I propose the following constitutional amendment; “* Every act, or resolution of Congress having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.*”
Good idea/bad idea? Many states have similiar provisions in their constitutions, as did the Confederacy (that’s were I got the idea).
Define “subject.”
“This bill deals with the Budget. Of course, virtually everything we do here in Congress has to be funded, so everything counts.” 
I thought the same, but how strict would such a rule be interpreted? Couldn’t congressmen be trusted to at least generally accept the meaning behind it, and not dig for loopholes? I mean, if we took every rule strictly litteraly, one could dig his way out of anything.
:dubious:
No, I really mean it. Because if someone tried, there would always be opposition screaming they’re stretching it. I don’t know much about these things, but that’s my guess.
Read over what Congress is capable of when everybody gets their “graft.” If it isn’t spelled out precisely, they will stretch it. Hell, they’ll stretch it even if it is spelled out exactly. All it takes is a majority by one party and a few crumbs tossed to the minority.
IOW, it wouldn’t change a thing.
I like the idea, but don’t expect it to ever happen. Doing so, and enforcing it strictly would eliminate the pork that funds bridges to nowhere and other nonsense. The enforcement vehicle would likely be via Court challenge to the Constitutionality of the newly enacted statute, so you’d have judges ruling on whether there was one or more subjects addressed in the bill…
Stuffing funding for unpopular items ,such as a bridge to nowhere in Alaska in a huge bill is theft on a huge scale.It should be stopped immediately.
It would also eliminate one of those distasteful campaign tricks: “Senator So-And-So voted against a bill which would ban puppy kicking!” (No mention of the fact that the second part of the bill would have banned something completely unrelated.)
Actually, state provisions of a similar nature often are of the following form: "No bill for an act may be passed pertaining to more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title, save for the General Budget Bill, which shall contain **only ** appropriations and the conditions for their disbursement", this covering silenus’s initial question. This has been tested in practice in many of the several states and territories; the effect is that the most you can cram into the Budget Bill is de-funding a program you want to do away with – officially abolishing it, or actually creating a different program to take its place, takes a separate bill. What keeps the respective legislatures with that provision honest? Supreme Courts, basically, ruling void those parts of a budget bill that are not germane to the actual budget.
What keeps construction of bridges-to-nowhere out of the General Appropriation bills in these states? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. BUT it prevents piggybacking medical malpractice rules onto an anti-terrorism bill, or, to take a more recent and concrete example, chaining together a minimum wage raise and an estate tax cut.
At the federal level, the Congress likes the faculty to create multipurpose legislation since it strenghtens its hand at give-and-take negotiation within the legislature and with the executive (“You get what you want and I get what I want in one single package, or not at all”). Also it sees the flexibility to legislate as it sees fit as more befitting its status as legislature at the sovereign-nation level.
Let’s not clutter up the Constitution. If Congress will not legislate properly I don’t believe that any one-size-fits-all fix will keep it in line.
No bill for an act may be passed pertaining to more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title
from the quote in the above post. I think that may be a good guideline. At least then the title of any bill should constrain the subject of the bill. It would make it easier for laymen to understand the bills contents. Perhapse with a provision that a group of bills may be proposed together as a package and voted for as a single item.
That way any political manouvering to allow bill1 to pass if unrelated added on bit also passes, becomes much more transparent to the public. It would also allow later reversal of the ‘added on bit’ independantly of bill1 since in the proposed system the ‘added on bit’ would be a separate bill packaged with bill1.
Which is exactly what happens at the state level. That makes the single subject rule controversial, but not unworkable.
Whatever the merits of such a rule, it wouldn’t do much to prevent abuses like the “bridge to nowhere” (AKA the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska). The funding for that was included in the 2005 Transportation Authorization Act, which is the federal legislation used to fund road projects. A poor use of taxpayer dollars, perhaps, but one well within the scope of the legislation.
I think there’s a simpler answer. If congressmen are not paid if they go over budget, they would not throw in random pork to bloat the budget.
But they can’t go over budget, they set the budget. Or by “over budget” do you mean deficit spending? Deficit spending by government is not always a bad thing, most economists will tell you.
As with all similar quick fixes, this falls apart on the simple fact that “one subject” is not objectively definable. Most states that have similar provisions end up deciding the issue upon predictable political bases, allowing some obviously multiple subject bills to survive, and killing off others of less debateable nature.
If you want to give the SCotUS another issue to bandy back and forth while discussing the constitutionality of a given law, go ahead. Otherwise, let politics take its course. 
Bills and acts with thousand-word titles suddenly become popular.
Tell me about it – no, seriously, as y’all may or may not know one of my many hats over the years has been policy analyst at the PR Legislature. Once in a while we got a bill where the author, in a mighty effort to be thorough, created a title that essentially consisted of a monstrous set of grammatically implausible nested multi-compound sentences essentially abstracting the whole megillah article by article, and at the end tacked on “and for related purposes.”
When it came to budgeting, you could always fall back on the far subtler: "A Joint Resolution; to Appropriate 333,000 dollars from the Capital Improvements Fund to be distributed in the manner and for the purposes described in Section 1 to carry out improvements to the road and drainage infrastructure in District Number 4" in which case it's only limited to being roads and drainage but you still have to look up what the ^%# it says in Section 1 for the details.
Like I said and others have commented, the “single subject” rule is NOT designed to prevent “bridges to nowhere” – it’s designed to prevent forcing together the “Anti-Penguin-Love Act of 2006” with repeal of the “Anti-Nun-Beating Act of 2002”. 
How many Congresspersons actually depend on their salary? Aren’t most of them already wealthy?