a president for all Americans. It’s not just a nicety. It’s a recognition of what the office actually is, a position created to serve a nation, not a…
Read MoreVirtue in Our Leaders: What We Ask of Those We Follow
The demagogue: someone who obtains power through appeals to prejudice, distrust, and fear rather than through reasoned persuasion or demonstrated judgment.
Read MoreWhat Is Impoundment: Why the Power of the Purse Cannot Be a Reward System
Are appropriated federal funds a discretionary resource that shifts with the political preferences of whoever holds executive power at a given moment?
Read MoreWhat Makes America Great
In our 250th year, some are divided over whether America is great or what it would take to make America great. Some use founders who owned slaves as proof the promise was hollow from the start; others vow to make the country great again, as though it stopped being great at some point. Both sides…
Read MorePeople Over Party: When Presidents Unite US
Let’s ask our leaders to put People over Party. Not because our differences don’t matter, but because what unites us matters more.
Read MoreA Balance of Power: What You’d Want if the Other Side Wins
Sustainable constitutional government asks something harder than winning. It asks us to support rules we’d accept under a president we didn’t vote for.
Read MoreUnitary Executive Theory: What is it and Why it is Bad for America
No branch of government can be trusted to police itself once it holds unchecked power.
Read MoreExecutive Powers: How a Theory to Fix a Weak Government is Being Corrupted
What began as a fix for a slow, divided government has been repurposed into a rationale for a government that no longer needs Congress’s agreement at all.
Read MoreFixing Social Security: Six Options – One Answer (Part 3)
When we look at the looming insolvency of Social Security, we are told that Washington is stuck because the issue is too complicated to solve. That is a lie. The problem isn’t a lack of options; it is a lack of courage. If you strip away the political theater, Social Security is just a rigid,…
Read MoreSocial Security: Math vs. Myth (Part 2)
Social Security was never designed to be a personal retirement plan or a wealth-building vehicle. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the original 1935 architects explicitly engineered it to serve as a societal safety net, a baseline insurance floor to prevent elderly Americans from falling into destitution and poverty. Now, Social Security is failing. In Part…
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