[guntars]

If the civil rights act requires over 1/2 votes to extend it and it doesn't gather that much support, maybe it should sunset. The budget votes are different because they require 2/3 of the votes which is what allows the minority party to block it from passing.

[mschuster91]

The problem with this is that there may be laws that are highly valuable for poor people (e.g. minimum wage, workplace safety, building/fire codes), but irrelevant for rich people/politicians and thus end up way way down on the priority list compared to, let's say, budget laws or the next big tax cuts package.

A mandatory sunset provision can only work if the legislators act with the interests of their country and constituents first and their individual pockets second, which isn't the case any more in many Western democracies. The US are just the most obvious example where Republicans blocked everything Obama tried to pass through.