by Zack Beauchamp
Fareed Zakaria thinks it's time to replace Congress:
The political battle surrounding the debt ceiling is actually impossible in a parliamentary system because the executive controls the legislature. There could not be a public spectacle of the two branches of government squabbling and holding the country hostage. If we’re in for another five years of this squabbling in the U.S., we are going to make presidential systems look pretty bad indeed.
Pete Wehner counters, but mostly with some rote anti-Obama rhetoric. Scott Galupo defends Zakaria:
Wehner asserts that the “debt ceiling debate had a resolution. The two parties did arrive at an agreement, and default was avoided. The process may not have been pretty, but it worked.” Yes and no: A default was avoided. But a credit downgrade wasn’t—and that was Zakaria’s point. Moreover, credit rating company Standard & Poor’s statement on the downgrade fingered the very political dysfunction that Zakaria decries
Wehner's colleague Emanuele Ottolenghi looks at the dysfunction in some European parliamentary systems.
(Photo: Irish Houses Of Parliament by flickr user Joachim S. Müller.)
The Dish 