[Flaser]

Except the branches don't watch each other.  Congress and the President are usually in bed with each other when it comes to expanding the government since they both benefit from that and the Supreme Court is typically content to sit back and watch for the most part since they're unaccountable as they're chosen for life.

The only risk a Supreme Court Justice faces is old age & assassination attempts.

The problem is that it's in politicians' best interest to delegate their powers to others. It's easier to roll heads in the EPA than it is to accept the consequences of legislation that you specifically authorized. So instead of Congress passing regulations & the President signing them into law, instead Congress passes carte blanc authorization for a 3rd party to write & enforce regulations. You end up with bureaucracies that write & enforce the equivalent of law; there are no checks & balances as the regulations never need votes & don't need to respect the authority of the courts. The EPA's been quite guilty of that one: they can declare land protected and infringe on personal property rights. They can impose fines for noncompliance that, in the span of a day, can bankrupt an individual. Meanwhile, they can prevent the sale of said land. Even if the landowner fights & wins an uphill legal battle, the EPA doesn't have to revise their decision: they can insist that the land be protected and continue to punish the landowner.

All in all, it's a massive nightmare. If something goes grossly wrong, the agency's head administrators resign and are replaced. Those authorizing their appointments rarely if ever need to answer for those votes.

Why does that remind me so much of the Solarian League in David Weber's later Honorverse books? That's not a flattering comparison by the way and makes me wonder, which part of the US is Frontier Security.

[Mikes]

Why does that remind me so much of the Solarian League in David Weber's later Honorverse books?

Because Weber modeled the Solarian League after the United States of America ?

lol.

The fundamental problem with the American government is that it was designed by people terrified of democracy. We can't get anything done because government branches - the president included - do not have enough power.

source: canadians, my dad

I wouldn't say those people were scared of democracy, but rather of putting (too much) power into anyones hands. (... which incidentially would quickly lead to the end of any and all democracy if it's too much power in the wrong hands.)

[Dilmah G]

Yeah, I'd argue more a fear of government as opposed to democracy. We did your political system to some skin-depth as part of my polsci's intro to liberalism, could you elaborate on the not enough power argument, Battuta? I'm not really full-bottle on how stuff works over there, or at least, not putting it into these terms.

[Scotty]

The President doesn't write the bills, he can only pass them and submit them for consideration (which House/Senate have to approve, yadda yadda)

Congress doesn't enforce the bills, they can only try to pass them (which the President can veto, yadda yadda)

The Supreme Court neither write nor enforce the bills, they can only say whether they should be allowed or not.

So, the President can't do anything on his own, the Congress can't do anything on its own, and the Supreme Court can probably do the least on its own, but it's very good at saying "no" to the other branches.

That adds up to none of them having enough power to really get things booking in any one direction.

[jr2]

And that would be to prevent a runaway train.  Basically, it is to say, Adolph Hitler/Neo-Nazi party/ what-have-you, you are not welcome here.  You may do some harm, but you will not ruin this country without managing to get around the legislative branch and the supreme court as well.

As to how well that functions... Well, probably, if he had made his debut here, he would have just wowed the legislative branch into following, and bribed/threatened/'disappeared' the Supreme Court justices he could not replace.  Although there is the two-term limit on Presidents... Nah, I bet he would've gotten around that too.

[General Battuta]

And that would be to prevent a runaway train.  Basically, it is to say, Adolph Hitler/Neo-Nazi party/ what-have-you, you are not welcome here.  You may do some harm, but you will not ruin this country without managing to get around the legislative branch and the supreme court as well.

It is not this exactly. It had a lot more to do with concerns the Founders had with state vs. federal power and the notion of democracy than it had to do with concerns about an entire notion (nationalism) that wouldn't come around for decades and decades.

I'm not saying the entire notion of checks and balances is dumb, I'm just saying that our government stands out from most Western democracies in how absolutely untrusting its founders were in their voters.

Although there is the two-term limit on Presidents... Nah, I bet he would've gotten around that too.

The two-term limit wasn't even implemented until after World War II.  Do you know how many terms FDR was elected to?

[jr2]

I knew it was added on, wasn't sure when, have happily forgotten that.  Something like four?  I forget.

[Dilmah G]

The President doesn't write the bills, he can only pass them and submit them for consideration (which House/Senate have to approve, yadda yadda)

Congress doesn't enforce the bills, they can only try to pass them (which the President can veto, yadda yadda)

The Supreme Court neither write nor enforce the bills, they can only say whether they should be allowed or not.

So, the President can't do anything on his own, the Congress can't do anything on its own, and the Supreme Court can probably do the least on its own, but it's very good at saying "no" to the other branches.

That adds up to none of them having enough power to really get things booking in any one direction.

I see. You guys vote for the President separately to Congressional members, don't you?

If you abolished Presidential Elections (never gonna happen, but IF) and only voted for Congressional members, with the leader of the party holding the majority becoming the President, then at least Pres/Congress would be able to fight as a bloc and he/she wouldn't be stonewalled by Congress all the time.

So what you're saying is that the arms of government possess such diluted power that the only way to get stuff done is for at least 2 of the 3 to cooperate? And therefore the Executive is lacking in coercive power over the Legislature to get stuff done?

Am somewhat biased because over here the division between Exec/Legislature is really only nominal - they function more or less together and it's only in cases such as our current hung parliament that **** doesn't happen. I should probably read up about your system a little more...

[General Battuta]

Many of the unique characteristics of the American system are simple game theory consequences of the fact that we use winner-take-all rather than proportional elections. Ironically, although our political system was founded without any consideration for political parties, it's set up in such a way that game theory drives everything towards a two-party system.

You don't even have to know the traits of the party; you can simply model them as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' and have most of the information you need.

[Dilmah G]

I see. Well things like Duverger's law illustrate how first past le post creates a climate in which two-party systems thrive, and I'm guessing game theory would describe the principle of it.

May read up on it and dominate the next tutorial.

[General Battuta]

One concern that has arisen in recent years is the possibility that the traits of one US party are departing from the simple game theory model I mentioned above. The Republicans have swung further right than the Democrats have swung left - by, I believe, quite a significant margin.

This is remarkable because there are normally very few differences between the two political parties. They agree on 95% of issues (number pulled out of my ass), then select the remaining 5% and make a huge noise about them so that they can attract votes away from the other party. If one party has changed strategies to 'if the other party tries it, we oppose it', that may signal a shift in the game.

[Dilmah G]

I think you're probably about spot on with 95%. Over here it's 97% of legislation that goes through uncontested and only 3% that kick up a public stink.

But yes, I wasn't aware of that disparity in shifts toward their respective extremities, though I did have a brief discussion about that change in strategy the other day with regards to Obama. Has the Republican game-plan been successful in the run-up? I would've thought that that divergence would've cost them voters and picking up on whoever the Dems manage to alienate.

Sorry for my brevity here, I'm out of my depth when it comes to US politics - more keen on learning as much from here as I can, though.

[General Battuta]

Obama's chances of reelection basically depend on how unemployment numbers look in the next few months. But the Republican strategy during his time in office has basically been to stonewall everything, and from a legislative rather than electoral perspective that's been pretty effective.

[Bob-san]

The Republican party of the 1990s & early 00s had its fiscal conservationism strain effectively cut out. There was backlash over McCain's nomination and abject failure. The Ron Paul 2008 campaign started the idea of a Tea Party--throwing out components of big government. That idea & some groups were hijacked, which has led to a growing influx of libertarian Republicans. Many caucuses & state conventions have been hijacked by minority activists, become brush fires for the Romney campaign and RNC--rules about binding delegates be damned.

Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign. If he continues running simply as an anti-Obama, he'll pick up more steam than McCain but will be unable to convince the Republican base to turnout--especially now about the swathes of Ron Paul supporters contemplate staying home or voting 3rd party. But Gary Johnson is very right about the Libertarian party--though I disagree with his campaign. He focuses too much on drug legalization, which pins Libertarians as a bunch of potheads. That versus how Ron Paul framed the question: ending the War on Drugs means returning control over the drug problem to the 50 states to decide.

[General Battuta]

Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign.

Nope, campaigns are mostly irrelevant. You can ignore them entirely and simply treat the two candidates as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' with no additional information, and safely predict the election based on just a few key objective variables. By Labor Day the election outcome will be more or less known. The importance of campaigns is mostly a media myth, though exactly why is still a matter of debate (some people think that campaigns are important but that they generally nullify each other).

This assumes both candidates don't do anything crazy like murder a baby or anything.

[General Battuta]

whoops, uh, labor day, not memorial day

[Bob-san]

Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign.

Nope, campaigns are mostly irrelevant. You can ignore them entirely and simply treat the two candidates as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' with no additional information, and safely predict the election based on just a few key objective variables. By Labor Day the election outcome will be more or less known. The importance of campaigns is mostly a media myth, though exactly why is .

This assumes both candidates don't do anything crazy like murder a baby or anything.

Or heavily alienate their own party.

[General Battuta]

Huh, I just read this description of a simple rule of thumb model that's worked for 15 of the past 16 presidential elections:

If national unemployment is NOT lower in June than it was in March, the incumbent will lose.

The exception was Eisenhower, who was reelected despite a .01% rise in second quarter unemployment.

I've never heard it boiled down to anything that simple; most fundamentals models try to predict exact vote share more than they look for simple 'winner/loser'. I'm a little suspicious of speaking this as gospel truth. But at the very least it's a good conversation starter whenever anyone starts playing horse race with political campaigns.

The common wisdom seems to be that 'the economy, incumbency, and big wars' are the only factors that actually explain elections. But the question remains why this is. Do campaigns matter, but cancel each other out? Does money win elections or is it just a correlate?

I don't think anybody has good answers to these questions yet.

[impala69]

Hide your kids, hide your wife. I'm posting in this bread.

The common wisdom seems to be that 'the economy, incumbency, and big wars' are the only factors that actually explain elections. But the question remains why this is. Do campaigns matter, but cancel each other out? Does money win elections or is it just a correlate?

Sure they matter. Parties have to spend campaign donations to remain visible and attract donors. Use your noggin. Look at how campaign spending attracts more campaign donations and see why parties actually need to spend the money they receive rather than sit on it. Then consider why the Greens or Libertarians never get any media attention while the parties with big war chests do.

I don't think anybody has good answers to these questions yet.

I think I do. Pick me! Pick me!

Obama badly mistimed his stimulus and created fiscal drag during an election year. There's a 1-2% drag on GDP growth this year as the deficit spending is withdrawn. Had he just agreed with the Republicans to keep the budget balanced, unemployment would be higher in past years, but employment growth would be much higher this year.

Because he did something instead of nothing, Obama is likely lose. I think it's going to be close, but 1.7% GDP growth this quarter isn't a good sign.

[General Battuta]

hi new user

good post