3 ms·

I do wonder if this strategy will actually move the needle at all. Conservatives have tried something like this at least twice before: lower taxes to starve the

I do wonder if this strategy will actually move the needle at all. Conservatives have tried something like this at least twice before: lower taxes to starve the government of revenue and force cuts (largely failed and just got routed around with massive deficit spending) and interpreting the Anti-Deficiency Act in such a way that the government "shuts down" if Congress hasn't explicitly funded it, presumably in the hopes that Congress would responsibly pass a budget well before the deadline (obviously also a failure in general, since Congress waits till the last minute regularly now and shut downs happen about once or twice a Presidential administration). Edit: Make that at least three times: they've also capped the civil service which has just caused an explosion in contractors.

lolinder 2y ago
Yeah, I don't know. Congress is so completely and utterly broken that I'm unsure it can be fixed. Legislating from the bench is better than the administrative rulemaking in that it's at least generally more stable, but I do think that the conservative justices have a point that the actual laws should be more directly accountable to the people than the Supreme Court is. Basically, we should be able to change the laws, but it shouldn't be as simple as winning a single national election because that makes things too unstable.
- kbolino 2y ago
  The only system that aligns more with voters that I'm aware of is the Westminster system but it has is faults too. It is after all the same system that gave us "Yes, Minister" which illustrated and lampooned the fact that the civil service and elected politicians are distinct factions each with their own agendas rarely in alignment with each other (never mind the factions within each faction).
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  The problem with the U.S. system is twofold: first, an unusually high amount of cooperation is required to pass any law (majority of the House, 60% of the Senate, and the presidency). Second, the first-past-the-post electoral system naturally leads to a two-party duopoly and polarization that makes cooperation very difficult. No other democracy in the world has both of these flaws although some have one of them (e.g. the UK). The best systems in practice seem to be proportional-representation parliamentary ones. They generally result in coalitions of multiple generally centrist parties so things don’t change too abruptly, but passing new laws is at least possible. Of course some parties refuse to cooperate with each other: in Germany for example no mainstream party will work with the right-wing AFD, and right-leaning mainstream parties additionally refuse to work with the left-wing Die Linke (legal successor to the East German ruling party although substantially more moderate nowadays). However this doesn’t stop the big mainstream parties from working together to an extent that would be unimaginable in the U.S. It’s indeed probably impossible to fix in the U.S. because it’s so hard to amend the constitution in such a radical way.
  - czl 2y ago
    > The best systems in practice seem to be proportional-representation parliamentary ones. They generally result in coalitions of multiple generally centrist parties so things don’t change too abruptly, but passing new laws is at least possible. When there are two major parties each representing say ~45% of the population, proportional-representation gives the left over swing voters equal power does it not? So perhaps ~6% of swing voters can have as much influence as ~45% of voters? Does this not happen in practice? Consider Israeli proportional-representation system for example. The Israeli % numbers are different but I have the impression they struggle with this problem due to proportional-representation.
    - School-Cotton 2y ago
      It's less likely for two stable parties to make up 90% of the electorate in such a system, because splitting parties is much easier. If the US had proportional representation, there's no way Nikki Haley and Marjorie Taylor Greene would be in the same party, nor Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. But this split will never happen in the current system because leaving one of the two major parties would be electoral suicide. There are ten factions represented in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and the biggest one (Likud, Netanyahu's party) got 23% of the vote in the last election. It's true that fringe parties can have outsized influence in a proportional system, but the US system suffers from the opposite problem: fringe elements can take over one of the major parties, which seems to be well on its way to happening with the Republicans now.

lolinder 2y ago

Yeah, I don't know. Congress is so completely and utterly broken that I'm unsure it can be fixed. Legislating from the bench is better than the administrative rulemaking in that it's at least generally more stable, but I do think that the conservative justices have a point that the actual laws should be more directly accountable to the people than the Supreme Court is. Basically, we should be able to change the laws, but it shouldn't be as simple as winning a single national election because that makes things too unstable.

kbolino 2y ago
The only system that aligns more with voters that I'm aware of is the Westminster system but it has is faults too. It is after all the same system that gave us "Yes, Minister" which illustrated and lampooned the fact that the civil service and elected politicians are distinct factions each with their own agendas rarely in alignment with each other (never mind the factions within each faction).
School-Cotton 2y ago
The problem with the U.S. system is twofold: first, an unusually high amount of cooperation is required to pass any law (majority of the House, 60% of the Senate, and the presidency). Second, the first-past-the-post electoral system naturally leads to a two-party duopoly and polarization that makes cooperation very difficult. No other democracy in the world has both of these flaws although some have one of them (e.g. the UK). The best systems in practice seem to be proportional-representation parliamentary ones. They generally result in coalitions of multiple generally centrist parties so things don’t change too abruptly, but passing new laws is at least possible. Of course some parties refuse to cooperate with each other: in Germany for example no mainstream party will work with the right-wing AFD, and right-leaning mainstream parties additionally refuse to work with the left-wing Die Linke (legal successor to the East German ruling party although substantially more moderate nowadays). However this doesn’t stop the big mainstream parties from working together to an extent that would be unimaginable in the U.S. It’s indeed probably impossible to fix in the U.S. because it’s so hard to amend the constitution in such a radical way.
- czl 2y ago
  > The best systems in practice seem to be proportional-representation parliamentary ones. They generally result in coalitions of multiple generally centrist parties so things don’t change too abruptly, but passing new laws is at least possible. When there are two major parties each representing say ~45% of the population, proportional-representation gives the left over swing voters equal power does it not? So perhaps ~6% of swing voters can have as much influence as ~45% of voters? Does this not happen in practice? Consider Israeli proportional-representation system for example. The Israeli % numbers are different but I have the impression they struggle with this problem due to proportional-representation.
  - School-Cotton 2y ago
    It's less likely for two stable parties to make up 90% of the electorate in such a system, because splitting parties is much easier. If the US had proportional representation, there's no way Nikki Haley and Marjorie Taylor Greene would be in the same party, nor Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. But this split will never happen in the current system because leaving one of the two major parties would be electoral suicide. There are ten factions represented in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and the biggest one (Likud, Netanyahu's party) got 23% of the vote in the last election. It's true that fringe parties can have outsized influence in a proportional system, but the US system suffers from the opposite problem: fringe elements can take over one of the major parties, which seems to be well on its way to happening with the Republicans now.