One of these days somebody should do a serious study of risk-taking behavior in modern American presidents. My intuition is that a willingness, even an eagerness, to take excessive risks is part and parcel of becoming president. I don’t believe that it’s possible to understand Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush in any other light.
President Obama is commonly characterized as a cautious planner but I have my doubts. His stories of his younger days are certainly filled with lots of heedless risks.
And I’m not sure how you’d characterize somebody who smokes and whose mother, maternal grandfather, and maternal grandmother all died of cancer. At the very least it’s another risk factor, regardless of how healthy he might be otherwise. Sounds like a risky behavior to me.
I guess I’ll never be president.
Good point. I think risk-taking is a necessary element to becoming President. For example, Obama’s 50-state campaign strategy was viewed as a big risk compared Hillary’s traditional front-loaded approach. I think it certainly could have backfired on him.
BTW, thanks for all the recent posts on healthcare. In a sea of right and left wing talking points, some sound analysis is very refreshing.
No telling how many risks a young president who can’t do math or science and who has never really worked can impose on others using other people’s money.
Jimbino,
Hence the reason we elect a President and not a King.
For what it’s worth, IMO the biggest obstacle to reform in any part of government is not the executive branch, but Congress.
Andy,
We also used to have a Constitution that granted no powers over health care to either Congress or the President, but left them to the States.
We don’t elect Spocks. We elect Kirks.
Actually, Congress has the right to pass laws promoting the general welfare, and the authority to collect taxes to do so. In any case, technically they aren’t forcing the states to provide health care – they’re simply making it financially difficult for them not to do so (by withholding federal funding).
That’s because becoming President has become such an individually arduous task, involving endless meetings, rallies, preparations, and so forth – and in the current era, constantly being on your guard to avoid saying something that might be interpreted badly. It’s all very rough and risky to a person’s reputation, so the people who are able and willing to do it would naturally tend to be people willing to take big risks in exchange for fulfilling their ambition.
It’d be interesting to compare this to the 19th century method of campaigning, where it was considered distasteful for a Presidential Candidate to actually campaign for himself – his partisans were in charge of setting up rallies and bringing in votes. Were Presidents back then more risk-averse, or cautious?
Brett,
You need first to be aware that Thomas Jefferson spoke to that:
SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE
http://law.onecle.com/constitution/article-1/18-spending-for-general-welfare.html
Scope of the Power
The grant of power to “provide … for the general welfare†raises a two-fold question: how may Congress provide for “the general welfare†and what is “the general welfare†that it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his opinion on the Bank as follows: “[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.†The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted, Congress has not acted upon it and the Court has had no occasion to adjudicate the point.
With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare†the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause; Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self-support.”
Secondly, it is foolish to maintain that Congress has plenary powers over things like education and health care for the citizens of the various states. Else Amendments IX and X would have no meaning.