Is there any way to tell how many bills are introduced whose real purpose is to gain advantage for a particular business interest, e.g. erecting barriers to entry for potential competitors, etc.? I suppose it’s a matter of opinion that a particular section of the law is trying to game the system, so if this is better suited for GD, so be it.
Thanks,
Rob
Any bill that is written is strictly for money. Whether it be congress or a corporation, you can bet someone will make money. The government is no longer comprised of honest people
Since this is basically political, let’s move it to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Sure: Find out who objected to the bill, and why. Potential competitors in your scenario would be sure to say something.
Of course, that means looking at each bill one at a time. If you want to know “how many,” that would be a think-tank or academic research project or something. Don’t know if it’s ever been done.
All of it. 100%. That’s what politics is.
If you find a law that you think isn’t, that just means the business interests who had the legislator’s ear did a great job with PR. Either that, or it happened so long ago that we forgot the real reasons and papered them over with idealist propaganda.
And to dispute Anotheruser, this is not new. The government has never been comprised of honest people. Emancipating the slaves was good for someone’s bottom line (and the Union’s war aims), and it simply wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
My problem is not so much with the bills themselves, as with the riders attached to them. For example, suppose there’s a bill to demand some sort of change in the way cars are made. For the sake of the example, let’s say that the windows now need to meet a particular safety standard. Now, buried somewhere in that bill is a totally unrelated action giving a certain number of dollars to a particular organization or foreign country.
I can look at lists of who voted for and against the bill, but unless I spend the time reading the statements of each and every senator/congressperson, how will I know if their vote was because of the main part of the bill, or because of the rider? Senator Smith approved it because he is very pro-safety, but people who are against that organization will vilify him because of the funding. And even if I asked why he voted that way, I have no reason to believe him, as he’d probably tell me what he thinks I want to hear.
To me, THAT’S “gaming the system”.
Well, not every bill even has differential effects on business interests. The gay marriage issue affects no particular industry but wedding planners.
Not exactly. One can imagine many scenarios in which the people who are harmed by a piece of legislation would not be likely to bring objections up on the floor of Congress.
First, some legislation benefits American businesses at the expense of foreign companies. Consider sugar tariffs, for instance. Tariffs on foreign sugar are excellent for sugar makers in America but bad for sugar makers in other countries. Only the American sugar makers can make campaign donations to Senators, Representatives, and the President, so they have far more influence than foreign sugar makers.
Second, some legislation benefits big companies at the expense of small ones. Take the example of stringent regulations on dairy producers. They’ve made dairy production so expensive that it’s barely possible to run a small dairy operation. Most small dairies are out of business, with obviously benefits to large dairy corporations. Obviously it’s much easier for large companies to wield influence in Congress and the White House than for small ones to do so.
Third, in some cases it’s just not worth the trouble for the losers to protest. Take the two cases already mentioned. Sugar tariffs and dairy regulations make sugar and milk more expensive for all of us poor customers. Why don’t we protest? Because the total effect on our bottom line is small; it’s just not worth our while to spend thousands of our own dollars trying to bribe Congress into changing the law so as to make our sugar and milk cheaper. On the other hand, for the big companies that benefit from the laws, it is worth their while to bribe Congress. That’s why we have so much legislation with a net negative effect on the country; each individual piece of legislation brings huge benefits to a few large corporations, while distributing the losses.
I don’t share your deep-dyed cynicism. I say 99%.
Some legislation is passed because people believe it’s morally right. The banning of slavery is one example. These days, though, such legislation makes up only a tiny fraction of the total. Hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation becomes law each year, and most of us haven’t got the slightest clue about most of it.
And most traditional religious institutions. And Televangelists. And “gay conversion therapists” or whatever those whackdoodles who charge to turn your kid straight are called.
Not to mention GLBT rights organizations, and all the businesses owned by gay people who want to become more mainstream.
Then there is the straight white male contingent that has traditionally ruled the Western world. Many of them see gay rights as a threat to their “culture” and “traditions”, not to mention their continued dominance.
I’m sure there are a whole load of other groups with an economic interest in this issue.
The same goes for abortion, guns, drugs, school prayer and whatever other issues you may think are solely about ideology.
If politicians are worrying about it, it means they’re getting paid to worry about it. And most non-economic “think of the children” bills are introduced to distract voters from difficult economic issues with no clear path for the legislator to keep their constituents happy. Those bills then get taken up by some lobby somewhere, perpetuating the cycle.
Your example of DOMA or whatever is hardly an example of gaming the system. That those organizations have an interest in the outcome of the vote doesn’t mean they are somehow gaining some competitive advantage. LGBT activists and televangelists are not in competition with each other in the business sense. ITR Champion’s examples are closer to the mark.
Thanks,
Rob
If you think homosexuals don’t have an economic interest in their orientation becoming more legitimate in the eyes of mainstream culture I don’t know what to tell you. If you think religious institutions like the Catholic church don’t have an economic and financial interest in maintaining a say in how the world works, likewise.
Also, both of those interests are served by lobbies which dump a lot of money into making sure legislators consider their views. It may not be pork, necessarily, but every single political movement that resulted in legislation has had financially interested parties on both sides. Every single law has had winners and losers, and, like the stock market or casino, bettors as well.
This is why I say that’s what politics is. Various interested parties all trying to game the system their way. We like to think it approaches something ideal, but it’s all just a power struggle.
Some bills such as those on gay marriage vs. traditional marriage serve to strengthen the electoral strength of the party. A stronger party means it is more able to shape economic policy. I would say bills can serve two purposes. Either the bill is doing favors for paying business interests, or the bill is strengthening the power of the party. Or both simultaneously.
That is an amazing and saddening statistic. I wish you guys would listen to me. 
I think the corrupting influence of money is the biggest factor that has turned U.S. “democracy” into a sham. Given their life tenure, one might place part of the blame on Scalia and the other Stooges.
Which is why Roberts Rules of Order, and most sensible parliments, have a rule that a motion/bill shall only be for “one purpose”.
How did the USA get to be down this path where omnibus bills are standard?
There’s actually no such thing as a “rider” in the American legislative system.
Because the Constitution says nothing about how legislation should be structured. Each and every member of Congress can write or amend a bill however he or she wants to, so long as there are enough votes.
Each house of Congress does have the power to make its own rules. Neither has chosen to make a rule restricting legislation to having only “one purpose.”
Single-purpose billls work in parliamentary systems, because parties vote as a block and the majority can always pass a bill that it wants. In the US Congress, members campaign and are elected individually, so local interests can override party loyalty. Multi-purpose bills are a way of making legislation palatable to enough competing interests to win a majority. “I don’t like Z, but I’ll vote for the bill because it has X and Y.” “Well, I don’t like X, but I’ll vote for the bill because it has Y and Z.”
BTW a large number of the US’s states have in their own constitutions a requirement for single-purpose bills in their state legislatures, or at the very least that amendments and sections be germane to the Bill’s stated purpose.