Presidential power

Well, so Ólafur Ragnar did not sign the Icesave law the Althingi just passed.

In the United States, a Presidential veto hangs over all legislation, all the time. Recently, the line item veto was approved, which means the President of the United States can sign a law into being, except one clause here, one article there. Whichever little tidbit he finds particularly distasteful, gone.

This is why, when there is an election for President in the United States, it is of huge national concern. That person wields tremendous power. Not only can he decide whether or not to sign a law, and amend it in the course of signing it, he also appoints all the heads over all the governmental agencies, and controls the army. I mean, Ok? Right? We get it. Your life is in this person's hands, honestly. But we in the United States, we know that going into the election, we know it throughout the campaign, we know it when we vote in the legislators that have to work with that person, we know it the whole time he is in office.

I remember Einar Benedíktsson (name dropping again just for Valur Þór) explaining to me that that was not the case in Iceland. The President here is like the Vice President of the United States, respected, symbolic, able to influence but not decide. Now, Icelandic law seems a little unclear in this regard, but if some people think that, and some people have another idea about it, might I just suggest that um, hello, this could use some clarification everyone.

I know I am a foreigner here, I know I should not say anything one way or another about Icesave. But in my humble opinion, when a bank says it is insured by the Government of Iceland, it ought to be insured by the government of Iceland.

Comments

Valur said…
Mér finnst þetta hárétt greining hjá þér í alla staði. Mér finst líka eins og það þurfi að gera einhverjar breytingar á stjórnarskránni og skerpa á nokkrum hlutum þar betur.

But I don´t know any Einar Benediktsson except the poet laureate Einar Benediktsson. Is there another? Einar Benediktsson died in 1940. He wrote:
Eitt bros getur dimmu í dagsljós breytt
sem dropi breytir veg heillar skálar.
Þel getur snúist við atorð eitt
aðgát skal höfð í nærveru sálar.
Svo oft leynist strengur í brjósti sem brast
við biturt andsvar gefið án sakar.
Hve iðrar margt líf eitt augnakast
sem aldrei verður tekið til baka.
Lissy said…
Oh, good. I was referring to the former Icelandic Ambassador to the U.S. His autobiography came out this year. Neat guy, I assume related to the poet.
Anonymous said…
Jamm akkúrat! sérstaklega síðasta málsgreinin...
Ko-Leen said…
I think Iceland already agreed to pay the money, it is only the terms of repayment that are the problem.
Lissy said…
Without a law specifying terms of repayment, it is unclear whether or not repayment will be made. That's the problem.

Popular posts from this blog

Dett í, ofan á, úr, út

Twitterverse

The sky weeps