Seven Things Biden Can Do Now That He’s Officially a King
Here are seven consequential decrees His Majesty can issue to immediately turn the United States into a utopia.
Now that the almighty un-elected lifetime-appointed black-robed monarchs on the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) have thrown out the country’s core principle that no one — not even a president — is above the law, President — now King — Joe Biden must show those justices and the country what monarchical powers look like.
Since he can no longer be held accountable for “official acts,” here are seven consequential decrees His Majesty can issue to immediately turn the United States into the utopia we have waited two and a half centuries to enjoy.
The Supreme Court
First, fire the six right-wing justices — Kavanaugh, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Comey-Barrett, and Gorsuch — and replace them with nine — not six — term-limited progressive justices who will re-instate the Roe v. Wade decision, re-hear the Shelby County v. Holder decision, overturn the Citizens United decision, as well as the god-awful most recent decisions the Court made over the past week. If they happen to rule in a way Biden disagrees with, he can just issue executive orders. Why do we even need a Supreme Court at all, then?
Elections & Campaign Finance
To move away from the system of legalized political bribery we have now to a publicly funded electoral system, King Biden can order state legislatures to re-write their election laws making private political donations of any amount punishable with prison time. Since Citizens United will be overturned, we needn’t worry any more about dark money polluting candidates’ coffers. They will come exclusively from funds established at the state level. Since the president is immune from prosecution for “official acts,” he can order the Justice Dept. to throw malefactors in prison on just a suspicion of bribing politicians. Hey, he can do it now, right?
While he’s at it, King Biden can issue an executive order to insert the phrase “corporations are not people” into the Constitution. Let’s finally rid ourselves of the insane belief in “corporate personhood”. (Thanks again, SCOTUS, for that.)
While he’s got the Constitution open, he can strike the section about the anachronistic Electoral College and proclaim we are finally going to elect presidents by popular vote, making the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact the law of the land. No more presidents the majority of the people did not vote for because of an 18th-century technicality.
Tax the rich
Next, institute a wealth tax similar to the Revenue Act of 1935. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed along with Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Brendan Boyle is a good start. It would require the top 0.05 percent of American households contribute two cents for every dollar of wealth over $50 million. With the billions in revenue generated, we can afford universal child care, offer paid family leave for mothers and fathers, fully fund public education, and finally make college tuition free or virtually free.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Biden signed into law two years ago requires companies reporting more than $1 billion in profits to pay a 15% minimum corporate tax rate, and wealthy shareholders to pay a 1% tax on stock buybacks. The bill also requires Americans making over $400,000 to pay a little more in taxes. With absolute power, why not go all the way? Raise the top marginal income tax rate to over 90% like it was under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower so we can, once again, boast a thriving middle class.
We can also invest more heavily in infrastructure, building on President…uh, sorry..King Biden’s success under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act already transforming our transportation sector, water delivery systems, electric vehicle deployment, and electric grid enhancements.
Healthcare
We are literally the only developed country in the world without a single-payer national healthcare system, which leads us to being the only developed country in which healthcare costs are the leading cause of bankruptcies. 15 million Americans have to shoulder the burden of medical debt, totaling $88 billion, on their credit reports, affecting their ability to rent, purchase homes and vehicles, obtain loans, and more effectively participate in the economy, which harms us all. The Biden administration recently announced a plan to wipe medical debt from people’s credit reports.
To that end, King Biden, should go much further, informing private, for-profit health insurance companies that if they wish to continue offering plans to people who can afford them, they may, but we are going to begin implementing a national Medicare-for-all type single-payer healthcare infrastructure that covers all Americans from birth to death.
We do this by instructing Medicare to issue state waivers that would allocate federal Medicaid and Medicare funds, like California passed into law in October, giving individual states authority to implement their own universal healthcare models based on population and demographics. Whatever models they adopt, however, must be approved by Medicare and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure they are comprehensive and not discriminatory. States submit their health insurance claims to Medicare, which issues payment to physicians. No out-of-pocket costs, no pre-approvals, no denials, so long as the medical treatments are physician directed. No insurance CEO will get rich off it since illness will no longer be profitable.
While we’re at it, criminalize the fraudulent use of the Medicare label. No more “Medicare Advantage” scams. King Biden can just pronounce the Save Medicare Act Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Mark Pocan introduced two years ago as the new policy. Unconstitutional? With immunity, try to stop him.
Gun violence
Enacting a component to the most comprehensive gun safety legislation in history, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act President Biden signed two years ago, the Justice Department in April finalized a rule to close the “gun show loophole” that previously allowed gun sellers to market firearms online, at gun shows, and other informal venues without having to conduct purchasers’ background checks that would have been required in other retail circumstances.
With 261 mass shootings this year to date as of this writing, King Biden must require all firearms, no matter how big or small, to be insured like cars.
Think about it.
From manufacture to destruction, cars are required to maintain chains of ownership through titles. That way state DMVs and law enforcement agencies know from year to year who owns the vehicles should they be involved in accidents or crimes.
While vehicles have the potential to kill people, killing is not their reason to exist. But it is the reason guns exist.
We insure vehicles to protect ourselves and others in the event they are involved in accidents. But we aren’t required to insure guns. We require drivers’ licenses to prove proficiency. But we don’t with guns.
“Free-market” libertarians and republicans should love this since “it would create a whole new marketplace for the insurance industry, which has done very, very well over the years with car insurance,” wrote progressive radio personality and author Thom Hartmann, author of The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment.
None of these proposals runs afoul of the sacrosanct Second Amendment that was written in 1791 to protect slave patrols and is the only right required to be “well-regulated.”
Speaking of the Second Amendment, it was written in 1791 to protect slave patrols pursuing runaway slaves. While there is an explicit loophole written into the 13th Amendment allowing slavery as punishment for crimes, chattel slavery is no more. So why continue codifying something that was written to protect something that no longer exists? Unless a future president (king) brings back chattel slavery (which, let’s face it, could very well happen now that we have a monarchy), is there really any need for the Second Amendment? Most gunowners aren’t members of militias. Owning guns should remain legal but with reasonable restrictions responsible gunowners support.
Climate change
Two years ago, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres darkly pronounced “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this… atlas of human suffering” after reading an International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warning of “widespread and pervasive” impacts on all living things from frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods.
The year before that, the IPCC released a report warning Earth faces uncontrollable global warming unless nations take drastic measures to eliminate greenhouse gases, “unequivocally” blaming humans for the crisis.
It concludes that, based on carbon emissions presently in the atmosphere, average global temperatures will likely rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — above preindustrial levels by 2040.
Last year, the IPCC released a “final warning” — the last in a synthesis of six reports — that states either we take drastic action now or it will be too late.
King Biden needs to declare a climate emergency NOW!
No more subsidies to “Big Oil”.
We are seeing the difference the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes $7.5 billion each for electric vehicle charging stations and zero- and low-emission ferries and buses, including school buses, is starting to make in our communities.
$73 billion is going toward power grid infrastructure.
$46 billion is being put toward flood, drought, and wildfire damage.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) builds on that progress.
It invests about $385 billion in energy and climate change incentives that include tax credits for solar and wind energy equipment production and electric vehicles purchases.
It provides incentives to manufacture new car batteries domestically, and invests hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits for clean energy like solar and wind, clean transportation, and decarbonized buildings.
The new methane Emissions Reduction Program improves methane monitoring, funds environmental restoration, helps communities reduce pollution’s health effects, and increases climate resilience.
Urban parks and resilience for tribal communities are seeing significant funding, including $60 billion in new resources for environmental justice communities’ legacy pollution clean-up efforts, and rural communities will be able to take advantage of lower cost and cleaner energy sources.
The greenhouse gas reduction fund provides low-cost financing for clean energy projects, with at least 60% of the benefits of these investments flowing to disadvantaged communities.
For consumers, this means additional tax credits that encourage purchases of energy efficient homes, electric vehicles, and appliances, reducing energy costs and utility bills.
We’ve seen over the past few years how absent American example and leadership causes other countries to shrug off their environmental commitments.
Since his first day in office, Biden has been working to either reverse or review the previous administration’s all-out assault on the environment, including establishing the most progressive climate policy in history, demanding the federal government pause and review oil and gas drilling on federal land, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, and electrifying the government’s vehicle fleet.
Taking further inspiration from President Franklin Roosevelt, President Biden last fall signed an executive order creating the American Climate Corps.
Last year, electric vehicle (EV) sales totaled 7.6% of all new vehicles sold. This is an increase from 5.8% the year before. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just helped accelerate EV manufacturing when it announced in April new, and final, automobile emissions standards some officials are calling “the most ambitious plan ever to cut planet-warming emissions from passenger vehicles”.
Let’s use the new monarchical powers to outlaw conventional-fuel vehicle sales like Norway is doing and New York is going to do by 2035.
We can’t wait that long.
Education
When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president in 1981, he appointed William Bennett to lead the US Department of Education. The same Bill Bennett who ran for president against Reagan in the republican primary on a libertarian platform of defending the US Department of Education. A major result of this was the removal of civics education from many curricula.
This was not an oversight.
The republican party is proud of its anti-education platform because a poorly educated populace is more pliant, easier to control, and less inclined to stand up for democracy. Achieving a feudal state with complacent serfs is only achievable when people can’t think for themselves.
Therefore, King Biden must fully fund public education and require American civics be taught in all subjects in public institutions. For example, math teachers can address the “3/5th Compromise” in the Constitution’s impact on elections, and use polling data when teaching statistics. English teachers can use the Declaration of Independence to teach the importance of diction and writing process since it took Thomas Jefferson several drafts and consultations with other founders to finally wind up with the version enshrined in D.C., and use the compare and contrast mode of expository writing to examine party platforms. Presidential speeches can be used to demonstrate the importance of eloquence in government. Science teachers can apprise students of the science behind climate change and vaccines. Social studies teachers, naturally, have the history of our country and emphasize the responsibilities of living in a democratic society.
Elementary students in Denmark are required to start learning media literacy. God knows we could use a lot more of that here. King Biden can decree it be taught so we can eliminate the plague of ignorance disseminated on the internet rotting our elections, social lives, and mental health.
Critical thinking is not “woke”; it’s a skill vital to preserving culture, advancing ideas, and finding common ground. King Biden can decree it be taught in America’s schools, leaving it up to local districts to establish challenging curricula, hire highly qualified teachers, and produce well-adjusted citizens.
Now that college is tuition free, there is no more student loan debt. For those who still have it, King Biden must wipe it out as he already has for 54,000 people.
These are just a few things our newly annointed king can do. There are, of course, many more. The point is, now that the SCOTUS has eviscerated the concept of “rule of law,” there no longer any constraints to presidential power. Chief Justice John Roberts said so himself this week after the immunity ruling when he claimed immunity will protect and “energetic” and “independent executive,” willing to take “bold” actions and make unpopular decisions.
It’s unlikely King Biden will exercise these awesome new powers, as he told us the day after the SCOTUS ruling:
I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers I’ve had for three-and-a-half years, but any president — including Donald Trump — will now be free to ignore the law.
It’s up to the temperament of whoever occupies the Oval Office now.
If we don’t turn out on election day and repudiate this madness, it’s our own fault and we’ll deserve it.