Give some examples of that.
Give actual examples this time.
magnet
2788
Do you remember anything about the Budget Control Act of 2011? Does “sequestration” ring a bell?
Sure. You’re saying Dems in the house should hold the country at gunpoint in order to extract unnamed concessions from the Senate and the White House, because that’s the sort of thing Reps do, but what you don’t seem to understand is that it works for the Reps because they are willing to shoot the hostages for trivial concessions and Dems aren’t. And you don’t get that it’s a good thing they aren’t willing to do that.
KevinC
2790
People were rightfully screaming bloody murder at the Republicans for holding the government hostage, but now that’s apparently what we should be doing? I don’t buy it.
Trump didn’t get his wall and he punched himself and the party in the balls while failing to get it. Shutting down airports and halting food inspections in order to avoid paying $1 billion for fencing is just not something I could support.
Besides, I’m not even opposed to fencing or even walls where it makes sense. What I don’t want is an ecological disaster strewn across thousands of miles of wilderness.
magnet
2791
As I recall, no hostages were shot. So it was a pretty dramatic example of pretending you wanted to shoot hostages in order to extract concessions. Which takes skill.
But if you want a less dramatic example, look at the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
Once again, the presidency and Senate were held by Democrats. Nevertheless Boehner and McConnell were able to extract some significant concessions to their agenda, specifically making permanent some important Bush tax cuts that were set to expire. No hostages were threatened.
robc04
2792
Every once in a while I read something on the internet and think…that sounds very reasonable. @Nesrie had some good stuff up there too.
Everything I read about this deal is that it’s more or less a clean funding bill. The fencing money in it is the exact same funding as the last budget. There is no increase.
Dems fought for a clean funding bill and won. What they wanted to gain was to kill any wall funding, and that’s what they did. It’s a victory.
magnet
2794
If you look at the new barriers and/or bed reduction and think, “I’m really glad we got that”, then Democrats were successful.
If you look at them and think, “Could’ve been worse!”, then Democrats failed.
KevinC
2795
I look at it as the Democrats successfully stopped a major (racist) boondoggle, protected the environment, kept the government and its services functioning despite threats from Trump to shut it down again, and forced the GOP-controlled senate to go against Trump.
To do so, it cost the Dems about $1 billion in fencing, some of which at least could probably be utilized effectively. They didn’t expend unnecessary political capital to do any of it, either, leaving themselves more options going forward.
To me, this is a win by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. No, it didn’t leave us with universal healthcare or Trump Tower in smoking ruins, but it was never going to.
magnet
2796
That would be great. But I can’t find a source for it already being in the budget, instead I’ve read that it is the same funding increase that was rejected in the last negotiations. It’s quite possible I’ve missed something though.
Trump has sort of poisoned the discussion by turning what could have been a reasonable debate about border security into a battle over his rampant fearmongering. Because of course for him it’s never been about actually executing the most rational immigration policy. It’s just about keeping people scared shitless 24/7. Against that backdrop it’s hard to have a good faith discussion along the lines of “let’s alter the immigration laws to be more humane, let’s enforce those laws while respecting basic human rights, let’s acknowledge the shadow-contribution of undocumented immigrants to our economy, let’s have a humane process to handle influxes of political refugees, etc.”
A complex issue on which Democrats and Republicans have in the past found rather a fair bit of common ground is turned to shit by Trump and his douche-bag rallygoers screaming “Build the wall! Build the wall!” Fuck 'em all for that, among many, many other things.
Timex
2798
Normally this would be bad, but since he explicitly said that it’s ok to disenfranchise and violate the rights of people you disagree with…
Timex
2799
I think it’s actually less?
RichVR
2800
Something like $100,000,000 less?
Ex-SWoo
2801
I think the last budget explicitly said none of the money can used for new fencing, only upkeep, while the new one reduces the budget but gives a bit more leeway to build new fencing + some more discretion in how it funds detention beds.
Timex
2802
I don’t think that’s actually true. I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that the last budget had 1.57B for Trump’s wall. Remember, at the time the GOP controlled everything.
Also recall that Trump almost got $25B, but he blew the deal.
gruntled
2803
If anyone is wondering what a left-wing Tea Party might look like…
If anyone is wondering what a left-wing Jeb Bush voter looks like.
ShivaX
2805
We need more of this winning apparently.
