Social Question

josie's avatar

Would it be better if the US president served only one term?

Asked by josie (30934points) June 20th, 2011

Say five or six years. It would prevent a dangerous and insulting cult of personality from emerging around the president. It would, in my opinion, shift power away from the executive and back to the legislative branch where it belongs. It would make all presidents “lame ducks”. It would give any president less time to screw up your life.
Etc.

Just so you know, I disliked the last president, and I do not like the current president. I have no personal or political dog in this fight. Just a question. Nothing more.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

7 Answers

King_Pariah's avatar

I’d say yes, it would force the president to actually get things done rather than focus on getting reelected and then coasting on with a who gives a damn attitude.

MyNewtBoobs's avatar

The legislative already has most of the power.

tom_g's avatar

Is 0 terms an acceptable answer?

Cruiser's avatar

No…4 years is plenty long per term. I say they deserve to be re-elected to another term or more if they can so demonstrate effective leadership during their first term and beat out all comers.

ETpro's avatar

No. One 4-year term is not enough to push forward any sort of legislative agenda and set any vision for the nation’s future. In fact, if we aren’t going to set term limits for members of Congress, I don’t think we should for presidents either. A great deal of the reason our debt is so high today is that each member of congress lives or dies on bringing home the bacon. Home district spending is GOOD. Everybody else’s spending is wasteful pork. Presidents don’t serve any one district or state, and so are less influenced by this. Limit them all to two terms, or leave the good ones in the presidency till the voters decide they need a change.

filmfann's avatar

Nixon was a big supporter of a single 6 year term.
Even though I know that, I still support it.

roundsquare's avatar

It might be better or not… I’m not sure. But either way, changes like this are not going to fix our political system. It will only be fixed if people take politics more seriously and take the time to look into policies/candidates properly. If we can achieve that, term limits become much less important. If we can’t, no change in term limits is going to solve the problem.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.
Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther