Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without riders and earmarks there's no way to get someone to support your bill if they don't like the concept to start with. There's no downside for not supporting a bill, so cutting half of its provisions will still half to vote against. Riders and earmarks allow politicians to secure minor wins that they can sell to their electorate as the reason for supporting a bill. And most of these things would simply never pa…
> Without riders and earmarks there's no way to get someone to support your bill if they don't like the concept to start with. Why is this a problem? I see it as easier to call out politicians in public. Prevent the problems that are essentially: "Despite the 'Puppy and Sunshine' bill actually providing everyone with puppies and sunshine, we can't support it because it also summons the literal anti-christ to destroy…
Was this edgy strawman really useful?
> IMO doing so makes the bill far more transparent _to the public_.
How? The public that are engaged are still almost entirely getting their knowledge through the media, and they won't cover small bills due to lack of journalists, and more importantly, because readers aren't interested in them. I'm not sure who this mythical cohort who want to understand more about e.g. legislation that involves federal spending in Ohio, but can only do so by looking at every single small bill until they find "The Providing Ohio Reinvestment Kickback Bill" on page 23.
> I do not understand why such a thing could not happen without these nor with packages (as defined above).
Because there is only so much time available to get bills passed if nothing else, a bill focussing solely on niche and/or local issues are going to get bumped down the queue at every stage - in committee, getting scored for budgetary implications, getting floor time etc. - and there are two houses to make it worse.
> Do you not see that as a problem?
Well that depends on what it actually was of course.
The US system of government is at every level designed to prevent getting anything done, and so lots of things get lumped onto big bills that are likely to pass. I mean there's even a literal "omnibus bill" FFS. But the alternative is that "$1,000,000 for additional spaces at homeless shelters for transgender youth" isn't ever going to get to the floor, let alone pass in the House and get 60 votes in the Senate.