As a Canadian, it is a wonder to me, the time and resources spent in America in choosing a leader for just four years. It entails virtually 50% in the life of an American. And the result? For the next two years America will be led by a president who does not have the support of the majority of the people let alone a significant portion of his own party. This can not be good for the president, his party and the American people.
The US constitution is a beautiful living document that is a model for the rest of the world. But it is not perfect. Twice in my lifetime I have witnessed the paralysis of US government wrt to the popular desire to do away with a president and his policy.
Whether GW is right or wrong, he has only two options. Throw up his hands and resign along with Cheney, making Pelosi president, or pursuing an option that he believes is correct. The former option is just too humiliating for any individual to bear on his own behalf. The best of us are guided by perserverence and overcoming failure. GW may be subject to congressional oversight and the press, but his four year tenure is secure as long as he keeps away from high crimes and misdemeaners.
Sir Winston Churchill himself, after a series of defeats in WWII and after the fall of Singapore was subject to much criticism. This required a vote of confidence in the House which he won handily, and he was able to continue with much support. Cooler heads prevailed.
This is what I like about the British Parliamentary system. Leadership depends on the continued support of the legislature. A prime minister without the support of elected members of the legislature will have to resign and give up power to someone else with a different policy. It could be a new leader within the governing party or a snap election that only takes several months to complete.
The American system is just too rigid.
I suggest the following changes
extend the term limit to 5 years. Just to save money and it works in Canada.
allow for confidence motions in both the House of Representatives and Senate. Both houses need to express non confidence in the president and set an arbitrary figure of lets say 65% to succeed in ousting a president.
What you fail to appreciate is the system of checks-and-balances that we have in the U.S. We have three independent branches of government that have different functions and constantly check the power of other branches. The executive should not be forced to depend on the whims of the legislature for his tenure in office. Unless he commits a high crime or misdemeanor, he should continue in office. A “no confidence” vote would limit his independence and his ability to carry out his duties.
We, in general, like this type of government. We do not want our legislative body to be supreme. We want three independent branches.
The election process doesn’t take up 5% of my life, let alone 50%.
Are you trying to say that the recent mid-term elections, which changed control of Congress to the Democrats, somehow negates the Republican control of the Presidency? Well, that’s kind of the point. The President is specifically NOT in control of, or controlled by, the Congress.
This checks & balances system was carefully developed through a series of compromises by people who were simultaneously fearful of both an overly-powerful exective and an overly-mercurial legislature, not to mention equal distrust of mob rule by uneducated masses. They had fought a bitter war against what they perceived as an authoritarian central authority (British monarchy), only to see it nearly dissolve in a highly de-centralized free-for-all (the Articles of Confederation).
The British parliamentary system has checks and balances as well. Your system allows for a president to have 50% of his tenure without the support of the people, the legislature, and his own party. America does not support the president. Other world leaders know this as well. Everyone is not taking the president seriously, biding their time for the next two years until he is out. That is not good for all of us.
Leaving it open to being abused by an overly-powerful and overly-mercurial person. Not an improvement, IMHO.
The parliamentary system has many more checks and balances such that a renegade ‘do it my way or the highway’ leader cannot rule unchecked. Nothing short of impeachment will dislodge Bush and that has to be agreed on by his own minions. That’s a recipe for disaster. No man should ever be able to rule unchecked.
Several candidates have already come out to tell us they are in the running for November 2008.
No. Congress may have oversight, may alert the American people to problems, but they can not remove a renegade president. Good luck on the next two years. So are your checks and balances working?
Brackets mine. Still one of the funniest and scathing quotes from America: the Book.
I bring this up because it goes to show that the system is open to attack from any party. BTW, the quote does have four exclamation points. I didn’t go crazy there.
The US Constitution was written before the current Westminster system had evolved, so it’s not surprising that the American colonists did not choose that as a model. In fact, they were working in the dark, without a good democratic model to follow, except perhaps for really old ones like the Athenian and Roman republics. So they wanted a strong executive, but not one as strong as the British monarch was in theory, and sometimes in practice.
If the US were starting from scratch now, with models like the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and many Western European countries to follow, they might choose differently. However, a lot of people have a stake in the present system, and you have to achieve a very difficult supermajority to change the system.
This statement shows you have a superficial, at best, understanding of our political system.
Voters, in general, vote for people, not for the party. Look at Bill Clinton’s tenure – he was re-elected in 1996 but the GOP also retained a majority in the House and Senate. Or look at George HW Bush’s presidency – he was elected in 1988 and the Democrats retained their hold on Congress. Sometimes we in America vote, collectively, for divided government. That’s how we like it.
Just because Congress is controlled by one party does not mean that the President does not have the support of “the people” or his party. One can support the President and still support a member of the opposition party in Congress.
Our government functions fine (and, it could be argued, better) when one party controls the Presidency and one party controls the legislative branch.
This has much more to do with the fact that the President is limited to only two terms.
:dubious:
It takes maybe an hour, once every four years, for me, at least. That’s about .003% of my life, so I guess I’m dragging the average down a bit.
What makes this a potential problem is the long running (and probably unconstitutional) shift of power from the legislature to the executive. So when you have a “lame duck” President, you have a “lame duck” head of government, rather than a “lame duck” head of a single branch of government.
You put the executive back into its proper place in government, and these problems are much smaller. But instead we see the legislature complaining about power shifts to the judiciary when they willingly sign away their own power to the executive and the administrative state.
I have always been proud of the checks-and-balances moderation of the American system, but the last six years have really shocked me. With the way the Cheney axis has run roughshod over checks-and-balances, it seems to me that we are in the winds of a constitutional crisis. I just hope that it doesn’t have to get much worse before it gets better. The system is broken, folks, so all the admiration of the wisdom of the constitution and its creators is so much yesterday’s news.
So you are okay with the troop increase in Iraq even though it is not supported by the people, democrats and republican legislators ? Impeachment only works for “high crimes and misdemeanors”
If Bush was subject to the British parliamentary system, you can bet that he would have to step down.
When Bush is in a cabinet meeting. the only people present are those he has hired. His people are not subject to political influences. They are his 100%. A prime minister’s cabinet most often includes political people subject to their constituents as well as their appreciatioin for being selected to the cabinet. A prime minister needs endorsement from people beholden to the public. A US president does not.
If Bush decided to increase the troops in Iran by 100,00 how are you going to stop him? You can’t unless the congress won’t supply the money.Then you’ll certainly have a constititional crisis.
What would make you think that (about Iraq)? Actually, the SC has said that since impeachment is an inherently political process, impeachable offenses are whatever Congress says they are.
And there you are wrong. If it is truly not supported by Congress, they can use their appropriations power to deny funds for such a deployment. The fact that they will not do so points to the reality that this buildup isn’t truly opposed by Congress.
Again, you fail to have a complete picture of our system. The Senate must confirm all cabinet appointees.
Why will this be a “constitutional crisis”? It’s what happened at the tail end of Vietnam when Congress failed to appropriate money that Ford wanted to prop up the ailing S. Vietnames government. If Congress does not appropriate the money, it does not get spent. There is no crisis.
I would extend it to 6 years, but with no consecutive terms. That way we could re-elect a president we really, really like, so long as he skips an election. No other term limits.