Simultaneous Responsibilities

The person who occupies the Oval Office has a lot on his or her plate (or should I just use the now-acceptable genderless singular pronoun ‘their’?).  We all know that this person is “The Most Powerful Man Person in the World” but what does that entail?

We know what the big, overall issues are.  The economy, foreign affairs, defense, taxes, etc.  But these are complex, interwoven issues that are made up of a near infinite number of smaller issues that range in size from personal issues to ones of global scope.

To deal with these things, the federal Executive Branch is headed by the President and aided by his Cabinet Secretaries.  Established in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Cabinet's role is to advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of each member's respective office. The Cabinet is divided into the following Departments:

• State
• Treasury
• Defense
• Justice
• Interior
• Agriculture
• Commerce
• Labor
• Health and Human Services
• Housing and Urban Development
• Transportation
• Energy
• Education
• Veterans Affairs
• Homeland Security

The President also directly oversees, among others, the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, US Trade Representative, US Mission to the United Nations, Council of Economic Advisors and the Small Business Administration.

Having a Cabinet means the President, thankfully, doesn’t have to be an expert in all of these things, which is good because nobody can be.  But the duties of the Chief Executive requires them to be at least conversant in all of these areas because the direction in which those Departments head is set by the President.

Despite being “The Most Powerful Person in the World” the direction in which the President takes the country is constrained by the Legislative Branch.  Congress writes the laws that govern the country and it’s the Executive Branch’s job to administer those laws – to execute them, hence, the name.

There is frequent dialog between the Legislative and Executive branches.  The lawmakers sometimes need the executive’s overall perspective when writing laws, and sometimes the executive sees a need for a new law or a revision to an existing law.  There can be a lot of give-and-take and deal-making, but sometimes this works out well for both sides and as a result, the American people benefit.  This never makes the news because why should good governing be covered by the media?  It’s when the legislative and executive viewpoints are at odds with each other that we hear about it.  The media seem to love the political and bureaucratic catfights and pissing matches.  The process takes time and the more rancorous it is, the more time consuming it is.  The President may not be directly involved in those negotiations but still has to direct them.

With all of these areas of oversight, here a very small sample of the specific issues that the President must deal with:

• The federal budget
• Money laundering by organized crime
• Bank regulation
• Fish hatcheries
• Highway safety
• Outer space
• Children’s television
• Phone service for the disabled
• Internet service for the disabled
• Phone and internet service for the rest of us
• National forests
• Puerto Rico: Nation? State? Leave it where it is somewhere in between?
• Indoor air quality
• Outdoor air quality
• Oil spills
• Fracking
• Groundwater
• Coastal water
• Water resource development
• Tariffs
• Tax-free retirement plans
• Civil service pay reform
• Major crime
• Minor crime
• Moderate crime
• Price fixing
• Immigration
• Science, technology, engineering and math education
• Vocational education
• All other education
• Job training (which is not part of education)
• Public health
• Personal health
• Family planning
• Head Start for when the family planning doesn’t work out
• Nutritional labeling
• Aging baby boomers
• Social Security
• Aging baby boomers bankrupting a Social Security system that didn’t foresee a Baby Boom
• Rural development
• Urban development
• Suburban development
• Energy
• Utilities
• Interstate commerce*

Notice that I only listed domestic issues above.  The President is also given the duty of conducting foreign affairs by the Constitution.  There are 267 “world entities” according to the CIA World Factbook.  How the United States of America deals with all of them, friend and foe alike, and how it reacts to how they deal with each other, rests on the shoulders of one person.

To imagine how complicated this task is, let’s use just one example: North Korea.  Global intelligence think tank Stratfor describes North Korea’s global strategy as being three-pronged: ferocious, weak and crazy.  There are no right answers to North Korea, only less bad ones, but the three prongs guarantee that it’s impossible to really tell which ones those are.  Whichever wrong answer is selected – and it will always be wrong – the President of the United States selects it.

And then what do you do when two friends have a significant problem with each other?  We like Turkey and we like Greece, but they do not like each other and have some serious issues over Cyprus.  India and Pakistan constantly tussle over Kashmir, occasionally getting into skirmishes and even small wars over it.  But they now both have nukes.  In 1982, two allies went into an all-out declared war when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and Great Britain said, “Oh, I don’t fucking think so.”

So all of this, all of these decisions, and much, much more rests in the hands of the President of the United States of America.  Sometimes the responsibility to make a history-altering decision occurs at the exact same time as all the ones I’ve listed above.  And here’s the hell of it: ALL of these decisions MUST be made.  The President must provide an answer to each and every question.  Some answers are easier, and some decisions are less important, but the President can’t walk away from any of these questions.  Ever.  Even if you don’t like the questioner.

Are you reading this Mr. Trump?

*List adapted from fellow native Toledoan P.J. O'Rourke's brilliant attempt to explain government, "Parliament of Whores"