Talk:President of the United States

Table "Federal government spending 1940–present" renamed

In the Criticism section, under the heading of Deficit Spending, there was a confused table of "Federal government spending 1940–present," which actually showed only the surplus or deficit, averaged for each decade. Because the table did not in fact show "federal government spending" (which would be in the column labeled "outlays" in the chart cited as a reference) I renamed it. I'm also going to make a few other clarifications in the adjoining text. Lincmad (talk) 06:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC) WE THE PEOPLE REALLY NEED TO STOP CALLING PEOPLE NAMES BECAUSE IT IS SOOO LAST YEAR AND I WOULD LOVE TO EAT SOUP IN PEACE!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.135.14.96 (talk) 03:03, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

FedGov spend table is meaningless

Meaningless or at best misleading data, made all the more meaningless by this: "For brevity, annual numbers were combined into ten-year averages." This is supposed be an article about the presidency--but presidential administrations have never corresponded exactly to decades. At the very least you could combine the data in a way that closely approximates the terms in office of the presidents. Also US budget was in deficit in 2002, not surplus. See source in footnote at page 15. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.126.238.57 (talk) 05:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

salary info needs updating

To whoever plans on doing some editing,

The president's salary got a boost to $450,000 (so did the vice president's but I don't have time to post there,) according to U.S. Public Law No: 111-322.

You can double check through the Library of Congress' Thomas. Search the 111th Congress. It's part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2011. Just go to the Compensation of the President section.

The link I have is :http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.03082:

But since is LOC's database, not sure if the link will work. Use Thomas' advanced search function and pick the 11th Congress.

Or you can go take a look at the U.S. Code.

Best,

LibraryWorker (talk) 05:37, 19 June 2011 (UTC)LibraryWorker

The link doesn't work, but I've checked PL 111-322, and it does not appear to say anything of the sort. If there really was a change, you need to provide a more precise statutory citation. -Rrius (talk) 07:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Eligibility

ELIGIBILITY I'd like to respectfully submit this minor change: Under the eligibility section, the line should read "otherwise eligible persons cannot be elected" rather than "eligible persons cannot be elected" The word otherwise fixes the contradiction inherent in the current version. If a person is eligible, there should be no obstacle to election. 'Otherwise eligible' suggests that the person is eligible except for what follows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emdrgreg (talk • contribs) 22:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Style

The Style in the infobox makes no sense. We had, until yesterday, Mr. President for formal and the Honorable for informal. Now, Doug has added His Excellency for diplomatic. Before even addressing the cited sources for these assertions, what is it we are actually trying to say? According to our wikilinked article, "A style of office, or honorific, is a legal, official, or recognized title." Also, according to our article, "The President of the United States is directly addressed as 'Mr. President' (presumably 'Madame President' if female) and introduced as 'The President of the United States'." Yet, instead of listing the president's title, we are listing different forms of address from the perspective of those addressing the president. Why?

Now the cited sources. For the Mr. President "formal" style, we have an article from the NYT that is really an article from the Washington Star saying don't address the president as Your Excellency but Mr. President. Well, that certain seems to contradict the recent addition. Also, what makes that "formal"? For the "the Honorable" "informal" assertion, we have an article from the International Trade Administrator website that says "The President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House are always addressed formally." Okay, well, that already is weird because we're calling this one "informal". Then it shows how you create a letter to the president, and it looks like:

The Honorable (Name)

The President

The White House

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

So, what are we talking about, how you address him face-to-face, how you write his address, or how you greet him a letter?

Finally, we have Doug's recent addition for His Excellency "diplomatic", which I "forced" him to source. He provided two sources (that he didn't take the trouble to format, a pet peeve of mine). One is a transcript of a "speech" with Obama and other heads of state. Mubarak refers to Obama as Mr. President and either to the others as excellencies or to everyone collectively as excellencies (it's unclear what he means). Netanyahu starts off and addresses Obama as Mr. President, and everyone else as "Excellencies." Abbas is the only one who refers to everyone individually as His Excellency. So much for consistency. The second Doug source is a UN web page that shows letters to and from Carter. Sadat in the address portion of the letter uses His Excellency but in the greeting says Dear Mr. President. Begin doesn't use the term excellency. I don't see these sources as supporting the assertion.

I favor having one style Mr. President, not labeling it as "formal" or "informal", and skipping the rest as unsupported and confusing.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I've never heard of an American President being referred to as "His Excellency" or any similar title/greeting. It appears Doug misread his sources. I recommend restoring the Infobox to its pre-Doug state. SMP0328. (talk) 01:45, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Somehow I don't think Doug will concede that, but I'm sure Doug can speak for himself. Why do we need "the Honorable", and how do we justify the "formal" and "informal" assertions. In my view, his title is Mr. President, and that's how most people address him, and that's all we should have in the infobox with one decent source.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:02, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering why no one seems to think his middle name is important. I'm also wondering why I can't edit the page to include this very important fact. 67.172.153.122 (talk) 01:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

This article's Criticism section should be removed, merged with the rest of the article or a combination of the two. Criticism sections are usually POV, as the contents are normally about why something or someone is bad; that is the case here. This section only provides reasons for believing why the Presidency is bad, no good reasons for the Presidency are provided. Nowhere in the article is there a "Praise" section; neither should there be a section that only criticizes the Presidency's existence. The rest of the article is neutral regarding the Presidency. Only its Criticism section deviates from this neutrality. This should be remedied quickly. SMP0328. (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Improper Title of Obama in Photo Caption

The caption on the photo of the living former presidents in the Oval office on January 7th, 2009 lists Barack Obama as a president when in fact the photo is dated a full 13 days before Obama's inauguration and as such should list Obama as 'President-Elect Obama'.

````Neil W. July 31,2001 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.98.19.140 (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Updating External links

• Films: Presidents at PBS WGBH

This includes additional films about presidents than the current PBS link supplied. 99.50.188.77 (talk) 01:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)