Spending and Revenue in a Multi Party Presidential Republic

Hopefully before you read this, you will have read the previous post, explaining the structure of revenue and spending of the American federal system. It is important to keep that context in mind. 

Long before Britain was a parliamentary system, generally considered to be in place during the premiership of Robert Walpole and firmly established as independent of the will of the monarch by the time the Reform Act of 1832 was enacted, Britain did have relatively pluralistic inclusion of a parliament that could have strong power over the forces of the monarchy. For centuries, the power to spend and tax had to be approved by Parliament. The Parliament also happened to have the power to impeach and convict and ergo throw out royal ministers as well. 

All around the world, even when the executive is legally independent of the legislature, as presidential republics are, their powers of taxing and spending are often significantly constrained. 

As the Congress can create any law without the consideration of the president based on if there is at least 2/3 in both houses to override a veto, including the budget, if the president's party fails to win this many, then the president gets massively reduced in importance in the budget, if the other parties can organize effectively against the president, and the president is obligated to enforce laws they don't agree with and that didn't exist as something they knew they'd have to deal with when they came into office. 

This could make things quite more interesting with the budget. The president would be dependent on winning support bit by bit and faction by faction for their plans, but nobody can be quite sure whether the alliance will stand up, and same with those opposing the presidency. 

You might also see more active vetoes used by the president or their else their veto threats going nowhere, given that there are fewer procedureal hurdles to let a single party have a filibuster proof number in the Senate for anything that a budget reconciliation law doesn't cover as privileged, and getting things on the agenda in general though committee and plenum majorities as well. So the president would have to actively stand up and make the hard choice to veto or not, and this can be a dangerous thing to do unless they know the public will back the president and they still have the political capital for their other desires like getting important nominees or treaties ratified, which a veto may make that confirmation be in jeopardy, or the passage of other laws the president wants. 

The president in a proportional system would also be nominated by a primary. But each party is also not necessarily going to have the same ideological wings within it, they would be off in different parties. Ergo, you don't need to have a single party hosting both a Clinton tax and spending plan vs one proposed by Bernie Sanders. You don't need to see the much more evangelical and social conservative party in the same group as the ones who are dedicated to major spending cuts and tax cuts, or at least one of the two. If these are not in unholy alliances, their ideological roots may potentially be more public and it becomes much harder to be pro-abortion restrictions or prohibitions without also promoting a lot of the real and genuine work is required to socially care for the infants that must be born under such a plan, which is what the CDU in Germany has to be and so in Germany, the ones who are most associated with the tax cuts are the FDP. 

In a proportional system, it is basically certain that any presidency will have at least some members of their party or at least legislative supportive government as opposed to the opposition caucus, and vice versa, in every single district in the country and in every state. To do something like create plans to kill off a major project the federal government funds in a district for say San Francisco just to hurt Nancy Pelosi or to cut off funds for a program primarily for coalers in Wyoming would be a much more stupid move, with geography not mattering that much. Perhaps a lot of the specific spending meant for say defense contractors in a district, worried that they might not support you in a winner take all race for the primary or general election which you might fail to win without, could be reduced to their proportional and necessary amount. You could win with the remaining support, although you may have to get more transfer votes to do so. An IRS tax code provision that tends to be narrowly focused could also have similar effect. 

Another change to this plan are the state and local governments. They implement the vast majority of federal spending. A proportional system would radically change state governments too. An important difference though is that in most cases, most states use more direct democracy and must act within the laws set by referendum, such as many states needing approvals for raising taxes in certain ways, many limited by recalls, the district magnitude can be larger or at the very least, the population per representative is normally considerably smaller, and many states have rules requiring a balanced budget or something like it. That means that a fiscal conservative must not only propose a tax decrease, they must also cut the spending as well and take that hard risk. If you increase the taxes relative to spending you also usually get a rebate as well, so a leftist raising taxes without actually spending it on something in the near future can also not be a very useful political move without some kind of interesting or productive change on that front. 

A proportional system would also make it necessary for a party which has a number of seats to maintain their seat count, even if the same percentage of people are willing to vote for the party. They may support alternate members to be legislators. A new party is also easier to form, so the same ideological people may suddenly or gradually change their votes to another party without voting for their main opposition. It's not enough to block the opposition anymore, you must actively maintain your status or lose it. 

PR puts in more groups in more positions of power, but reduces the immovable obstacle that any one of them are.