6 ms·

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

by lukev 14y ago

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).
        jackfoxy 14y ago
        >I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the founders ... nor healthy for our country... That's fair. But first a step back. I think the real weak link in the HN culture is to be at its best, we must thoughtfully compose HN comments. The more nuanced and deep the subject matter, the more time it takes to compose thoughtful, valuable content, and the longer that composition must be, often being an essay on its own. That's time taken from the rest of our lives. I'm as guilty as anyone, more guilty than some, of attempting to pack more meaning into less time with pithy, succinct replies. Of course this tactic is counterproductive and only diminishes the conversation. To your point: at the time or our nation's founding, there was only one social question in the political realm, slavery. Yes, there was also demagoguing about the Revolutionary War debt, and taxing distilled spirits affected some socio-economic groups more than others, but by and large the People expected the Federal government to decide matters of State, war and peace, Indian affairs, tariffs, and (most importantly) any legislation requiring expenditure also made provisions for meeting the expenditure. Freedom of the Press literally meant 18th century movable type. Jefferson was free to concoct lies about Hamilton behind the cloak of anonymity, but it took some time to spread, and Congress, by and large, could deliberate at its leisure the few affairs in actually had to decide. Gradually (after the overriding social affair in politics blew-up into the Civil War) more social questions came into political consideration: womens' suffrage, the ten, then eight-hour work day, worker safety, product safety, civil rights...much of these social improvements held to be either under the umbrella of the regulating commerce clause, or the 14th Amendment. Then some really big changes crept in, almost unnoticed. First the income tax, which was sold as only applying to the ultra-rich. In very short order it applied to everyone, and eventually in a crafty accounting trick it became a withholding tax instead of a tax you have to go through the pain of paying. Just as significantly, sometime around WWI (if I recall correctly) Congress changed the rules so all expenditures roll-up into one (or a handful, I'm fuzzy on exactly how it works) appropriations bill. Now Congress is free to pass out social goods without paying for them. The evolution from the hassle of movable type to the 24-hour always on news cycle does not need elaboration, but I will observe that frequently the info-tainment industry couches every emotion-laden problem imaginable in terms of the the government must/should/can do something about this. So now we live in an age where every conceivable issue can be considered for legislation, and always-on sources of information/propaganda compete for the public's, the beurocrat's, and the legislature's attention. So is it really a good idea to ramrod every item the legislature considers through on a 51-49 vote? Tomorrow the count could easily be reversed. There's often emotional appeal made to social legislation of the past (worker safety, civil rights, etc.) and that not going forward with whatever social legislation beign considered today will somehow reverse all the good accomplished in the past, but I submit that on the margin, the increase in good achieved by these past examples was great. When there is no limit to what can be considered by the legislature, then many things will come up for which the realistic increase of good on the margin is small...and the unintended cosequensces are unknown.
- 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.

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

by lukev 14y ago

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

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).
        jackfoxy 14y ago
        >I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the founders ... nor healthy for our country... That's fair. But first a step back. I think the real weak link in the HN culture is to be at its best, we must thoughtfully compose HN comments. The more nuanced and deep the subject matter, the more time it takes to compose thoughtful, valuable content, and the longer that composition must be, often being an essay on its own. That's time taken from the rest of our lives. I'm as guilty as anyone, more guilty than some, of attempting to pack more meaning into less time with pithy, succinct replies. Of course this tactic is counterproductive and only diminishes the conversation. To your point: at the time or our nation's founding, there was only one social question in the political realm, slavery. Yes, there was also demagoguing about the Revolutionary War debt, and taxing distilled spirits affected some socio-economic groups more than others, but by and large the People expected the Federal government to decide matters of State, war and peace, Indian affairs, tariffs, and (most importantly) any legislation requiring expenditure also made provisions for meeting the expenditure. Freedom of the Press literally meant 18th century movable type. Jefferson was free to concoct lies about Hamilton behind the cloak of anonymity, but it took some time to spread, and Congress, by and large, could deliberate at its leisure the few affairs in actually had to decide. Gradually (after the overriding social affair in politics blew-up into the Civil War) more social questions came into political consideration: womens' suffrage, the ten, then eight-hour work day, worker safety, product safety, civil rights...much of these social improvements held to be either under the umbrella of the regulating commerce clause, or the 14th Amendment. Then some really big changes crept in, almost unnoticed. First the income tax, which was sold as only applying to the ultra-rich. In very short order it applied to everyone, and eventually in a crafty accounting trick it became a withholding tax instead of a tax you have to go through the pain of paying. Just as significantly, sometime around WWI (if I recall correctly) Congress changed the rules so all expenditures roll-up into one (or a handful, I'm fuzzy on exactly how it works) appropriations bill. Now Congress is free to pass out social goods without paying for them. The evolution from the hassle of movable type to the 24-hour always on news cycle does not need elaboration, but I will observe that frequently the info-tainment industry couches every emotion-laden problem imaginable in terms of the the government must/should/can do something about this. So now we live in an age where every conceivable issue can be considered for legislation, and always-on sources of information/propaganda compete for the public's, the beurocrat's, and the legislature's attention. So is it really a good idea to ramrod every item the legislature considers through on a 51-49 vote? Tomorrow the count could easily be reversed. There's often emotional appeal made to social legislation of the past (worker safety, civil rights, etc.) and that not going forward with whatever social legislation beign considered today will somehow reverse all the good accomplished in the past, but I submit that on the margin, the increase in good achieved by these past examples was great. When there is no limit to what can be considered by the legislature, then many things will come up for which the realistic increase of good on the margin is small...and the unintended cosequensces are unknown.
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.