Word: gridlocking
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...Clinton signed the "unfunded mandates" bill into law. The measure prevents Congress from imposing costly newrequirements on the stateswithout providing adequate funding. Addressing a bipartisan crowd of lawmakers and 125 state and local officials, the president said that the law "shows that Republicans and Democrats can come together andbreak gridlock." He added: "This bill is another acknowledgment that Washington doesn't necessarily have all the answers." The law -- which allows states and localities to ignore most federal regulations that cost them more than $50 million a year -- is the second part of the GOP "Contract With America...
These questions will be even harder to resolve because faith in government--already shaken by scandal, gridlock and failed presidencies--is at an all-time low. And harder still because civil discourse has become a quaint affectation for a public too willing to tolerate the same screeching hyperbole in its politics that it relishes on its airwaves...
...easily appear the leader in opposition than in power, fighting against things instead of for them. It is an odd, frustrating position for someone who arrived in Washington two years ago brimming with ideas, promising change and assuring the public that he and the Dem-ocratic Congress would break gridlock. This year his most notable acts as President will be to create gridlock, with vetoes of Republican legislation he considers extreme. Whether the fight is over Clinton's program to fund 100,000 more police or the survival of his national-service youth corps, the White House hopes the public...
...smashing success. Some of the information technologies that so pervade Washington life have not only failed to cure our ills but actually seem to have made them worse. Intensely felt public opinion leads to the impulsive passage of dubious laws; and meanwhile, the same force fosters the gridlock that keeps the nation from balancing its budget, among other things, as a host of groups clamor to protect their benefits. In both cases, the problem is that the emerging cyberdemocracy amounts to a kind of "hyperdemocracy": a nation that, contrary to all Beltway-related stereotypes, is thoroughly plugged in to Washington...
This constant canvassing of public sentiment, one of two basic kinds of hyperdemocracy, is a straightforward outgrowth of information technology. The second basic kind -- the one more specifically linked to gridlock and to the budget deficit -- is a bit more subtle and more pernicious. And like the first one, it ultimately gets back to Madison. In addition to his dread of mass "passions," Madison had a second nightmare about "pure democracy": it "can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction...