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I think that's a really simplistic view of how government works. These are not simply problems being proposed. These require, in almost every single case, multiple departments working together along with (a) a lot of deep thinking by the parties involved, and (b) a measured response that must get run through no less than 20 people (my guess) before it becomes an "official response". You think they can achieve "more than one per day"? No chance.

> 10,000,000 / 25,000 = 400 responses/yr

Based on the last few months of growth the response rate won't remain static. It's reasonable to assume there will be continued growth, so they need to set the barrier to entry at a practical height.

what is the 25k here?

The current amount of votes for a petition.

That is the old threshold for petitions.

Note that 400 is a strict overestimate if votes were evenly divided between petitions. But some petitions get 2x the vote total, and some don't reach the threshold. So the real number is significantly less. But the trend is clear.