Oh, I see, I didn't understand what you were saying in your post, my bad.

?? Carter beat Reagan??

Wow, that might be a record!

What to do is an interesting question, while I know you and I do not agree on the gold standard, there is still the duty to protect the value of the dollar, and we clearly are not doing that now. The Fed is promoting massive liquidity and only the more dire issues surrounding the Euro have given us some breathing room. And on a daily basis when the world thinks Europe can be OK - China announced it wouldn't sell its European debt - we see oil move up and the Euro rise. As I write the Euro is up to 1.23 and oil is sniffing $74 a barrel and the 10 yr US Bond has moved higher 20 basis points. What we have is a window, and so any US politician's array of options will be dictated by how bad it is at that time. I tend to believe Europe will manage to keep most bondholders busy for the next few years so I will attack your question with the assumption we have a little more time.

Really I think what you need to do are a few primary things and I think you will have the political capital to do them both. One, re-evaluate laws which "privatize profit and publicize risk". You really need to attack Freddie and Fannie hard, re-write what I assume will be a bad financial reform bill, restate the supremacy of bankruptcy laws, kill Sarbanes, and get rid of bills like the CRA. They are the engines of bubbles. Publically state there will be no "evolution" of employment law. Employers would like that.

Absolutely flatline the budget - and it will be politically popular, symbolically important and financially sound. This means you lay off people and cut the costs of all the rest. Everyone knows the govt overpays and has overly generous benefit packages. Introduce them to the real world. This has the added bonus of ticking off the public sector unions. If I was feeling really ambitious I would by executive order outlaw the unionization of public sector employees. There is no feedback mechanism to restrain their appetite. A great deal of our govt financial woes are as a result of the AFSCME and the SEIU.

The last area is entitlements. Very difficult but I think there would be some options here. Of course I would kill Obamacare day one, it is a budget busting, care rationing, monstrosity. In its place I would promote moving seniors in Medicare into Medicare Advantage accounts and cap the govt subsidy. If the govt contributes say $7000 a contract to Medicare today - it will do the same 5 years from now. Individual seniors can then determine the coverage levels they wish to pay for. This helps decrease the upward cost of Medicare and might make the program sustainable in the short term, plus would eliminate the cost shift from Medicare to private insurance; we have bigger issues in healthcare but that would be a start. On SS I really think you need to find a bridge to privatization and my thought would to be make SS optional, with another approved but privately held account option available, funded by an amount equal with the current taxes. I would probably start with under 30 types.

Thats a thought of what I would do.

As an HR guy, I am seeing the quiet killer and of course we all see the very public one.

Obama's criticism of Bush's handling of Katrina, which had some validity, is painful when you realize Obama's performance with the BP spill is worse. It is hurting the cover he gets from the left because the environmental wackos (to borrow a phrase) are now taking shots at him. Jindal is waiting on someone to at least respond to his sand berm proposal to try and protect the Louisiana marsh and coastline. I think we are on almost 2 weeks now. The lack of leadership is there for all to see.

His handling of Arizona illegal alien situation has likewise bit him in a very powerful way. I think like 70% of the population is now in support of it and Obama's lackeys who criticized without reading it (it looks like federal immigration statutes) just made his administration look stupid. The reason he cannot fight it is because the only argument he has - usurption of federal authority - has already been ruled on in the favor of the state vs the fed in a previous SCOTUS ruling. When you add on the incredibly stupid handling of the president of Mexico's visit and congressional address you are losing blue collar democrats. PA 12 was won by a democrat who sounded just like a conservative republican, running against everything Obama stands for, such that if he now fails to vote like it, he will get wiped out in November.

Lastly healthcare. We all know it is unpopular with the important 60% in favor of repeal level being just broken. But more importantly is the role the nation's employers (people like me) are playing in proving no you likely won't keep your current plan, and the costs are going up. HHS's inability to provide very basic interpretations of the laws requirements has every benefit department is slowing everything up. Word I heard is that everytime they make a decison the badness that we all said was there becomes obvious and the politics go a little further south. So they are being pressured to stop making decisions (just like their C in C) in order to stop the bleeding. With each delay, employers let their employees know they cannot answer their questions because the govt regulations aren't complete. A vicious cycle.

Obama is a weak leader who has no ability to persuade anyone to his side. His support among black American's is propping up his poll numbers, he is esssentially around post 2006 Bush numbers and still falling. He looks like a deer in the headlight, angry that the spot light on these other concerns is stopping his larger agenda. The GOP can still screw up (see Rand Paul), but Obama is dead in the ocean and taking on water. He will sink further. McMahon was a terrible choice in Connecticut - but if the GOP can pull that one one out the Senate will flip. Boxer is in a fight, and now Washington is in play. Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvannia, Delaware are probably already gone. And Obama will be a drag on each and every one of the rest.