a reply to:
BuzzyWigs
As someone living in a parliamentary monarchy and knowing something about the background, let me comment about the historical process involved.
The first point is that having a parliamentary monarchy involves
reducing the power of the monarchy, not increasing it. That was the lesson of
the Civil Wars.
Your Presidential system has been getting more monarchic, what with all the "First Lady", "First Daughter" business, but in order to become a
parliamentary monarchy you need to turn your Presidency into something which is all ceremony and no power. You can allow him to have absolute power,
on condition that he does absolutely nothing except "on the advice of his ministers". That's the way it's done.
How to get power away from him? The seventeenth century taught that financial control was the key; the king gets no money unless the legislature is
willing to vote for it. OK, you've got that sorted.
Theorists came up with the idea of improving on this by keeping government ministers out of Parliament. We flirted with that concept, but went for a
typical compromise.For a couple of centuries, any M.P. who got a post in the government had to resign his seat temporarily and fight a by-election,
just to check that his constituents still wanted him.
What really killed off the idea was discovering that there was a better way of achieving the same result. If you not only allowed government ministers
in Parliament but insisted on it, and if you insisted that no government could even take office without being able to win votes in Parliament, then
Parliament was controlling the government instead of the king doing it. That's parliamentary monarchy.
You went the whole hog with "separation of powers" and even put it in writing, which means you are now stuck with it. Otherwise you could have quietly
backed away from it, as we did.
And the result? You have one body controlling income and a completely different body controlling expenditure. In other words the "budget standoff" is
deliberately written into the constitution.
To have a parliamentary monarchy rather than an absolute monarchy, this is what you would need to do;
Nobody can be in the Cabinet without also being a member of Congress.
The Majority leader in Congress to be head of the Cabinet and effective head of the government.
Any government which cannot muster enough votes to get a budget through Congress would have to resign, and be replaced by one which can.
Then the President can be allowed to get on with state openings of Congress, the launching of battleships, inviting foreign heads of state to their
daughters' weddings, and addressing the nation with a televised Christmas message at 3.00 p.m. on Christmas Day.
That would be a parliamentary monarchy.