>> the widely-praised system of checks and balances is far from perfect Close to perfect is a pretty high bar. When a system of checks and balances lasts a qu

>> the widely-praised system of checks and balances is far from perfect Close to perfect is a pretty high bar. When a system of checks and balances lasts a quarter of a millennium, it got more right than it did wrong. >> Legislation simply does not get passed The Justice Department once tried to figure out how many federal crimes there were, they gave up and could only estimate. That was 35 years ago, they estimated something like 3000 crimes that were defined, it is estimated to be 4500 now. There are tens of thousands of pages of federal legislation. There are thousands of pages in the federal tax code alone. Legislation obviously does get passed.