ABSTRACT
135In Chapter 4, we argued that many popular reforms would serve mainly to weaken Congress and transfer power to the president and bureaucracy. Like the medical practice of bloodletting used several hundred years ago, these reforms would attempt to rid impurities from Congress by opening wounds and letting the institution bleed. The patient cannot be cured by making it sicker. A central goal of reforms must be to maintain the separation of powers and system of checks and balances, while enhancing Congress's collective decisionmaking capacity.
