The one fact about our system of government that too many people overlook

There is a huge difference between our particular system and the parliamentary systems in Europe.

In Europe, the majority party in parliament (if there is one) gets to make the policy that they would like to make. There are some constraints, but they are the exception rather than the rule (especially compared to the United States).

On the other hand, in the United States, every single policy must go through the following veto points:

1. 218 members of the House
2. 50-60 members of the Senate (depending on whether a subject qualifies for reconciliation)
3. The President
4. 5 votes on the Supreme Court
5. Whoever is executive at the time (irrespective of the executive who signed the bill into law)
6. Leaders of the agencies in the executive (some of which can act independently from the President's wishes, and are further constrained by getting 60 votes for confirmation)

If any single one of these veto points is opposed to action, the action will not take place (or will be watered down). If a President does not like a law signed by a predecessor, the President can do much to undermine the law. Even if a President does like a law, a rogue independent agency head might interpret it to lessen the force of the law. Even if the legislative and executive branch are fully on board with a law, the Supreme Court can interpret it to make it lose its intended meaning (which it is more frequently doing), or interpret the Constitution to remove the authority for the law in the first place (which tha solid 5-conservative-vote majority on the Supreme Court would almost certainly start doing).

In other words, our system is incredibly biased against action, and favors inaction. This is a structural bias in favor of the Republicans, since most Republicans would prefer inaction to action. (Edit: to make this clear, this applies to action that at least one of the political parties opposes. Of course policy that everyone agrees with can pass easily.)

For the Republicans to achieve what they want, all they need to do is take over one of the above 6 veto points. On the other hand, for Democrats to achieve what they want, they need to hold ALL 6 veto points.

THAT is why it makes so little sense to blame Democrats for outcomes caused by Republicans (and advocate for allowing Republicans to take over, to "wake people up"). First, it makes no sense in light of the above structural balance. Second, to the extent the people will ever "wake up" due to a Rick Perry presidency, they are far more likely to simply elect someone like Obama (see 2008) than they are to elect someone to the left of him. (Except the new President will have to spend most of his time trying to undo the damage of his predecessor, rather than trying to make new policy.) Third, EVEN IF they hypothetically elect someone FAR to the left of Obama, and 218/60 members of Congress who have similar views, Rick Perry's Supreme Court appointments from 20 years prior will almost certainly have gutted government's authority to enact progressive legislation in the first place. The more progressive the legislation, the more likely it will be ruled unconstitutional by the Perry court.

Ironically, the outcome of such a scenario might be that the only policies available for government to enact are the "third way" policies that the "wake up" crowd (and most of the party) hate so much -- EVEN if we have a fully progressive President and Congress.

n/t

or radically. That was intentional on the part of the Founders. Changing the Constitution itself is even harder. Whether or not you like the system, that's what we have right now. Changing it requires changing the Constitution. Doing that is a very difficult thing, by design.

That the founding fathers would not have allowed foreign based corporations NEARLY as much say in our media, if there is any outdated note in the constitution, it is that.

We can't ask them, and there's nothing about it in the Constitution. If we could get supermajorities in both houses of Congress, we might be able to do an amendment that change the Constitution to include that prohibition. We can do it, starting in 2012, although it would probably take a couple more election cycles before we had the majority that would be needed in the Congress and enough state legislators.

I'm for trying that.

because the Democrats CAVED on things like lowering tax rates for the wealthy and going to war in Iraq.

How come only the Republicans seem to have the guts to oppose Democrats, not the other way around?

That is not an argument for not voting for Obama in 2012, so we can ensure a Rick Perry "wakes this country up."

I have no argument with you that we need more Progressives in Congress. (Though to be clear, my post is mainly about domestic legislation. For foreign policy and wars, our Presidency is much more powerful and has similarities to prime ministers in parliamentary systems. Bush would have gone to war in Iraq whether or not he had Congressional authorization to do so.)

Furthermore, the idea that Bush got everyone he wanted is a complete fantasy. On the domestic front, the ONLY thing he got with Republican support alone was the 2003 tax cuts. When he tried to do things that required 60 votes that Congressional Democrats opposed (like SS privatization, Immigration reform, ANWR drilling), he failed.

I'd be delighted with a Congress full of the likes of Dennis Kucinich, Peter DeFazio, Bernie Sanders, etc., but you guys keep telling us that they're "unrealistic" and "too far left" and "loony."

Then there are the progressive Dems who are kiboshed by their own state party in favor of some namby pamby DLC type.

Anyway, the only progressive Democrat I personally get to vote for is Keith Ellison. You're not allowed to vote for more than one Congresscritter, you know.

There's nothing wrong with more Kucniches or Sanders. In fact, both realized the healthcare bill that passed represented progress over the status quo. Both do whatever they believe maximizes progressive policy goals. I wish I could vote for more progressives like them.

I lost a little respect for them there.

This isn't a sport. It's about principles.

an improvement -- not because of some "sport." Bernie Sanders could have killed the bill, and there's nothing the Democratic leadership could have done about that. He chose not to because he thought (however imperfect) that it represented better policy to the status quo. HCR-opponents should question whether their opposition is correct, given that their extremely progressive elected representatives disagree with that opposition. (It certainly wasn't limited to Kucinich and Sanders. Al Franken for example REAMED David Axelrod for not pushing hard enough to pass the Senate bill after Scott Brown was elected.)

And yet Obama gave up the public option without a fight, without even trying to pass it. It was all a matter of what he could pass, so that he could look "strong," and Dems were supposed to vote for it so Obama could have a victory. It was not about what was good for the country. A mandate to buy overpriced, high-deductible insurance was not what the country needed, not even close.

He WASTED months letting the Blue Dogs try to make the bill acceptable to the Republicans, who weren't going to vote for it anyway, even though it was a mostly Republican-inspired bill (one I remember from the 1980s), and meanwhile, more and more people were losing their jobs...

If he voted against it, it would never have passed the Senate. Bernie Sanders completely disagreed with you about the legislation (along with every single progressive Senator), despite having the power to achieve your goal of stopping the legislation if they wanted to.

Again, it is MUCH easier to kill a bill, than it is to pass a bill. To pass a bill, one has to appeal to the least common denominator of the coalition. That meant that the public option was never in the cards to begin with, and that was established on November 4th, 2008 (when the election results did not include 60 progressive Senators).

No.

Did they try to horse trade for it?

No.

Did they go on TV and tell the American people to lobby their Congresscritters for a public option?

No.

They just preemptively took it off the table. They gave up. They CAVED. They obeyed their paymasters in the insurance industry.

To say otherwise is revisionist history. Furthermore, the Dem leadership INCLUDED a public option in BOTH bills that went to the floor of their respective Houses. In fact, the public option remained in the Senate bill on the floor right up until the last moment, when it was clear that it wasn't going to pass. And even then, they got a negotiating group together that got every single Democrat on board for a Medicare-buy-in to replace a public option. Even Lieberman agreed to this initially. It was only AFTER Lieberman saw that this would make progressives happy that he changed his mind on the Medicare buy-in, and it died.

It (a public option or its later alternative, the Medicare buy-in) remained in the legislative process right up until the point after which they couldn't have passed any bill in time. The entire Democratic leadership even had a few days where they all assumed the Medicare buy-in would PASS.

No, Obama did not fight for the public option. He CAMPAIGNED on it, but he also campaigned on closing Guantanamo Bay, ending the wars and the Bush tax cuts, and increased transparency in government, so we can safely rule out campaign speeches as reliable measures of his intent to govern.

When push came to shove, Obama was making corporate deals, and Democrats were complaining to the media about his lack of support:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/24/leaderless-senate-pushes_n_332844.html

Leaderless: Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support
10-24-09

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.
....
"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

But with fundamental reform of the health care system in plain sight for the first time in half a century, the president appears to be siding with those who see the Senate and its entrenched culture as too resistant to change. Administration officials say that Obama's preference for the trigger, which is backed by Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, is founded in a fear that Reid's public option couldn't get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. More specifically, aides fear that a handful of conservative Democrats will not support a bill unless it has at least one Republican member's support.

The president's retreat leaves Reid as the champion of progressive reform -- an irony that is not lost on those who have long derided the Majority Leader as too cautious.
....
On Thursday evening, after taking the temperature of his caucus, Reid told Obama at a White House meeting that he was pushing a national public option with an opt-out provision. Obama, several sources briefed on the exchange, reacted coolly.

"He certainly didn't embrace it and he seemed to indicate a preference for continuing to work on a strategy that involved Senator Snowe and a trigger," said one aide briefed on the meeting. Several other sources, along with independent media reports, confirmed the exchange.
....
"The trigger is an inside-the-beltway sleight of hand that would protect private insurers from the real competition that a strong public health insurance option would create," he said in an e-mail. "It is unworkable in the current Senate bills, unwise as public policy, and unwanted by the substantial majority of Americans who say they want a straight-up public option."



Not only that, but he publicly RIDICULED supporters of the public option afterward:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/17/obama

Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particular derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.) We have had the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.

.

And those people deserve all the ridicule that could possibly be mustered.

But as for what I said, which is that Obama advocated for the public option in speech after speech, after the election (including his address to the joint session of Congress), none of your sources contradict that, because to contradict that would be to revise history. Of course it was never going to pass. Anyone knowledgable about the legislative process (including Obama) figured that out a long time ago. But to say Obama didn't advocate for it is false.

:shrug:

Then quit dissing others.

And yes it is unrealistic, to have a majority in Congress requires a majority of districts. Or we'd have the Congress you envision. You don't get to control other districts because you want to.

You tell us to elect progressive Democrats, but the Third Way types diss all the ones who are actually in office.

Either you're for progressive Democrats, or you're not.

(I actually don't like 3rd way Democrats, but I don't tell other DUers to be sure to vote for them.)

TARP: Proposed on Sept 19, 2008, enacted Oct 3, 2008

signed on October 26.

No slowness there--(and a former neighbor, who was an adviser to the Oregon state legislature, assures me that it would have been impossible to write a bill of that complexity in less than a month, even when working on overdrive, and that they had to have had it sketched out, if not fully written, ahead of time.

Now it's awfully suspicious to me that almost none of these experienced Congresscritters and Senators thought to wonder why such a complex bill was ready so fast.

I am talking about legislation that progressives want that Republicans are opposed to.

They let themselves be intimidated into signing it and didn't even read it.

progressives want, AND that Republicans oppose.

The patriot act is not an example of a policy that Republicans oppose.

Unless of course, they were really Republicans who were merely posing as Democrats.

That is still irrelevant to my point.

Both of the examples you have been given are of action, not inaction and they are actions that happened very quickly.

Republicans are not in favor of inaction, indeed they are very activist, they are constantly pushing activist policies.

political party opposes. You are indeed correct that my statement was somewhat too broad, and that of course any policy that both parties favor can pass easily.

No one could have made heads or tails of bill that complex in the very short time it was up for "debate".

Of course policies that BOTH parties favor will easily get through.

I am talking about policies that

a) progressives want
b) Republicans oppose

They didn't even know what was in the bill.

There was no way for them to know whether they favored the policies contained in the bill or not.

Not. My. Point. I agree with you that we need to maximize the number of actual progressives in Congress -- progressives that would vote against the patriot act or similar proposals.

You said that policies both parties agree on can pass quickly, I disagree with that characterization of the process because the Patriot Act showed that a great many politicians, specifically including Democratic ones, will vote for things about which they either know nothing or even worse, are misinformed.

The actual policies don't even enter into things at all sometimes, it's all about the horse race, who's winning, who's losing, who's up, who's down.

In fact you point out quite often how the actual policies don't matter to the Republicans, I'm including the Democrats at least sometimes in your observation.

But it still has to have all of the points of agreement.

It took about a week for the banksters to get their massive bailout rammed through Congress and signed into law.

There is no actual bias against action built into the system. There is only a lack of political will and political courage.

TARP is an example of a piece of legislation that both parties favored. (Considering the circumstances, that is a good thing, but regardless of your thoughts on that, it is irrelevant to my point.) It is not an example of a piece of legislation that progressives want and Republicans oppose.

You produce not a shred of facts or evidence that there is no structural bias against progressive policies that Republicans do not want.

The backlash from the vote lead to the rise of the teabaggers and the ousting of many in Congress.

Republicans and progressives both opposed it overwhelmingly. It passed eventually because Obama whipped for late into the night.

This is a direct refutation of your premise that our system has a built in bias against action. Despite the extreme unpopularity and bi-partisan opposition, politicians eventually served up a big gift to their owners.

favor.

Post updated.

It looks to me like the problem is a bias against action among the People.

bills. Like all those who voted for the War in Iraq. And every supplemental afterwards for years.

Assuming the Dems ARE at a disadvantage, which I am not at all sure of, but for the sake of argument, then the Dem Leadership needs to be even more aggressive in getting the party to vote for what Democrats want. They were able to do it recently with a completely unified vote, something we were more or less told could never happen. It happens when they want it to happen.

The only conclusion that can be reached from that is that the parties today are far more closely aligned on policies than they should be.

To change that would mean fighting against the huge Corporate money that is used to stop progressive candidates, WITH THE HELP of Democrats.

So I'm not buying this at all. I might, if I had ever seen Democrats all out fight for what they claim to believe in. But when that happens, it is rarely what we believe in.

support. Which is exactly what happened, in both the House and the Senate.

If all you are saying is that we need to elect as many progressives to Congress as possible, I agree!

and corporate politicians who agree with one another....how swiftly and efficiently they have shown they can push the country in the direction they desire.

You would think that such invasive, momentous legislation as the Patriot Act would require months, or even years, of debate - and some input from the people - yet look how quickly it happened, and with such finality.

Look how quickly our civil rights have been stripped, just within the past ten years. We have gone from having roast chicken and caesar salads served to us on linen and china on the airplanes, to spreading our legs while a government official feels up our genitals. Our internet activities are being logged, we are being put into massive databases for employment and "healthcare," American citizens can be assassinated on suspicion of being terrorists, and the FBI can put GPS on your car and go through your trash without a warrant.

Look how quickly THE ENTIRE POPULATION was mandated to buy an expensive corporate product, insurance that many of them will not be able to afford to use...legislation that, again, the people were told they would be able to see only after it had passed.

And look how fast the Bush/Obama tax cuts were extended, even though the vast majority of the American people did not support them, because they were cynically and unnecessarily tethered to desperately needed unemployment benefits.

Look how quickly the social safety nets for our poor and elderly, long considered the "third rails" of American politics, were rushed behind closed doors during a faux "crisis" to become bargaining chips against the will of the vast majority of Americans. Look how quickly the system was rigged so that seniors have already suffered two years without a COLA, and look how quickly a Super Congress has been rushed into place to make even crueler and more substantial cuts this fall and winter.

Look how swiftly we have moved into several more countries for war, and how quickly our troops have been forced into as many as eleven back-to-back deployments.

The system may have been designed to go slowly, but the banks and corporations, and their representatives in both parties, certainly have figured out how to make it work rapidly for them.

hard for the system to have a result that you do like.

It's about what's good for the country as a whole.

Anything beneficial to the masses is "impossible."

Anything that benefits the wealthy magically overcomes all barriers.

The point is that these massive changes happened precisely because Democrats and Republicans colluded to make them happen. They happened because we no longer have an opposition to the corporate bloodsuckers who have infested BOTH parties. Republicans AND Democrats agreed to create this faux budget ceiling crisis and to take the negotiations behind closed doors. There was absolutely no precedent for that, and no reason that the deadline could not have been anticipated and handled exactly in the way it has been handled in the past. Democrats could have stood up and screamed bloody murder, and refused to participate. Instead, they not only validated the faux crisis, but our DEMOCRATIC President stood up and validated every Republican lie about the economy that the corporate Masters wanted him to push. He actually stood up and told Americans the outrageous lie that massive spending cuts would put this nation on a "solid fiscal footing." In fact, over 300 economists warned him that it would sink us deeper into economic desperation. Democrats have colluded repeatedly, in all the areas I mentioned above, instead of even trying to provide an opposition to these major policy assaults on the American people.

You cannot simultaneously claim that it is possible and quick to implement major legislation IN FAVOR of corporations, but impossible and slow to pass major legislation LIMITING the power of corporations. Both types of legislation must go through the same process.

The American people have been shut out, because the corporate shills prefer to do business behind closed doors, or in committee, and under deadline of some manufactured crisis so that the American people cannot see what they are doing until it is a fait accompli.

Democrats have not pointed out what is happening. They have not protested this use of the Shock Doctine to shove through policies that the majority of Americans oppose. Rather, they have colluded and participated, repeatedly.

The fact is that the system is infested with corporate shills in BOTH parties. Moreover, the system is increasingly being rigged so as to exclude the participation of those few left who would create opposition. The Super Congress, which will take on the momentous task of slashing the budget, is the new, best example of this. By putting the task in the hands of a carefully selected supercommittee, the Powers that Be exclude most of those who would still defend the poor and elderly. They shut them out from participating in the crafting of the legislation, they block them from amending or filibustering, and by including a draconian trigger that is pre-arranged, they give cover to their corporate colleagues who can then claim that they did not want to vote for this assault, but had no choice.

It is a fucking travesty, and it is not ALL the Republicans' fault. We have bankers and corporations running the show now, and they live in both parties. It is time to stand up against them.

And the recent

Yes, I CAN simultaneously claim, and I DID simultaneously claim, because it is FACTUALLY true.

ANY policy that both parties favor will sail through easily. ANY policy that one party opposes is very difficult to enact and sustain. Both are SIMULTANEOUSLY true, solely because of the structure of our political system.

You are correct that in various cases, some Democrats (by giving their assent) are causing some of the problems. To the extent that this makes the difference between an action passing and an action failing, you are absolutely correct that this is bad. We need to maximize the number of progressives in Congress to minimize this assent to bad policy.

But that has NOTHING to do with the OTHER side of the equation -- passing policies that progressives want, yet Republicans OPPOSE. Even if we get 218 progressive House members and 60 progressive Senators in 2020 or 2030 or 2040, that will mean NOTHING if the justices appointed by Rick Perry in 2013 (due to the enabling of Perry by people who voted against Obama) overrule those laws.

on the economy, health care, and war that the President has tried to get Congress to pass. Show me one passionate and sustained attempt to lead on any of these issues, from the progressive side. Name for me significant ways that he has blocked the corporate agenda.

He bargained away a public option early on, while still LYING to the American people that it was on the table. He wanted this corporate monstrosity.

He took us into new countries, for new wars. He put forward a budget that increases, rather than decreases, Pentagon spending.

He sent his lawyers to court to expand the powers of the FBI to put surveillance on your vehicles. He publicly guffawed about TSA policies and called them "necessary." HIS Secretary of Defense was out making public statements last week that cuts in Medicare and SS must be made instead of military cuts. The Patriot Act stands. Guantanamo Bay remains open. There is no talk of prosecutions.

HE stood up not once, not twice, but at least THREE times during this debt ceiling debacle to lie to Americans about the fiscal wisdom of cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits or slashing the budget during this economic nightmare. He made condescending speeches about eating peas, and he is even now indicating his willingness to cut the food budgets of seniors who are already struggling to afford bread, by chaining the CPI. He publicly bemoaned that his proposed cuts, 650 BILLION to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, were not accepted. And these cuts remain on the table for the Super Congress to enact later this year.

HE is filling his administration with corporate heads, and HE is appointing Republicans to major positions.

And HE has had a bully pulpit since Day One of his administration, along with a country that polls show would offer him massive support for standing up against the corporate thieves who want to cut the social safety net, expand the wars, and continue taxing the poor while sparing the obscenely wealthy. He had from Day One to change the national conversation and help the people rise up to support him in demanding change.

He did none of it, because he didn't want to.

Your third paragraph is a ridiculous understatement. The collusion of Democrats is EXACTLY the problem. Politicians have a remarkable tendency to shift their course when masses of Americans wield power to let them know they will not take the bullshit anymore. This President has, from the beginning of his Presidency, taught Americans to feel helpless, because he not only has failed to be on their side, he has been a mouthpiece and an enabler and even an advocate for everything the other side represents.

Assume additionally that we get 218 and 60 Dennis Kucinich clone legislators.

How useful will their progressive laws be if they are overturned (or interpreted into mush) by Rick Perry's 2013-Supreme-Court appointees, who were only there because various people voted against Obama in 2012?

It always comes down to that, doesn't it. :eyes:

Newsflash: Insults and threats rarely make an inspiring election strategy. This nation needs fundamental change. We need someone with the vision and conviction/will to represent the people, not carry the corporate water.

Howzabout we try, for a change, refusing to enable the corporatists and instead work to elect politicians who actually represent the PEOPLE for a change? You'd be amazed at the effect THAT can have on a Supreme Court.

"You'd be amazed at the effect THAT can have on a Supreme Court."

Actually, I am aware of history, and that had very little affect on the Court. The Court threw out policy after policy from the late 1890s right up through several years of FDR, and that didn't change until the justices started leaving the court in old age. Looking at the ages of the court now (and the likely ages of Perry's appointees), we'll be waiting until 2040 for that. Is that really what you want?

Voting for what we have now will give us more rightward movement. To suggest otherwise is to be purposefully blind to reality and what has been happening in front of our faces over the past several years. It is to be blind to what our government and our President have said, done, and promised to do. It is to be complicit.

It will not stop until we acknowledge it is happening, and make it stop.

It will cause permanent damage to the country, that even multiple future progressive presidents won't be able to reverse. But apparently that's what you want.

"It will not stop until we acknowledge it is happening"

Actually, what you acknowledge is really quite irrelevant. You can continue to think you can "make" things happen. You will eventually figure out that you are quite wrong. I know people who used to be like that; they all eventually figure this stuff out. But it will be far too late to correct your past mistakes by then.

you still have failed to explain how voting for more of the same corporatism will ever reverse a rightward direction.

strategy won't PREVENT the direction from changing for 40 years through judicial changes. It seems like since your strategy clearly results in a far more rightward country for a much longer period of time, the burden is on you to explain why Perry would appoint liberal supreme court justices (or that Perry justices wouldn't be all that bad, etc). You haven't even tried to dispute this. You just want me to stop outlining the obvious consequences of your strategy, because it is inconvenient to your argument.

You are like someone who says that "I don't like this plot of land, so let's nuke it so no one can ever live on it again." Not a very intelligent strategy.

Um, no. You have failed to show how yours will bring any leftward change AT ALL. We have seen a steady and alarmingly rapid rightward march, and you suggest voting for more of the same.

I think I will leave this here, because you seem unable to acknowledge that fundamental and very basic point.

Have a good day.

"Bush got everything he wanted."

1. He did not.
2. It is easier for Republicans, they want to do nothing.
3. The system disfavors "doing something." The Founders thought minimal government - parliamentary systems assume the government will be in charge.

:shrug:

You meant to say "....doing something for the working class"

They know how to get things done when they want to.

That includes a whole variety of progressive economic legislation, that may very well have the votes in (say) 2030, but will be overturned or interpreted into nothing by Rick Perry's appointees of 2013.

:eyes:

healthcare. Perry himself has already written that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional the book he wrote, and he will likely appoint like-minded justices.

The question remains whether Thomas/Roberts/Alito would do so. Do you really want to rely on them not doing so? Thomas has already written that he would go back approximately to before 1937 (in terms of what authority he would say the Federal government has). He would be much more comfortable in the Lochner era (where the court spent 30-40 years overruling most progressive economic regulations). Unfortunately, it appears that some "liberals" want to get precisely that outcome.