5 ms·

Yay gridlock! Interesting how one week it's a bug, the next week it's a feature.

by DanielBMarkham 14y ago

lukev 14y ago
I believe the US government was designed that way on purpose. An efficient government can be a scary thing.
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  You are correct. Madison specifically put in circuit breakers to prevent the mob swinging wildly one way one month, then wildly another way the next. To the degree that politicians have circumvented these circuit breakers, we're turning the system more into a winner-takes-all soundbite/24-hour-news-cycle fight. It's a feature. My (subtle?) point was that when gridlock comes up most people have no idea what they're talking about. Usually "gridlock" just means "my guys are being thwarted by the other guys! That sucks!"
  - Steko 14y ago
    This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended to be part of that. The current reliance on supermajorities is beyond unprecedented in US history and gets worse every decade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg/480px-Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Clo... What did James Madison and Hamilton actually think of Polish Diet style supermajorities? Matt Yglesias directs us to Federalist 17 (Madison with Hamilton): http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-veto/ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-... Ezra Klein directs us to Federalist 75 (Hamilton): http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_polish_dietization_of_amer.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_poli...
    - andrewpi 14y ago
      Perhaps you are correct, but the Senate was also originally designed to represent the interests of the states, and was not directly elected until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913. The original design would have acted as a brake on popular impulses.
    - jackfoxy 14y ago
      Article 1 Section 5 Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings... There are no footnotes in the constitution.
      - Steko 14y ago
        I'm not sure what your point is, I've not claimed footnotes to the Constitution. We do have this thing called the Congressional Record and it's got the rules of each house from each Congress and shows how they have been applied over the years and so we can see how often supermajorities were required for normal business and during the founders time is was practically nonexistent and today it is distressingly common.
        jackfoxy 14y ago
        >This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended... Actually I believe pretty strongly in original intent as spelled-out in the Constitution. The original intent was and is that each House gets to determine their own rules. That does not mean the rules never change after the first Congress met.
        Steko 14y ago
        Your replies seem like great responses to someone claiming that holds and filibusters and the like are unconstitutional. Unfortunately for you I am not making that argument. I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the founders (who left us more then the Constitution as it turns out) nor healthy for our country (cf Poland).
  - T_S_ 14y ago
    You're giving to much credit to Madison. There were a couple of other Fathers around. Plus the Senate has evolved a lot since those days. Overall I think the gridlock is overrated. If we get some bone headed politicians actually passing laws maybe people will start to care again who gets elected.
- roc 14y ago
  Yes and no. Checks and balances are good. But the Senate becoming a body that needs 60 votes to get anything done, is not.
  - fleitz 14y ago
    Why? I think it's a fallacy to think that the Senate has to pass lots of laws to be an effective organization. I think an even more stringent bar for legislation would produce better legislation rather than more of it. It's supposed to be the great deliberator, let them deliberate until they have an idea worthy of 60% of the votes.
    - _delirium 14y ago
      I buy that in principle, though it'd work better if Senators represented a larger spectrum of opinions, rather than two fairly partisan camps. There's something like 5 Senators who regularly vote with the "other" side (e.g. Susan Collins from Maine), which means that you have a pretty bad situation whether either the chamber is 55-45 and nothing can pass, or it's 60-40 and everything the leading party wants can pass. If there were more of a gradation of politics, 60-40 would maybe lead to only the better ideas passing. A related problem is that some things really should get done, such as replacing retired/deceased judges, which the Senate is way behind on due to the practice of the past few terms where basically all nominees get filibustered.
    - MichaelSalib 14y ago
      I'm curious: do you think all elections should require a supermajority? Perhaps we shouldn't elect a President unless one candidate can get 60%? And why shouldn't all elective bodies require 60% to pass legislation? For that matter, shouldn't all corporate boards use the 60% threshold? This notion that majority-rules is a great decision procedure everywhere EXCEPT the US Senate seems very odd to me. I think an even more stringent bar for legislation would produce better legislation rather than more of it. Why do you think requiring a supermajority increases the quality of legislation?
      - 14y ago
- mtgx 14y ago
  "But warrants make our job harder!" - FBI a few months ago. In relation to your efficient Government comment.
fleitz 14y ago
Yup, as Will Rogers said: "Just be glad you're not getting all the government you pay for" Sure it's kind of annoying when they're building a highway or something useful but the rest of the time it's a pretty good thing that it moves at the pace of molasses.
- ktizo 14y ago
  Not when you have an executive that can outpace the rest of government on anything with the word security attached to it, so that it can do stuff like drag you into a war before anyone else can even get their boots on.
luriel 14y ago
Milton Friedman used to point out that the only reason the government balanced the budget in the late 90's was not because Republicans controlled congress, but because gridlock. He accurately predicted that if both Congress and the White House were controlled by the same party (whatever party) spending would get out of control. As others have pointed out, gridlock is a feature of the US political system, not a bug.
- guelo 14y ago
  The 90s balanced budgets were caused by 1) the PAYGO rules enacted in 1990 that were allowed to expire in 2002 2) the huge 1993 tax increase 3) the strong economy and runup of the stock market in the latter part of the decade.
- crag 14y ago
  "As others have pointed out, gridlock is a feature of the US political system, not a bug." It's a feature of all elected governments. You wanna worse gridlock.. sit on on any EU meet.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  This is not correct. Party conflict (which is what Friedman referred to) is not the same as gridlock. To balance a budget you have to adjust spending and revenue. To do that you have to pass new bills. This is what happened during the late 1990s: the GOP Congress and the Democratic administration were forced to compromise with one another. They passed a new budget that resulted in the balanced budget. But during gridlock, it is impossible to get new bills past the 60 vote barrier. Gridlock does not create new balanced budgets, it creates omnibus continuing resolutions. CR's spend and tax exactly as they did last year. If last year wasn't balanced, next year under a CR will not be balanced either.

Yay gridlock! Interesting how one week it's a bug, the next week it's a feature.

lukev 14y ago

I believe the US government was designed that way on purpose. An efficient government can be a scary thing.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
You are correct. Madison specifically put in circuit breakers to prevent the mob swinging wildly one way one month, then wildly another way the next. To the degree that politicians have circumvented these circuit breakers, we're turning the system more into a winner-takes-all soundbite/24-hour-news-cycle fight. It's a feature. My (subtle?) point was that when gridlock comes up most people have no idea what they're talking about. Usually "gridlock" just means "my guys are being thwarted by the other guys! That sucks!"
- Steko 14y ago
  This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended to be part of that. The current reliance on supermajorities is beyond unprecedented in US history and gets worse every decade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg/480px-Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Clo... What did James Madison and Hamilton actually think of Polish Diet style supermajorities? Matt Yglesias directs us to Federalist 17 (Madison with Hamilton): http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-veto/ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-... Ezra Klein directs us to Federalist 75 (Hamilton): http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_polish_dietization_of_amer.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_poli...
  - andrewpi 14y ago
    Perhaps you are correct, but the Senate was also originally designed to represent the interests of the states, and was not directly elected until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913. The original design would have acted as a brake on popular impulses.
  - jackfoxy 14y ago
    Article 1 Section 5 Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings... There are no footnotes in the constitution.
    - Steko 14y ago
      I'm not sure what your point is, I've not claimed footnotes to the Constitution. We do have this thing called the Congressional Record and it's got the rules of each house from each Congress and shows how they have been applied over the years and so we can see how often supermajorities were required for normal business and during the founders time is was practically nonexistent and today it is distressingly common.
      - jackfoxy 14y ago
        >This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended... Actually I believe pretty strongly in original intent as spelled-out in the Constitution. The original intent was and is that each House gets to determine their own rules. That does not mean the rules never change after the first Congress met.
        Steko 14y ago
        Your replies seem like great responses to someone claiming that holds and filibusters and the like are unconstitutional. Unfortunately for you I am not making that argument. I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the founders (who left us more then the Constitution as it turns out) nor healthy for our country (cf Poland).
- T_S_ 14y ago
  You're giving to much credit to Madison. There were a couple of other Fathers around. Plus the Senate has evolved a lot since those days. Overall I think the gridlock is overrated. If we get some bone headed politicians actually passing laws maybe people will start to care again who gets elected.
roc 14y ago
Yes and no. Checks and balances are good. But the Senate becoming a body that needs 60 votes to get anything done, is not.
- fleitz 14y ago
  Why? I think it's a fallacy to think that the Senate has to pass lots of laws to be an effective organization. I think an even more stringent bar for legislation would produce better legislation rather than more of it. It's supposed to be the great deliberator, let them deliberate until they have an idea worthy of 60% of the votes.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I buy that in principle, though it'd work better if Senators represented a larger spectrum of opinions, rather than two fairly partisan camps. There's something like 5 Senators who regularly vote with the "other" side (e.g. Susan Collins from Maine), which means that you have a pretty bad situation whether either the chamber is 55-45 and nothing can pass, or it's 60-40 and everything the leading party wants can pass. If there were more of a gradation of politics, 60-40 would maybe lead to only the better ideas passing. A related problem is that some things really should get done, such as replacing retired/deceased judges, which the Senate is way behind on due to the practice of the past few terms where basically all nominees get filibustered.
  - MichaelSalib 14y ago
    I'm curious: do you think all elections should require a supermajority? Perhaps we shouldn't elect a President unless one candidate can get 60%? And why shouldn't all elective bodies require 60% to pass legislation? For that matter, shouldn't all corporate boards use the 60% threshold? This notion that majority-rules is a great decision procedure everywhere EXCEPT the US Senate seems very odd to me. I think an even more stringent bar for legislation would produce better legislation rather than more of it. Why do you think requiring a supermajority increases the quality of legislation?
    - 14y ago
mtgx 14y ago
"But warrants make our job harder!" - FBI a few months ago. In relation to your efficient Government comment.

fleitz 14y ago

Yup, as Will Rogers said: "Just be glad you're not getting all the government you pay for" Sure it's kind of annoying when they're building a highway or something useful but the rest of the time it's a pretty good thing that it moves at the pace of molasses.

ktizo 14y ago
Not when you have an executive that can outpace the rest of government on anything with the word security attached to it, so that it can do stuff like drag you into a war before anyone else can even get their boots on.

luriel 14y ago

Milton Friedman used to point out that the only reason the government balanced the budget in the late 90's was not because Republicans controlled congress, but because gridlock. He accurately predicted that if both Congress and the White House were controlled by the same party (whatever party) spending would get out of control. As others have pointed out, gridlock is a feature of the US political system, not a bug.

guelo 14y ago
The 90s balanced budgets were caused by 1) the PAYGO rules enacted in 1990 that were allowed to expire in 2002 2) the huge 1993 tax increase 3) the strong economy and runup of the stock market in the latter part of the decade.
crag 14y ago
"As others have pointed out, gridlock is a feature of the US political system, not a bug." It's a feature of all elected governments. You wanna worse gridlock.. sit on on any EU meet.
snowwrestler 14y ago
This is not correct. Party conflict (which is what Friedman referred to) is not the same as gridlock. To balance a budget you have to adjust spending and revenue. To do that you have to pass new bills. This is what happened during the late 1990s: the GOP Congress and the Democratic administration were forced to compromise with one another. They passed a new budget that resulted in the balanced budget. But during gridlock, it is impossible to get new bills past the 60 vote barrier. Gridlock does not create new balanced budgets, it creates omnibus continuing resolutions. CR's spend and tax exactly as they did last year. If last year wasn't balanced, next year under a CR will not be balanced either.