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Originally Posted by Jim in CT
Trump has a lot of faults. I'm not sure being evasive is one of them. But he should have a policy agenda, obviously. Notably lacking for healthcare.
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I think it weakens the separation of powers, constructed in the Constitution, to give the President the responsibility to create government legislative policy. In the Constitution, that is left to Congress.
In Article 2 of the Constitution it says that the President can "from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient". These are ad hoc recognitions of problems that Congress should probably look into and fix. They are not presidential campaign policies.
The President, in a federal election, may express his party's legislative policies. They may not even be what he would like. So it would not be Presidential legislative policy, since he doesn't have the power to make it. If he would like Congress to legislate his ideas, that should be resolved in party caucus debates, not in personal campaign speeches.
That we now look to the President to make policy is a result of the Progressive agenda to centralize the government of this country. And expanding the responsibilities of the President is part of the means to eliminate the obstacle that constitutional separation of powers imposes on the goal of an unlimited central government by blurring the separate branch powers more and more into a unitary administrative power.
If we want to return to a more constitutional form of a republic, we need to pare back our demands of what a President has the power and responsibility to do.