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Comment by king_panic | Hacker News Reader

The election of the Senate is as representative of the country as election of the president. The idea they have to vote in accordance with your opinion on issues in order to 'restore the moral fabric of the country', whatever that means, is condescending and self-righteous.

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I am not alone in arguing that the Senate is not representative of the country, just as the electoral college is not. And it will increasingly become less and less representative as more and more people move to a few cities in a few states.

I don't think that my post promotes an idea senators have to vote in accordance with my opinion on issues. The point I was trying to make is that there is a very real threat of gridlock in the Congress (especially, considering the voting record of the current majority in the Senate), which might be extremely unproductive and even damaging to the lives of the American people.

It drives me nuts that so much order of business is controlled by a majority leader, no matter the party. These rules stifle any legislation to a predetermined show for the most part where votes and "debate" is just scripted for pundits and news.

If legislation could hit the floor for actual debate and votes without being filtered through partisan leadership I think we could see a lot more progress on things that are popular and bipartisan. Or at least legislatures would have to put their names to a vote on an issue. Minimum wage hikes, marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, redistricting and campaign finance reform have all faced great support when put to ballot initiatives around the country. But good luck ever seeing that in Congress.

Gridlock is a feature, not a bug. Only the most important issues to American people pass through to law, whether or not you agree on those issues, which you clearly lay out in your OP in the name of "repairing moral fabric" -- empty rhetoric.

This is a crippling problem for the United States. In the absence of effective governance by Congress, control of the country slips ever increasingly into the hands of an Imperial President and an unelected Supreme Court. While Congress debates "only the most important issues" Presidents have taken to ruling by decree through executive orders and policy-setting Federal agencies, pushing the line as far as the Supreme Court will tolerate , politicizing the court and damaging national trust in impartial justice in the process. Recall that the Supreme Court granted to itself its most important powers in Marbury v Madison. It's a castle built on sand, and the only things that binds a President to respect its decisions are tradition and the belief of the American people in the idea of the court as a non-partisan institution that should be respected.

And then every 4-8 years the President changes parties, scraps all major ongoing efforts of their predecessor, repeals their decrees, replaces all of the experts and advisors they have brought into the government, and reverses their foreign and domestic policies.

This disfunction has been highlighted within the Chinese Communist Party as the main reason why China will eventually (soon) eclipse the United States in world significance. A country that is governed in such a schizophrenic manner cannot compete long-term with a country capable of planning on time horizons or more than 8 years (and sometimes only two!).

Regardless of whether you call gridlock a feature or something else, I think that it should be used to the benefit of the people. Unfortunately, too many times it is used not to the benefit of the relevant constituents, but for playing political games, catering to interests of some financial donors and sometimes even due to an outright lack of responsibility. As for "repairing moral fabric", this has nothing to do with the gridlock issue. I don't know why you even mentioned that in this context.

Believe it or not, politicians not messing up the system more than it is already messed up is an actual benefit to the people. To parent's point, it is a feature that benefits everyone. Doubly so at times where country is almost evenly split over what to do.

Edit. Also, they DO cater to their real constituencies. If you do not believe it, check the votes immediately after 2016 elections. What was the priority? Lower taxes for the already well to do.

What some classify as "messing up the system", others might classify as "progress" or "benefit to the people". So, it's a moot point.

"Their real constituencies" (emphasis mine) - I assume that it's a sarcasm. Otherwise, I don't see how wealthy people comprise a majority of relevant party representatives' aggregate constituency. The trickle-down economics is a myth.

Eh, I am worried that I am not expressing myself accurately. "Their real constituencies" was definitely not sarcasm. I am not sure how that could possibly be misinterpreted as such.

The example I gave, post 2016 election tax reform benefited said real constituencies. If you do not believe me, look back what threats were lobbed and by whom at republicans if they do not deliver to said constituency. It is not trickle down, but he with the gold makes the rules. And they -- the real constituency -- happen to pay the bills.

In that context, I am not sure I understand the point about "wealthy people [don't] comprise a majority of relevant party representatives' aggregate constituency". They don't, but we don't live in a democracy. In the best of times, assuming you subscribe to taking things as they are written, we are republic ( you know, protection from the tyranny of the majority ). At worst, we already past oligarchy.

So... what does trickle down have to do with anything?

> In that context, I am not sure I understand the point about "wealthy people [don't] comprise a majority of relevant party representatives' aggregate constituency".

It is quite simple. "Around two-thirds of registered voters in the U.S. (65%) do not have a college degree", with relevant numbers for Democrats plus Democrat-leaning voters and Republicans plus Republican-leaning voters being 59% and 70%, correspondingly [1]. For simplicity, let's use education, which, as we know, has a direct correlation with net worth, as a proxy for wealth. Thus, as I've argued earlier, the aggregate constituency of congressional representatives largely consists of non-wealthy people. Therefore, by reducing taxes on businesses (especially big businesses, which are mostly owned by wealthy, including the "top 1%") and high-income people, the post-2016 tax reform disproportionately benefited a very small segment of said constituency ("socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor" [2]).

> So... what does trickle down have to do with anything?

Trickle-down economics is directly related to taxes, as it is based on the notion that "taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society should be reduced as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term" [3]. And your example was referring to post-2016 tax reform. Hence the connection that I have mentioned.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-20...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_for_the_rich_and_cap...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

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