Ned Studholme on presidents waging war . . .

I came into contact with Ned Studholme while wearing my “Civic Soapbox" editor’s hat. He was responsible for the Soapbox, "Truthful Trillions" that aired on WMRA last September.

When we met to record "Truthful Trillions," Ned told me that his current fascination was with the way the United States goes about getting itself into wars.

Ned has a BA and Masters degree from George Washington University. He's also had forty years of professional experience in planning civil and military airfields, weapons testing facilities, launch facilities and training installations, as well as the evaluation of the operational effects of related programs on civilian communities. Along the way, he developed a technology evaluation and commercialization process for a major IT science firm with 45,000 employees.

Last Friday Ned Studholme sent me the following reaction to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

I read it with great interest and spent some time thinking over his points, before--duh!--it occurred to me that you  might like to read it as well.

Conundrum

The conundrum evidenced by Mr. Obama’s speech on the occasion of his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize is a reflection of the state of American constitutional laws addressing war powers. To hear the President speak, you would think that he controls war powers and is responsible for the initiation of wars.

The trouble is, he’s not, and Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says he’s not. Hence, confusion, conflict and conundrum prevail.

Congress alone holds those powers, and regularly approves or disapproves of war powers the President requests. However, since World War Two, the last time Congress declared war, the power to initiate wars has gradually been assumed by the office of the president in a process driven by the ends dictating the means.

When we are really frightened, or really angry, we just smudge out a few more lines in the Constitution and give the President more war powers. Hence, the final straw: in 2001 the President was given the authority to “use military force against nations, persons or organizations HE determines” were complicit in the events of 9/11. At last, a tear in place of a smudge: a statute has given the president the power to determine who our enemies are and to commit acts of war against them.

Unlike recent presidents, Obama is a constitutional scholar, and he knows that there is a high wind just waiting to blow across the tightrope he has inherited. He knows full well the Congress can’t just change the Constitution with a statute; incrementalism has a way of eroding even stone. Besides it passed the dumb President test at the time. Can you imagine being President and KNOWING that you have the power to pick a nation, person or organization and initiate warfare against them?

Once inheriting this power Obama goes on the world stage, receives a PEACE prize, and explains that he will use his power, if necessary, knowing that he now decides what is necessary. A lesser man would be heady about this kind of power, but Obama is understandably cautious and perplexed.

Someday, an American President will inherit this power eagerly and put it to good use. Finally, we will be a nation of men rather than laws, but we won’t be America.

Ned Studholme's chimes in . . .

Note: Ned sent this to me in an e-mail and I found it an interesting addition to the health care debate. Several of you have let me know that you've had trouble posting comments, so I wanted to say that if that happens, you're welcome to send comments directly to me at mwoodroof@gmail.com and I'd be happy to post them for you.

Ned Studholme's way to reform health care: I would like to suggest a compromise insurance based program that is likely to meet the requirements of both sides of the health care debate. This compromise is based on the simple notion that it is appropriate for the federal government to initiate and operate programs that manage the types of .risk that can have a catastrophic effects on individual citizens. Within our domestic health care industry, this is addressed as major medical and/or catastrophic health insurance.

Because this type of insurance involves covering the costs of extremely expensive medical events that have a very low risk of occurring, premiums are high and the benefits of coverage are rarely enjoyed by the consumer. The suggested compromise involves full participation of the federal government in this, and only this, segment of the market. The entire remainder of the health care insurance market would be left to the private sector.

The federal program would simply cover all medical and Rx costs for every citizen that exceed 20% of annual income, using the definitions of households and dependents in the existing tax code. In this manner, a family with an income of $100,000 per year would be covered for everything over $20,000 per year, and a family earning $30,000 would have a $6000 medical ceiling.

Any additional insurance would be up to the individual. If insurance from the private sector is desired, the premiums would be driven down sharply because the required coverage would be truncated where the federal coverage takes over.

Savings to the consumer would accrue from the lower cost of private insurance, and to the taxpayer because Medicare rates would apply to all of the federal coverage. The biggest savings would come from the fact that the federal government would be taking on no more risk than the private sector does today, but would not need to charge a premium
for that risk.

In addition, no new federal entity would need to be created to manage the program, as it would become part of the normal private sector practice to determine eligibility and to forward the bills when the ceiling was reached.

Finally, the costs to the consumer and/or taxpayer can be fine tuned simply by sliding the suggested 20% ceiling up or down to define the risk limits falling into the private sector market.