When Kevin first explained to me how the US political system worked I was aghast. Over the years I have partially got used to it, but now it seems that Americans are starting to wonder too.
Most systems of parliamentary practice (e.g. the famous Robert’s Rules of Order) do not allow an amendment to a motion unless that amendment is germane to the subject of the original motion. But Congress, as I understand it, has a special standing rule allowing non-germane amendments, because they allow for the addition of pork.
Here’s how it works. Someone wants to pass a bill for, say, saving the country from economic collapse. “NO”, say the Congresscritters in unison, “it shall not pass. At least, not until we get ours.” And so the pork allocation begins. $xbn to struggling car manufacturers in Detroit, $ym to struggling wind farm owners in Texas, and so on. Some of these things are good, some bad, but they all have one thing in common – they bring in votes. Every Congresscritter has to be able to take back something to his or her backers (and by “backers” I may mean “voters”, but more often I mean “the people who supplied the campaign finance”). And the bigger the crisis, the more Congresscritters need to be bribed in this way, and the stranger their demands become. Because there is apparently one man in Congress who will not give his vote to save the country from disaster unless something is also done for the plight of people who cycle to work. Cyclist commuters of America rejoice, a $20/month tax break is coming your way.
You know, it is a great cause, and I’m very happy for all of those cyclists. I’ll also be happy if the good old USA doesn’t suffer terminal economic collapse. But sometimes I am tempted to imitate the great sage Obelix and tap my head in wonder.
More on the tax break for cyclists, and even more sarcasm, at Knowledge Problem.
Update: And lo, it worked. Offer them enough pork and they will vote for you.
Note that the US political system as set forth in the Constitution was more or less modeled on the British system. Or rather, on what was believed to be the British system — an outdated and idealized model, which was not a parliamentary system.
Which seems to have been combined in various odd ways with knowledge of what the British system had actually become by 1787. For example, Alexander Hamilton was aware that the First Lord of the Treasury was actually in charge. He considered his position as Secretary of the Treasury to be the American equivalent.
As for whether the US would be better off with a parliamentary system: every time I begin to think about that, the Canadian parliament does something outstandingly stupid.
Dan:
I’m not a great expert on US political history, so I don’t know how they got to be as they are. I do know, however, that we in the UK long since gave up on the idea of allowing our head of state any significant say in the running of the country. Given the mess that Dubya has made of things, maybe the Americans might consider something similar.
However, these issues have little to do with the pork trough. That’s a matter of parliamentary practice, not of political structure. You could do it in any parliamentary system just by changing the debate rules.
Of course all political systems have pork. Where there is a will, politicians will find a way to circumvent the rules. But the USA is the only country I know of that has specifically adopted a rule to facilitate pork ladling.