To help shrink the government, perhaps it’s time to shrink the presidency

A shrinking government is the best kind of government. Unfortunately, the U.S. government isn’t shrinking, it’s growing. And the task of just controlling that growth is daunting. But what would happen if we shrunk the presidency? How might that put the federal government on a better course?

A University of Tennessee law professor has a few ideas. Noting the horrendous state of politics today as Americans are faced with two terrible choices for president, Glenn Harlan Reynolds makes the case that if the president had less power and celebrity, maybe a different kind of leader would emerge.

He writes for USA Today:

It’s hard to look at Clinton and Trump and seriously believe that, out of a nation of more than 300 million people, these are the very best two people to lead the country….

Trump and Clinton — like every presidential candidate before them in my lifetime — are products of a grueling and demanding multistate, multimonth evaluation process.  And yet it’s hard to say that this process, for all its demands, is doing a good job at finding good presidents. Instead, it filters for people who are good at winning primary elections, which doesn’t have much to do with actually governing as chief executive.

The next question is how. There are many options but which one would really work? Reynolds makes a few suggestions: limit the presidency to governors only, who’ve actually had a chance to serve in an executive capacity in government. Eliminate the popular vote and let the Electoral College interview the applicants instead of them embarking on national campaigns. Or just draw straws, lottery style.

But as Reynolds points out, none of those truly addresses the problem.

“The presidency as it exists today is a mess,” he writes. “Presidents have too much power, too little accountability and too high a public profile. That makes the job attract the wrong sort of people, and then ensures they’re not up to it.”

I agree…  and I guess you won’t be surprised that I’ll add this: The true solution is the Convention of States.