All debate aside about who the next president will be, no matter who he is, he will have some obstacles to tackle in the next four years:

1. Focus the War on Terror

Declaring a war on "terror" is like declaring a war on "love" or "hate." It's an abstract concept, and our laws aren't written for abstract concepts. Heck, they're not even written for non-national entities. We couldn't declare war on al-Qaeda because they're civilians; but we can declare war on Afghanistan. If we're going to go after terrorists, we need to have a focus: what kind of terrorists? Should we get the help of other countries? How about governments of countries that harbor terrorists? We must convince other countries that we're not going to invade them and we need their cooperation.

Part of focusing the War on Terror involves stepping up international intelligence. That seems to be lacking as of late, with the NSA and CIA relying on outdated information. Let's get back to having a great international spy network.

2. Get other countries to like us again

Despite what Rush Limbaugh may think, we need the international community. Public opinion is very strong force, and some day in the near future we may find ourselves in need of the U.N. Unilateralism worked during the Cold War because no other countries had the guts to challenge us, for opposing the U.S. could be seen as endorsing the Soviet Union.

Our current foreign policy is the perfect policy for a world in which we are the only country. Or in a world in which force is the standard of governance. Neither of these is the case: we live on a planet with over five billion other people, and we make up the minority. Additionally, we left "might is right" in the seventeenth century where it belongs. The system of democracy -- to which the U.S. is a party -- relies on rule of law. We are also a party to the U.N., and are obliged to respect its decisions. Increasingly, though, whenever the U.N. does something that we don't like, we take decisive action or ignore it altogether. When Iraq refused to comply with weapons inspectors, everyone -- including the U.S. -- waved U.N. resolutions in Saddam Hussein's face. We, as well as other countries, acted as though the U.N. had force, and went along with other member nations in asking the U.N. to exercise that force. When the U.N. wouldn't give us help for an invasion of Iraq, we called it impotent and outdated -- we pretended that the U.N. didn't have any force and went along on our merry way. On the one hand, we used the U.N. as a tool when its goals were our goals. On the other hand, we dismissed it completely when its goals were contrary to our own.

Now, we need the world's help to fix the situation in Iraq. The world, predictably, isn't biting. We're crawling back to the U.N. on our hands and knees, begging for help. But we're not admitting that we did anything wrong. This is no way to run foreign policy, especially when the world's apathy can help us or hurt us.

3. Repeal tax cuts

Bush tax cuts went to the wealthiest Americans. These wealthiest Americans got rebates on income taxes, dividend taxes, and estate taxes. I used to be an ardent supporter of repealing the estate tax, until I learned some more about it. The president calls this "double taxation," but almost every type of income that a person can receive is taxed; why should the inheritance of an estate be any different? (In other words, every kind of income is doubly taxed.) And all this business about family farms going out of business is a load of hogwash. No family farm has ever gone out of business due to the estate tax. The estate tax is a tax on inheritance over $15 million: only the wealthiest Americans will ever have to pay it. Financial experts Alan Greenspan (chairman of the Federal Reserve Board) and Warren Buffet (CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway) both agree that repealing the estate tax is a ridiculous idea. It would rob the government of over $900 billion in revenue over the next ten years.

The tax situation is an either-or situation. Whether or not anyone gets tax cuts, the government still requires the same amount of money to operate every year. We can 1) streamline the government, eliminating waste (which everyone tries but no one succeeds at), or 2) arrange taxes in such a way that the people who can afford to pay a particular amount do pay a particular amount. There was no reason to lower taxes on the extremely wealthy as Bush did years ago -- and has continued to do, despite the existence of budget deficits and a huge increase in spending (decreases in revenues accounted for 41.88% of the deficit in 2004's $2.3 trillion budget). Dr. Greenspan was wholeheartedly against it. Yes, wealthier people should pay more in taxes than poorer people. Why? Because they can afford to. A low-income family that lives from paycheck to paycheck cannot afford to lose more money every year to taxes. While it's not the government's fault that the family doesn't make as much as Warren Buffet (he gets paid $1 billion every year), neither should the government tax them into poverty. If faced with two options which, any reasonable person would agree, are both evil -- unequal taxation which places extra tax burden on those who can afford it (and at the same time punishes people for being wealthy) or equal taxation which would tax those on low-end brackets into poverty -- we have chosen the latter, since we feel it is more morally upstanding to have Warren Buffet pay a few extra million dollars every year than to have poorer families pay more and become poorer (and by the way, the government generates more revenue by increasing Warren Buffet's taxes than it does by increasing the taxes of someone from a low tax bracket).

But this isn't to suggest that we shouldn't focus on streamlining the government. Last year's budget was the biggest ever, and both Democrats and Republicans are responsible (remember: it takes a legislature to pass laws). Hopefully, the next election will see an influx of new members to Congress, but that usually never happens.

4. Roll back environmental policy

Repeal changes to the Clean Air Act, repeal the Clear Skies Initiative and the Healthy Forests Initiative. The titles of these pieces of legislation, in true Orwellian fashion, mean exactly the opposite of their purpose. The Clear Skies legislation reduces air pollution limits and Healthy Forests increases the ability of logging companies to cut down trees without regulation. (It is little wonder that the EPA is staffed by industrial and logging lobbyists.)

5. Dump John Ashcroft and the USA-PATRIOT Act

Ashcroft is the single biggest threat to civil liberties since the House Un-American Activities Committee. Under his command, the Justice Department has given the government a terrific amount of new power for surveillance, thanks to the USA-PATRIOT Act. Let the provisions in there expire. The old adage, "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about" doesn't fly in a democracy. The next president must veto any second PATRIOT Act -- although this may not be so easy. Sneaky members of Congress are quietly inserting individual elements of the so-called PATRIOT II into unrelated bills that have to be passed. Without the line-item veto (which was unconstitutional, anyway), the president must pass the bill -- and the PATRIOT II provisions -- or veto the bill, which will most likely be a spending bill, which couldn't bear a veto.

Ashcroft is a religious zealot who thinks he's on a mission from God to make everyone in America think the same way he does about morality. Why is the government launching a war on pornography in the middle of a war on terror? Like Lyndon Johnson said, you can't have guns and butter at the same time. Let's prioritize, here: how many Americans have been killed because of shrapnel in a blow-up doll?

6. Leave the federal courts alone

There are four pieces of legislation in the House right now (and one in the Senate) that would dramatically increase the amount of oversight Congress has over the federal courts. One bill would restrict the kinds of cases the Supreme Court can hear. Another bill would allow Congress to override a decision of the Supreme Court. All of these bills are obviously reactions to what members of Congress see as rulings which they disfavor. Ah, but if they had the power to veto those rulings, they could selectively enforce Supreme Court rulings. I have the utmost faith that members of the Supreme Court write opinions based on what's good for the country: they don't have to get re-elected, they don't have to kiss asses. Congress is very different. We have no way of knowing whether a veto of an opinion is in the best interest of the country, the Congressman's personal opinion, the Congressman's constituents, or the corporations and special-interest groups that fund the Congressman's re-election campaign. Therefore, Congress should have nothing to do with the courts, other than its current mandate, which is to approve presidential appointments to federal courts. The next president must veto any bill that attempts to regulate the courts.

7. Give consumers their rights back

With the support of major content-providers, Congress is on the fast track to forbidding any use of electronic equipment not explicitly sanctioned by content-providers. You must use your Sony DVD player in only the way that Sony specifies. You must use your Digital TV in only the way that the MPAA specifies. Your computer and CD player can only used according to guidelines set forth by the member companies of the RIAA. Any other use is illegal. Orrin Hatch's INDUCE Act is on the fast track to this future.

8. Leave religion at home

President Bush likes to incorporate elements of his religion into his official actions as president: he supports a marriage amendment to the Constitution, for religious reasons. He supports abstinence-only education, based in the religious reasoning that premarital sex is morally reprehensible (statistical evidence, however, proves that abstinence-only education is ineffective).

Whether it's John Kerry, George Bush, Ralph Nader, or Lyndon LaRouche, the next president must follow these eight steps to get the country back on the right track.