What is Priority #1?

[picard42]

In my ongoing effort to keep things positive (no sense in getting down on the guy before he's even done anything yet), I'm putting out a question to everyone. Rather than put this in as a poll, I'm just going to ask it free-form because I doubt I'll cover all of the possible answers

Comments

[bluestreak7]

I'm a fan of smaller government, so anything that reduces government size would be the best for me. Barring any governmental power changes, I agree with the energy issue.

[bcarothers]

I was thinking economy first, but yours is good, too.

Hrm... I wonder if economic and energy independence issues can be tied together and worked simultaneously? We keep bitching about manufacturing jobs getting outsourced. Granted, windmill factories or solar panel plants here and there won't suck up all the workers spewed by Chrysler, but someone's gotta put this stuff together, right? Building/expanding metro trains & rail lines requires local boots on the ground and gets a few cars off the roads. Stuff like that. Sounds kinda Tennessee Valley Authority-ish, but a lot of that worked decently well...

[picard42]

Well, we DO have infrastructure issues in this country too. Instead of handing out checks to lower-income people, maybe we could pay people to "volunteer" part-time to help with this sort of thing.

What I'd like to see with energy is an Interstate Highway System-style effort to build a world-class energy infrastructure. As each government-funded windfarm, solarfarm, or what have you is set up successfully, it should be spun off to form its own private enterprise, hiring thousands of locals to run it.

Of course, if this could be done by giving incentives to existing entities rather than the government having to start anything from scratch, all the better.

At any rate, whatever the details end up being, this is the kind of project the federal government SHOULD be undertaking - infrastructure improvements facilitate interstate trade and energy independence is a national security issue, so it's all nice and Constitutional.

[bcarothers]

YES YES YES!

Man, we totally make a great model for how left-leaning and right-leaning people can put their minds together and do good stuff.

[maggiemarmalade]

Pic

[megatron33]

While realistically, I doubt this will happen but I'm pushing for him to prioritize better mass public transit. When I was in Japan I was really impressed with the rail system they had going everywhere and if I could only read Japananese then I probably could have gone anywhere I wanted without any difficulty.

I suppose we need him to pick up the red phone and bomb the hell out of us so we can rebuild ourselves for it though.

[raptorck]

Well, that is part of Executive Order #1: Kill kill kill, kill kill, kill kill kill, kill Whitey.

[raptorck]

Energy independence, as funded by something along the lines of the TVA. Give the poor some jobs, have them put up windmills along the interstates, build solar collection plants, dig new pipelines for alternative fuels. This will put government money into the hands of the unemployed without handing it out.

Next up, nuclear breeder reactors. We should be looking to stretch out our supply of fissionable materials, and ideally reusing our nuclear waste products accordingly to do so.

[gigerlicious]

I think he's going to have to make a demonstration of muscle to Congress, flash the veto stamp and lead by example. He may have won over the country, I'm skeptical he's closed the deal with D.C.'s power brokers. Not only will this be necessary to set the Washington tone to his agenda, Biden is right - some foreign entity is going to rattle the sabre next year, he better be ready for it.