Picking 2008 arbitrarily. That was 14 years ago and by my count I can only think of 4 pieces of legislation that were materially significant:
- Banker bail-outs
- The Affordable Care Act
- Trump's tax cuts
- The COVID relief bill/bills
That's it, 4 significant pieces of legislation in 14 years unless I'm forgetting some. Think about how much the world has changed and how much our problems have both multiplied and gotten deeper. And importantly, note the theme here. These are the only significant acts done by congress in 14 years and all 4 of them are of similar nature: they are designed to increase the flow of wealth to the capitalists. All 4 done under the pretense of actually being good for Americans but instead are attacks against the working class by the capitalists in power.
Are there any other legislative acts I'm missing?
The US is fucked as long as we remain under the dictatorship of the bourgeois. We are completely unable to address challenges in the future unless it involves bombing shit. The only legislation we can pass are things that transfer wealth from the workers to the capitalists, that's all that's allowed.
Uh sorry sweaty you’re forgetting Biden’s world-historic infrastructure bill which will put HUNDREDS of dollars back into the pockets of private contractors who will do nothing
it certainly seems like the US federal government is incapable of doing much beyond waging war and harassing migrants
Wow, it can write banks and corporations unlimited checks pretty well.
Monkey paw curls and you get dual power split between the feckless liberals in Washington, insane fascists in state legislatures and the oligarch nonces on Wall Street.
I don't think the US will end in a big swift collapse or in a great civil war. I think the US will go the way of the Holy Roman Empire, where the central authority grows more and more sclerotic as new centres of power emerge somewhere else. There is going to be a president in Washington for centuries to come, he will be paid respect and have soldiers salute him but ultimately political decisions are going to be made somewhere else.
I agree with this. I don't think there will ever be one defining "collapse" moment that will radically change life for North Americans. It's just gonna gradually erode for decades
Every time you pass something you run the risk of not meticulously following the procedures we made up, and that's going to piss the parliamentarian the fuck off. Is that what you want? You want to piss off the parliamentarian? It's just not worth the risk.
I think that's not technically "legislation" because it was a Supreme Court Decision
