Should the US House of Representatives Be Increased In Size?

[Riffraff]

The Federal government should ideally be the States joining to do things together, so really, IDEALLY, the current congress should be scrapped for a new unicameral body where each State gets one representative. Again, ideally, this would be appointed by either each State's legislature or just by the Chief Executive of the State.

Ideally and highly undemocratic?

 

[storical]

Ideally and highly undemocratic?

Yes, but it would save alot of money. And many reps and senators would have to learn to work for a living, and not have to bite off mentally, more than they can chew. Get one good rep for each state, somebody not there to stuff as much money as they can in their pockets. But someone there in the interest of the people. And for God's sakes someone competent to do the job. And it would not be undemocratic if each states' people voted the rep in office. Each state could have a few, maybe three candidates to vote for, to me thats very democratic. These candidates campaign within the counties of the state. And each state can even set up an electoral voting system to find out who wins. This would eliminate voting more than one ****** into office. And if the rep thats elected is judged uncapable of doing his job properly, or is found to be corrupt, then he can be impeached or something equivalent to that process. Great Idea VRWCAgent.

 

[Miles Teg]

The Federal government should ideally be the States joining to do things together, so really, IDEALLY, the current congress should be scrapped for a new unicameral body where each State gets one representative. Again, ideally, this would be appointed by either each State's legislature or just by the Chief Executive of the State.

Let's count the problem's with that.

1. The complete lack of interest in democracy. At no point does the average citizen get to vote for his representative. I'm guessing you'd also want to have the Federal President appointed by the this body?

2. The disparity between states. Another "voice of the people concern', although this is obviously less important. As is, California gets just as many votes in the Senate as Wyoming, effectively institutionalized favoritism for rural states. This would only amplify the problem to ridiculous levels, similar to the Roman Republic and their tribes.

3. The above would completely throw off the political system. Let's look at the Presidential elections in the year 2000. It was effectively a tie, with a slight lean toward Groe. However, Bush won exactly 3/5ths of the states. Remember how the conservative aristocracy got their own rural tribes, while the poor were jam packed into just a couple of urban ones? This would be the same affair. The federal government would be drastically more conservative than it's populace.

4. Appointments lead to corruption and incompetence. This should be bleeding obvious. Look at the recent crop of appoint senators. You've of them got capable ones like Gillibrand, but they're outnumbered by political cronies like Burris, placeholders like Kaufmann, and rather uninspiring dullards like Bennett. In the current senate, they're outnumbered by the competent and even some inspiring senators, but this is unlikely to hold true in an all appointed senate.

5. It's simply too small. Your proposal would give us fifty members of the the federal congress. The simple fact that they couldn't run the federal government should be obvious. You'd obviously want to outsource every program possible to the states, but this puny body couldn't even do that. If we were to imagine the current congress dismantling the federal government (a titanic feat) and then shrinking itself, we still have dozens of problems. People are going to be sick, or on vacation, or out of the country, on campaigning at any given time. This is manageable with the current congress, but far less so with this fifty member congress you've proposed.

Honestly, your unicameral chamber couldn't even handle the mail from constituents it's going to receive on a daily basis, let alone get any actual legislation done. Consider for example how hard put upon Senator Klobuchar was to deal with her constituents going without a companion senator for a few months. And she had eight congressmen serving with her.

6. Your proposal would put greater power in the hands of political aides and bosses. Let's go back to that mail thing. You know how Senator Klobuchar responded? She had to hire effectively a second team of aides just to deal with it. At the moment, there's allot of complaints that the members of congress are just figureheads, doing what their aides order them to. Want to imagine how that's going to be in a situation where there are 50 members of congress instead of 355? And of course, there's going to be a huge amount of political talent not being put to good use. So we're going to get a monsoon of pundits, backroom bosses in smoky rooms, and other idle hands acting as the devil's tools.

7. Your proposal would put a huge amount of pressure on state governments, as they struggled to cope with their new powers. Due to the reasons outlined above, they'd have to take on new members, which means redistricting. You're smart enough to know what that means

Obviously, there would be a ton of miscellaneous problems, but let's not start on that. Now, I'm sure you're already planning out a counter attack, talking about how this would be "ideal", and not workable in real life. Stop it. Just stop it right now. Government ultimately isn't about conforming to ideals, or being cool, or any of that. What ideals are built into government exist to set hard limits on the villainies of politicians. When you talk about an ideal government that isn't practical, you contradict yourself with every breath.

Yes, but it would save alot of money.

No, it wouldn't. The amount of money we pay our civil servants and their aides is a tiny fragment of the budget. Obviously it would shrink the federal budget, but that would just get offloaded on to the state's bugets.

And many reps and senators would have to learn to work for a living, and not have to bite off mentally, more than they can chew

There's nothing in his proposal about cutting salaries or any such thing.Most of our congressmen are independently wealthy anyways.

Get one good rep for each state, somebody not there to stuff as much money as they can in their pockets. But someone there in the interest of the people.

An appointed representative has absolutely zero self interest in looking out for his constituents. He can rob the coffers blind, keep friends in his state's capital, and roll along for years. Sure, people won't like it, but they aren't going to consider the federal appointments as their priority, since this program would mean that the state legislators controlled the important crap.

And for God's sakes someone competent to do the job. And it would not be undemocratic if each states' people voted the rep in office.

If you care to look, you'll find that appointed representatives are notoriously incompetent. And V's proposal involves the state legislature, not the citizens.

Each state could have a few, maybe three candidates to vote for, to me thats very democratic.

Wait, you're going to limit the number of candidates? That's technically worse than what we do right now!

These candidates campaign within the counties of the state. And each state can even set up an electoral voting system to find out who wins. This would eliminate voting more than one ****** into office.

Wow, you really don't get what V is proposing, do you? Yay for reading comprehension! Also, that would mean every election would be a major gamble, as opposed to the distributed risk we have now.

And if the rep thats elected is judged uncapable of doing his job properly, or is found to be corrupt, then he can be impeached or something equivalent to that process.

Impeached by who exactly? Also, do you have any idea how rare it is for a legislator to be removed from his office in any democratic country?

Great Idea VRWCAgent.

I love it. You have no idea what you're talking about, and certainly no clue what he's talking about. And while I'm at it, for God's sake man, learn to insert apostrophes!

 

[storical]

Let's count the problem's with that.

1. The complete lack of interest in democracy. At no point does the average citizen get to vote for his representative. I'm guessing you'd also want to have the Federal President appointed by the this body?

2. The disparity between states. Another "voice of the people concern', although this is obviously less important. As is, California gets just as many votes in the Senate as Wyoming, effectively institutionalized favoritism for rural states. This would only amplify the problem to ridiculous levels, similar to the Roman Republic and their tribes.

3. The above would completely throw off the political system. Let's look at the Presidential elections in the year 2000. It was effectively a tie, with a slight lean toward Groe. However, Bush won exactly 3/5ths of the states. Remember how the conservative aristocracy got their own rural tribes, while the poor were jam packed into just a couple of urban ones? This would be the same affair. The federal government would be drastically more conservative than it's populace.

4. Appointments lead to corruption and incompetence. This should be bleeding obvious. Look at the recent crop of appoint senators. You've of them got capable ones like Gillibrand, but they're outnumbered by political cronies like Burris, placeholders like Kaufmann, and rather uninspiring dullards like Bennett. In the current senate, they're outnumbered by the competent and even some inspiring senators, but this is unlikely to hold true in an all appointed senate.

5. It's simply too small. Your proposal would give us fifty members of the the federal congress. The simple fact that they couldn't run the federal government should be obvious. You'd obviously want to outsource every program possible to the states, but this puny body couldn't even do that. If we were to imagine the current congress dismantling the federal government (a titanic feat) and then shrinking itself, we still have dozens of problems. People are going to be sick, or on vacation, or out of the country, on campaigning at any given time. This is manageable with the current congress, but far less so with this fifty member congress you've proposed.

Honestly, your unicameral chamber couldn't even handle the mail from constituents it's going to receive on a daily basis, let alone get any actual legislation done. Consider for example how hard put upon Senator Klobuchar was to deal with her constituents going without a companion senator for a few months. And she had eight congressmen serving with her.

6. Your proposal would put greater power in the hands of political aides and bosses. Let's go back to that mail thing. You know how Senator Klobuchar responded? She had to hire effectively a second team of aides just to deal with it. At the moment, there's allot of complaints that the members of congress are just figureheads, doing what their aides order them to. Want to imagine how that's going to be in a situation where there are 50 members of congress instead of 355? And of course, there's going to be a huge amount of political talent not being put to good use. So we're going to get a monsoon of pundits, backroom bosses in smoky rooms, and other idle hands acting as the devil's tools.

7. Your proposal would put a huge amount of pressure on state governments, as they struggled to cope with their new powers. Due to the reasons outlined above, they'd have to take on new members, which means redistricting. You're smart enough to know what that means

Obviously, there would be a ton of miscellaneous problems, but let's not start on that. Now, I'm sure you're already planning out a counter attack, talking about how this would be "ideal", and not workable in real life. Stop it. Just stop it right now. Government ultimately isn't about conforming to ideals, or being cool, or any of that. What ideals are built into government exist to set hard limits on the villainies of politicians. When you talk about an ideal government that isn't practical, you contradict yourself with every breath.



No, it wouldn't. The amount of money we pay our civil servants and their aides is a tiny fragment of the budget. Obviously it would shrink the federal budget, but that would just get offloaded on to the state's bugets.

.

There's nothing in his proposal about cutting salaries or any such thing.Most of our congressmen are independently wealthy anyways.



An appointed representative has absolutely zero self interest in looking out for his constituents. He can rob the coffers blind, keep friends in his state's capital, and roll along for years. Sure, people won't like it, but they aren't going to consider the federal appointments as their priority, since this program would mean that the state legislators controlled the important crap.



If you care to look, you'll find that appointed representatives are notoriously incompetent. And V's proposal involves the state legislature, not the citizens.



Wait, you're going to limit the number of candidates? That's technically worse than what we do right now!



Wow, you really don't get what V is proposing, do you? Yay for reading comprehension! Also, that would mean every election would be a major gamble, as opposed to the distributed risk we have now.



Impeached by who exactly? Also, do you have any idea how rare it is for a legislator to be removed from his office in any democratic country?



I love it. You have no idea what you're talking about, and certainly no clue what he's talking about. And while I'm at it, for God's sake man, learn to insert apostrophes!

No miles you misunderstand, I put my own views into effect on how this could work. In other words, I found a quick proof system for electing government officials. Which could work, theoretically. So read before judging, you will be no editor that way. It seems to all of us here, and they are all laughing at your response, that you do not know what your talking about.

 

[Miles Teg]

No miles you misunderstand, I put my own views into effect on how this could work. In other words, I found a quick proof system for electing government officials. Which could work, theoretically. So read before judging, you will be no editor that way. It seems to all of us here, and they are all laughing at your response, that you do not know what your talking about.

To be frank, if I was your editor, even in a strictly non-partisan "scan for typos, clean up sentences, no political changes" kind of way, I wouldn't have time to make my own posts on CFC.

 

[storical]

Let's count the problem's with that.

1. The complete lack of interest in democracy. At no point does the average citizen get to vote for his representative. I'm guessing you'd also want to have the Federal President appointed by the this body?

2. The disparity between states. Another "voice of the people concern', although this is obviously less important. As is, California gets just as many votes in the Senate as Wyoming, effectively institutionalized favoritism for rural states. This would only amplify the problem to ridiculous levels, similar to the Roman Republic and their tribes.

3. The above would completely throw off the political system. Let's look at the Presidential elections in the year 2000. It was effectively a tie, with a slight lean toward Groe. However, Bush won exactly 3/5ths of the states. Remember how the conservative aristocracy got their own rural tribes, while the poor were jam packed into just a couple of urban ones? This would be the same affair. The federal government would be drastically more conservative than it's populace.

4. Appointments lead to corruption and incompetence. This should be bleeding obvious. Look at the recent crop of appoint senators. You've of them got capable ones like Gillibrand, but they're outnumbered by political cronies like Burris, placeholders like Kaufmann, and rather uninspiring dullards like Bennett. In the current senate, they're outnumbered by the competent and even some inspiring senators, but this is unlikely to hold true in an all appointed senate.

5. It's simply too small. Your proposal would give us fifty members of the the federal congress. The simple fact that they couldn't run the federal government should be obvious. You'd obviously want to outsource every program possible to the states, but this puny body couldn't even do that. If we were to imagine the current congress dismantling the federal government (a titanic feat) and then shrinking itself, we still have dozens of problems. People are going to be sick, or on vacation, or out of the country, on campaigning at any given time. This is manageable with the current congress, but far less so with this fifty member congress you've proposed.

Honestly, your unicameral chamber couldn't even handle the mail from constituents it's going to receive on a daily basis, let alone get any actual legislation done. Consider for example how hard put upon Senator Klobuchar was to deal with her constituents going without a companion senator for a few months. And she had eight congressmen serving with her.

6. Your proposal would put greater power in the hands of political aides and bosses. Let's go back to that mail thing. You know how Senator Klobuchar responded? She had to hire effectively a second team of aides just to deal with it. At the moment, there's allot of complaints that the members of congress are just figureheads, doing what their aides order them to. Want to imagine how that's going to be in a situation where there are 50 members of congress instead of 355? And of course, there's going to be a huge amount of political talent not being put to good use. So we're going to get a monsoon of pundits, backroom bosses in smoky rooms, and other idle hands acting as the devil's tools.

7. Your proposal would put a huge amount of pressure on state governments, as they struggled to cope with their new powers. Due to the reasons outlined above, they'd have to take on new members, which means redistricting. You're smart enough to know what that means

Obviously, there would be a ton of miscellaneous problems, but let's not start on that. Now, I'm sure you're already planning out a counter attack, talking about how this would be "ideal", and not workable in real life. Stop it. Just stop it right now. Government ultimately isn't about conforming to ideals, or being cool, or any of that. What ideals are built into government exist to set hard limits on the villainies of politicians. When you talk about an ideal government that isn't practical, you contradict yourself with every breath.



No, it wouldn't. The amount of money we pay our civil servants and their aides is a tiny fragment of the budget. Obviously it would shrink the federal budget, but that would just get offloaded on to the state's bugets.

.

There's nothing in his proposal about cutting salaries or any such thing.Most of our congressmen are independently wealthy anyways.



An appointed representative has absolutely zero self interest in looking out for his constituents. He can rob the coffers blind, keep friends in his state's capital, and roll along for years. Sure, people won't like it, but they aren't going to consider the federal appointments as their priority, since this program would mean that the state legislators controlled the important crap.



If you care to look, you'll find that appointed representatives are notoriously incompetent. And V's proposal involves the state legislature, not the citizens.



Wait, you're going to limit the number of candidates? That's technically worse than what we do right now!



Wow, you really don't get what V is proposing, do you? Yay for reading comprehension! Also, that would mean every election would be a major gamble, as opposed to the distributed risk we have now.



Impeached by who exactly? Also, do you have any idea how rare it is for a legislator to be removed from his office in any democratic country?



I love it. You have no idea what you're talking about, and certainly no clue what he's talking about. And while I'm at it, for God's sake man, learn to insert apostrophes!

No miles you misunderstand, I put my own views into effect on how this could work. In other words, I found a quick proof system for electing government officials. Which could work, theoretically. So read before judging, you will be no editor that way. It seems to all of us here, and they are all laughing at your response, that you do not know what your talking about.

Oh, and miles try this on for size, each state also has an election for president. You have the majority of electoral votes for that state, you win the state. A county electoral college for each state, can be used for this purpose as well, if you do not think the average voter should have his vote actually count. All this does is reduce the number of reps to one per state. Yes, miles even California, especially California. This would save billions from the rampant corruption from having too many public officials in office, most who are as you know, and everyone knows, a bunch of crooks.

How about this we can call it the House of the Fifty.

 

[storical]

To be frank, if I was your editor, even in a strictly non-partisan "scan for typos, clean up sentences, no political changes" kind of way, I wouldn't have time to make my own posts on CFC.

What are you an English Teacher, I am have half drunk here and you don't like my grammar, give me a break, man! This is why I have degrees in History instaed of English, and I type terrible, too.

Miles we are just messing with ya. Things should stay as they are. Our electoral system isn't the problem. I have not heard so many sober judges laugh so hard before. Thank you for getting me a bit of money, because I bet they could'nt crack a smile if their life depended on it. Too much time in the courtroom has been awful for all of us.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Ideally and highly undemocratic?

I don't get why anyone thinks we are a democracy or that a democracy is good in and of itself.

VRWCAgent's has merit but only if the power of the federal government is reduced back to 18th century levels which isn't going to happen.

 

[Kerozine]

Raise it in proportion to the US State with the least number of citizens.

 

[Hsinchu]

I'm from California. Bachelor's in Economics.

Fewer government paychecks = less bureacracy, more expedient decision making, less taxes.

More government spokesholes = more bureacracy, more committees, more per diem going to subsidize vacations for government legislators and less serious action time to make things in the US better.

I disagree with the idea that more heads is better. If we started electing intelligentsia instead of politicians that look good on camera, we would be far better off. Electing another couple of salespeople to the House seems like an expensive waste of time to me.

 

[Shylock]

Corporations will buy out the new ones anyway.

 

[bhsup]

Let's count the problem's with that.

1. The complete lack of interest in democracy. At no point does the average citizen get to vote for his representative. I'm guessing you'd also want to have the Federal President appointed by the this body?

They vote indirectly by electing the State legislators or executives which would appoint the Federal rep. Just like how they currently vote for an elector who will then later vote for President. People don't actually vote for President.

2. The disparity between states. Another "voice of the people concern', although this is obviously less important. As is, California gets just as many votes in the Senate as Wyoming, effectively institutionalized favoritism for rural states. This would only amplify the problem to ridiculous levels, similar to the Roman Republic and their tribes.

We are a Federal union of 50 States. At the Federal level, the representation should be indicative of the 50 equal members. Much like how Costa Rica's vote is equal to Japan's vote on the Security Council.

3. The above would completely throw off the political system. Let's look at the Presidential elections in the year 2000. It was effectively a tie, with a slight lean toward Groe. However, Bush won exactly 3/5ths of the states. Remember how the conservative aristocracy got their own rural tribes, while the poor were jam packed into just a couple of urban ones? This would be the same affair. The federal government would be drastically more conservative than it's populace.

For what it's worth, that is not why I support this. I would support this form of Federal legislature even if Libbys would have the advantage. It is my view of how our Federal system should represent the States rather than the people at the Federal level and that's not going to change due to the political winds at any given time.

4. Appointments lead to corruption and incompetence. This should be bleeding obvious. Look at the recent crop of appoint senators. You've of them got capable ones like Gillibrand, but they're outnumbered by political cronies like Burris, placeholders like Kaufmann, and rather uninspiring dullards like Bennett. In the current senate, they're outnumbered by the competent and even some inspiring senators, but this is unlikely to hold true in an all appointed senate.

The appointed Senate that existed before the horrible 17th amendment did pretty well, imho. Sure, you're always going to get some bad apples, but that happens even with elected Senators.

5. It's simply too small. Your proposal would give us fifty members of the the federal congress. The simple fact that they couldn't run the federal government should be obvious. You'd obviously want to outsource every program possible to the states, but this puny body couldn't even do that. If we were to imagine the current congress dismantling the federal government (a titanic feat) and then shrinking itself, we still have dozens of problems. People are going to be sick, or on vacation, or out of the country, on campaigning at any given time. This is manageable with the current congress, but far less so with this fifty member congress you've proposed.

Well okay, then maybe 3 members per State. OR just keep the current Senate, abolish the 17th amendment, and chuck the House.

Honestly, your unicameral chamber couldn't even handle the mail from constituents it's going to receive on a daily basis, let alone get any actual legislation done. Consider for example how hard put upon Senator Klobuchar was to deal with her constituents going without a companion senator for a few months. And she had eight congressmen serving with her.

It's constituents are the State government, not the citizens themselves. Just chuck any mail from the citizenry.

6. Your proposal would put greater power in the hands of political aides and bosses. Let's go back to that mail thing. You know how Senator Klobuchar responded? She had to hire effectively a second team of aides just to deal with it. At the moment, there's allot of complaints that the members of congress are just figureheads, doing what their aides order them to. Want to imagine how that's going to be in a situation where there are 50 members of congress instead of 355? And of course, there's going to be a huge amount of political talent not being put to good use. So we're going to get a monsoon of pundits, backroom bosses in smoky rooms, and other idle hands acting as the devil's tools.

7. Your proposal would put a huge amount of pressure on state governments, as they struggled to cope with their new powers. Due to the reasons outlined above, they'd have to take on new members, which means redistricting. You're smart enough to know what that means

Which is actually an awesome side-effect (the larger size). The State governments are where most everything should be happening anyway, not the Federal government. So yeah, expand the General Assemblies and Senates of the State Governments to the levels that they need to be to deal with all the issues suddenly dumped on them.

And really, if anything, more districts means smaller districts, which means less opportunity for bizarro looking districts that are drawn for political expediency.

But regardless, Gerrymandering is not a reason to discard something. Take steps to deal with gerrymandering if need be.

Obviously, there would be a ton of miscellaneous problems, but let's not start on that. Now, I'm sure you're already planning out a counter attack, talking about how this would be "ideal", and not workable in real life. Stop it. Just stop it right now. Government ultimately isn't about conforming to ideals, or being cool, or any of that. What ideals are built into government exist to set hard limits on the villainies of politicians. When you talk about an ideal government that isn't practical, you contradict yourself with every breath.

I am not being unrealistic, Miles. Yes, there will be issues. Issues are dealt with when they come up. It might take some time to shake out, but it would beat the hell out of this unconstitutional Federal power grab we've had going on for the last century.

 

[Miles Teg]

Oh, and miles try this on for size, each state also has an election for president. You have the majority of electoral votes for that state, you win the state. A county electoral college for each state, can be used for this purpose as well, if you do not think the average voter should have his vote actually count. All this does is reduce the number of reps to one per state. Yes, miles even California, especially California. This would save billions from the rampant corruption from having too many public officials in office, most who are as you know, and everyone knows, a bunch of crooks.

Storical, the flaw in your reasoning is that you seem to be convinced that the number of corrupt officials is more important than the percentage of corrupt officials. For example, if on average 60% of politicians are corrupt or incompetent, then in an average ten man delegation, there will be four good people. In a one man delegation, that person is probably corrupt, incompetent, or both, and is the only man representing his state. See the inherent problems?

I don't get why anyone thinks we are a democracy or that a democracy is good in and of itself.

VRWCAgent's has merit but only if the power of the federal government is reduced back to 18th century levels which isn't going to happen.

To quote Winston Churchill,"Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." The thing about a democracy is that it institutes a sense of personal interest in good government. In theory, being accountable to the people forces legislators and executives to run an efficient government. in practice, we often fall short of that ideal, but it's more effective than not having such a safeguard.

They vote indirectly by electing the State legislators or executives which would appoint the Federal rep. Just like how they currently vote for an elector who will then later vote for President. People don't actually vote for President.

We both know that in practice, this is generally irrelevant, since the elector is customarily displays complete fidelity to the wishes of his people. In some states, it's against the law to do otherwise. In a situation where the state government controls the local economy, and all those various issues, there's little incentive for the state legislators to pay attention to the wishes of their constituency, because at the end of the day it's just one issue among many more important ones.

We are a Federal union of 50 States. At the Federal level, the representation should be indicative of the 50 equal members. Much like how Costa Rica's vote is equal to Japan's vote on the Security Council.

I'm actually not in favor of the way the UN is set up for what it's worth. However, those are different situations. Every single member of the UN is sovereign, in the technical sense of the word. Forida and the Missouri aren't. And of course, the UN can't force it's members to do anything.

For what it's worth, that is not why I support this. I would support this form of Federal legislature even if Libbys would have the advantage. It is my view of how our Federal system should represent the States rather than the people at the Federal level and that's not going to change due to the political winds at any given time.

No, I'm not accusing you of political motivations. I'll give you that, your strange (from my perspective) pre-occupation with states rights goes beyond petty politics for you.

The appointed Senate that existed before the horrible 17th amendment did pretty well, imho. Sure, you're always going to get some bad apples, but that happens even with elected Senators.

True, but it was far more common back in the day. For example, it was the 17th amendment that broke the back of nepotism. Sure, we've still got Bush Jr's, and a Bo Bidens, bu they're far less common then they were in the nineteenth century. And you know how there were a ton of complaints over how long it took to resolve the Minnesota senate races? For four years between 1899 and 1903, Delaware didn't send one it's senators. 44 other deadlocks that lasted varying amounts of time in sixteen years. Nine bribery cases in forty years, and god knows how many never made it to trial.

I'd call that a failed experiment.

Well okay, then maybe 3 members per State. OR just keep the current Senate, abolish the 17th amendment, and chuck the House.

Okay, fair enough, consider that issue dropped.

It's constituents are the State government, not the citizens themselves. Just chuck any mail from the citizenry.

Completely removing any sort of feedback, especially as regards issues when a citizen needs the help of someone with federal powers?

Which is actually an awesome side-effect (the larger size). The State governments are where most everything should be happening anyway, not the Federal government. So yeah, expand the General Assemblies and Senates of the State Governments to the levels that they need to be to deal with all the issues suddenly dumped on them.

Let's think rationally about the consequences of dumping most of the Fed's internal responsibilities on the states. Trade between the states crumple to a halt, since of course, California would probably refuse to allow the sale of bread that didn't have cancer labels on it, and South Carolina probably wouldn't bother with expiration dates. Due to a lack of federal funding, Alabama would get poorer and New York would get richer. Seeing the problems?

I am not being unrealistic, Miles. Yes, there will be issues. Issues are dealt with when they come up. It might take some time to shake out, but it would beat the hell out of this unconstitutional Federal power grab we've had going on for the last century.

To be brutally frank, your wish to return to a far more states oriented government isn't based around practical matters, but romanticism and nostalgia for days gone by. That's great and all, but we left that behind for a reason, and that reason is that it didn't work.

 

[Bill3000]

I'm from California. Bachelor's in Economics.

No need to flaunt your irrelevant, worthless degree here.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Interesting. I think they should increase the number of representatives, but I may just be a silly Canadian with odd Parliamentarian notions of how legislatures work.

I think the best way is probably to have a fixed number of people that a representative can represent; more people, more delegates.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

To quote Winston Churchill,"Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." The thing about a democracy is that it institutes a sense of personal interest in good government. In theory, being accountable to the people forces legislators and executives to run an efficient government. in practice, we often fall short of that ideal, but it's more effective than not having such a safeguard.

Winston Churchill never experienced a democracy. We are not talking about representational governments vs. non-representational governments but democracy vs. a federal republic. The reason why representative governments are best(or least bad) is because the government is in some ways answerable to the people. Yet I do not consider a real democracy to be superior because as I fear the tyranny of the majority as much as I do tyranny of an elected body.

 

[Miles Teg]

Winston Churchill never experienced a democracy. We are not talking about representational governments vs. non-representational governments but democracy vs. a federal republic. The reason why representative governments are best(or least bad) is because the government is in some ways answerable to the people. Yet I do not consider a real democracy to be superior because as I fear the tyranny of the majority as much as I do tyranny of an elected body.

Of course, but frankly, bringing up the difference between democracy and a representative republic is a time waster when it's not directly relevant. We're all educated adults here, and we know that there's no such thing as an actual democracy. But it's a convenient term.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Of course, but frankly, bringing up the difference between democracy and a representative republic is a time waster when it's not directly relevant. We're all educated adults here, and we know that there's no such thing as an actual democracy. But it's a convenient term.

I agree, but people keep on bringing up that congress is undemocratic.

 

[Dachs]

I agree, but people keep on bringing up that congress is undemocratic.

If the demos invests the congresspeople with the privilege of representing its interests, how can it be undemocratic?

 

[Hsinchu]

No need to flaunt your irrelevant, worthless degree here.

Now, Bill. Play nice. I wasn't trying to flaunt, I was trying to give a background to what angle I'm coming in toward it at.

If I were a politician, I would be honest and say so. I'm laying the groundwork that if we look at it from a "most efficient" standpoint, smaller is better.

And if you flame outside a PM again it really shows your own thoughtlessness. If you really think my degree is worthless, tell me so. I paid alot of money, so it is, at the very least worth the lesson it taught me about wasting money on education.

If it is irrelevant, you can tell everyone why, and then I will do my best to explain why it is not irrelevant.