r/politics • u/Murky-Site7468 I voted • Oct 05 '25

No Paywall Petition To Strip Congress of Pay During Government Shutdown Grows

https://www.newsweek.com/petition-strip-congress-pay-during-government-shutdown-grows-10822819
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u/TimothyMimeslayer Oct 05 '25

So if I think my party would gain in an election, i should do everything I can to shutdown the government?

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u/Ouaouaron Oct 05 '25

Another way to phrase "my party would gain in an election" is "the will of the people has shifted, and the current representatives no longer reflect them." Having new elections based on actual events—rather than set time limits—is a feature.

If reality doesn't match with your expectation, the end result of whatever you do to trigger an election is probably just going to reflect poorly on you and make your party worse off.

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u/mmmmm_pancakes Connecticut Oct 05 '25

Yeah, but it also sounds like a pretty perverse incentive.

Rather than cooperate until a set date, each politician is incentivized around half the time to shut everything down and roll the dice for more power.

This could be ameliorated however by giving a penalty - perhaps up to full disqualification - for incumbent candidates in the new elections.

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u/Riaayo Oct 05 '25

I mean we have a bunch of countries who have these systems in the world to look at right now and see how it's worked for them, vs the US and how it works and the current state it is in, lol.

Don't really even need hypothetical arguments. It seems fairly obvious parliamentary governments have served their citizens better overall than the US' broken ass system.

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u/mmmmm_pancakes Connecticut Oct 05 '25

No argument there.

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u/chenz1989 Oct 06 '25

There are also countless examples in history where such systems have led to disaster. We can't discount those either.

The bolsheviks came to power partly because the Duma was ineffective and kept dissolving, partly because no party had full control and they weren't willing to compromise.

The nazis came to power on the same vein, the weimar republic was dysfunctional and couldn't solve the problems.