An absentia of moderation

Having witnessed the excesses of the Bush administration over the last eight years, both in terms of ideology and execution of policies, it makes me wonder about why no one is talking about the role of moderation- common sense checks and balances that are sorely lacking over the office of the President of the United States. It would seem obvious that the extremist and poorly thought-out policies of one man have caused lasting damage to the credibility of a whole nation, not to mention trillions of dollars of taxpayer money spent wastefully and immorally.

I was outraged to find out that as of this year, 42 cents of every dollar paid on federal income tax goes to the military budget while only 4 cents or so go to education and infrastructure maintainence. So basically most of my tax money is funding the killing of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, bribes for fundamentalist militiamen, and a misguided occupation of a foriegn nation, while inner city children in the U.S. are barely able to attain literacy in government-funded (or should I say underfunded) schools. How is this situation any different from a monarchy- where the distribution of resources does not depend on the greater good but rather on the whim of one man or woman, or in this case, a fringe group of neoconservatives?



Despite such a steady track record in US history of the corrupting influence of power on it Presidents (Nixon and Watergate; Johnson and the Vietnam War; Bush and Iraq; Bush and tax cuts for the rich; Bush and Katrina; Bush and misrepresenting the science of stem cell research and climate change; Bush and cronyism in the judicial system...), it seems there no new laws in place that would put in place a stronger process to correct the poor decision-making and short-sighted policies of future administrations before it becomes the content of history books. While the candidates for the presidency fill the airwaves with passionate speeches, where is the safety net that would prevent them from straying into foolhardiness at the nation's expense?

It's time the US public gave up its romance with the post of the President ("the most powerful man in the world"), and revised its constitution and/or the organization of the legislative branch to make the office of the President more accountable to the democracy that it represents. No matter how wonderful the current candidates may seem, or how much of an improvement they may be compared to their predecessor, they would certainly not be immune from changes of heart, conscience or simply political considerations. If veto power was distributed more broadly and flexibly, then it is surely less likely that non-sensical policies are carried out to the detriment of the average citizen.