Shutdown Will Be Worse for Economy Than First Thought, White House Says
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Here is an interesting book about it, https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-De...
So your nugget of wisdom is actually bad advice in real world, wrong analogy when arguing about separation of powers and checks and balances.
Of course, the real problem I see is that the whole budget needs to be renewed by Congress and the Executive, rather than just approving changes in the budget. Makes more sense to me that we vote on the delta. But I guess a lot about US politics doesn't make sense.
This is purely a political play by Republicans and there is absolutely no other way to view it. They're hurting federal employees for the sake of funding a fraction of the wall, and their intent was to try and blame democrats. Again.
The US doesn't have the kind of political system where the Senate minorty leader can prevent members from voting for or against things.
The majority leader, sure, by just not bringing them to a vote, so no one will vote either way. The minority leader, well, he can ask members not to, just like anyone else inside or outside the Senate.
Thank you.
If 41 Senators continue to debate, the vote will never hit the floor. The technique in modern times is to have 41 Senators endlessly debate ideas they don't like. This is called a Filibuster.
Trump wasn't able to negotiate for the funding in the two years that his party has control, and now he's taken the government hostage for it.
The electorate chose the other candidate by a count of over 3 million.
The Electoral College and the electorate are two very different things.
She is doing her job as a representative by opposing the popularly opposed demands of the president.
I'm struggling to find other, more neutral depictions of the situation, though.
Opposition to the wall is commendable, but I think we're* playing a hand that is substantially disadvantageous. Republicans generally think less government is better, so they're a lot better equipped to endure a shutdown than Democrats.
\* assuming you're also a Democrat.
Didn't the shut down happen before the democrats had any power? I'm very confused. (Not in a sarcastic, caustic way. I'm actually genuinely confused why it is the democrats fault if the shut down occured before they had any power to stop anything.)
(EDIT: I guess my policies align with more democrat??? views but I'm very much a voter on policies not party.)
Yes, the Democrats could in theory stop this by allocating money for the wall, but much like giving your lunch money to the bully while he's beating you, it's not really a good idea.
Just because the dems offered something doesn't mean it was a good counter offer.
There are other walls you can look up. I think the easiest proof that walls work is to ask - if they didn't why do people and countries continue to build them?
I know the end of the wall wasn't a very secure area, but that's because obviously there's a lack of wall.
Seems to me the most obvious evidence is the Yuan Dynasty.
But, seriously, if you want to curb the problem, hit the people who hire them harder. Make it hurt. We can start with Nunes's family farm and Trump's properties. But, be prepared for the backlash when prices start increasing on everything...
From where I sit, this is a matter of the Democrats preferring to put the brakes on everything rather than give on this one, individual issue. Further, I don't think that the majority of Democrat legislators are opposed to "the wall" at base - they're opposed to Trump and his policies in general.
It's a game of chicken, as others have said. Whichever side gives in cannot expect to get their way on anything for the next two years at the very least.
There's no way $5b will be the end of it. We're talking about a wall along a 2000 mile long imaginary line. A wall dividing a literal continent.
Otherwise known as a dictatorship.
What I think needs to happen is that the hostage takers have to be brought to justice or made to pay for utilizing such tactics. I think the hardest part is that the people have to remember this transgression at a personal level.
We know who to blame. If both sides walked away from the CR, then maybe you'd have a point. But only ONE side (of the three sides: House, Senate, and President) have walked away from the CR.
Shutdown also started when the House was controlled by Republicans. The shutdown was 10-days old before Pelosi took the gavel and Democrats entered the house. Former speaker Ryan didn't feel like fixing the issue on his way out, so he left it to the Democrats. McConnell, while he's gone into hiding recently, managed to pass a bill in late December which could have prevented the shutdown (so McConnell barely gets a passing grade. A C-, he did something to stop the shutdown at least. But McConnell should show some leadership and rally the Senate to stop the shutdown today, just as he did back in December)
I place the blame mostly on the President (for destroying the CR agreement McConnell passed), and somewhat on Mr. Ryan for walking away from the problem on the last 10 days of his Speakership.
The Senate could take it up for a vote again, and pass the bill they already passed, but they won't, purely for political games.
The 115th Senate, the 116th Senate, the 115th House, the 116th House, and finally the President (who didn't change).
The 115th Senate passed a CR. The 115th House failed to pass the CR. The 116th House passed a CR, that the 116th Senate is failing to pass.
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In any case, the 115th Senate passed a CR with OVERWHELMING support: 71-Aye, 21 Nay, 8 not voting. That's both filibuster-proof AND veto-proof (if the bill were to come back). A huge portion of the country wants the CR to happen (ie: Keep government open while the debate happens).
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Its hard to blame the 115th House (they didn't want to embarrass the President), or the 116th Senate (McConnell also doesn't want to embarrass the President). But it is clear that Trump's actions on the last week of December rallied the Republicans to support the wall more vigorously.
But those 71 Senators who voted "Aye" for the late 2018 December CR : where are they now? They heard the President, and have decided to change their minds on the issue.
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Ask yourself: why is the Dec 2018 CR dead? Who killed it? How can a bill with 71 Aye votes in the Senate eventually die?
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2018/12/19/sen...
The senate passed a CR on December 19th / 20th, which would have prevented the shutdown (at least until Feb 8). Period. The House failed to pass this CR.
The measure passed with 71 Ayes. That's filibuster proof (and Veto-proof to boot), with numerous Democrats and Republicans agreeing together. Your history is straight up wrong.
The Senate bill I talked about before (with 71-votes for aye) was CLEAN, it was apolitical. It was simply keeping funding at the same levels as last year while the debate continued.
The house has passed a CR, last years senate has passed a CR. Mitch McConnell refuses to allow a vote on a CR until the president says he won't veto it.
To me this issue seems like a pretty straightforward case of one branch holding the country hostage.
The reason that it's such a harmful thing right now is because the federal government employs far more people than it was designed to employ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n-Y4TIgktg&feature=youtu.be...
And in terms of money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 spent $831 billion since it was passed. The border patrol is asking for a pittance of that amount.
[1] https://bpunion.org/featured/why-congress-should-fund-trumps...
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59v7k3/border-pat...
Walls are typically effective, hence their ubiquity. I have yet to see a counter proposal that would guarantee the long term security in implementation (read: something the next president can't just come in and yank out) that a wall provides.
I'm not a fan of the wall, but it seems to me to be more effective than what most people give it credit.
It was in a meetup around 2015, a French man who overstayed his visa to launch his company in Florida (something about autofilling paperwork for tutition and taxes). He got arrested 6 month before the launch date, still launched the product in time, then paid a lawyer to get away since his first visa was tied to an abusive company.
Why not giving those 5 Billion to accelerate those judgments, see what happens? I might be more effective.
And if you think a wall is effective, you should see how gibraltar handle border security, and ask them why they don't just build a wall. It may be less true now than when i visited northern morocco in my teens, but i have the feeling than people in charge of border security there might be puzzled by the idea.
What is this? The middle ages?
Drug Dealers are buying drones for $1000 to smuggle cocaine into our country by air. 1-kilo of Cocaine makes $20,000 once it crosses the boarder, they can certainly afford $1000 drones.
A concrete wall does literally nothing in the modern era. Spend it on radar, more men, and judges (judges to process all of those asylum seekers).
Ah yes. And the Republican President of the time was well known for saying, "Mr. Gorbachev... BUILD UP THIS WALL!!"
You haven't picked exactly the best examples. In the USA, over 60% of our illegal immigrants are due to overstayed visas. The Wall does nothing for them. Another point: the #1 illegal immigrant in the USA is Canadians: a Mexian wall is on the wrong part of the country if you're most concerned about undocumented people.
The thing we need, and something I'd support, is proper enforcement of our laws. Like employers who hire undocumented workers should be better punished.
I don't think this is true. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting you? The quick searches I just did suggest that about half the illegal immigrants living in America are from Mexico. Here's an example: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2018/11/27/u-s-unauthorized-immig... It says that there are about 11 million "unauthorized" immigrants living in the US: 5.5 million from Mexico, 2.5 million from Central and South America, and only 500,000 (combined but not distinguished) from Europe and Canada.
the #1 illegal immigrant in the USA is Canadians
11 million illegal/undocumented in the USA, what does enforcement even mean at this point?
If you punish the employers then the immigrants have to rely on the welfare system.
What? An undocumented immigrant by definition is missing their passport (or other papers). How exactly are they going to collect food-stamps, medicaid, or social security without documentation?
You CAN'T collect food stamps ("SNAP" program) without a social security number. IIRC, green-card holders can apply, but you have to have all your documents in order.
Its about the employers yo. They're a big piece of the puzzle. Undocumented people are generally allergic to going into government offices (they're worried about getting deported). In any case, the welfare system is generally closed to them.
At best: some undocumented migrants rely upon their children (who may have been born in the USA, and are therefore citizens) to get food stamps. But I wouldn't necessarily call the welfare system (SNAP, Social Security, or Medicaid) open to undocumented people.
As I said earlier: if you are serious about the problem, then you need to go after the employers.
Also, it is true, contrary to a common myth, you cannot get food stamps if you are an undocumented immigrant. See this article for more on this - https://foodstampsnow.com/can-permanent-residents-and-non-ci....
It's very hard to use fraudulent SSN to get food stamps because all the welfare programs share information check their data against other state and government database. It's not worth the risk and most undocumented immigrants know this. It's one sure way to have ICE at your door.
You can see this not a wall (because you can't see through walls obviously), and that this is not effective without border security agent. Do you know that even with a see-through fence and cncrete floor, people were still able to dig themselves in? They though about creating an artificial underground river alongside a the time (it is probably replaced by the ditch now).
They hired a team of engineer in the late 90s (or early 20s at least) to create a secure door system that won't force people from morocco who work there to wait unknown amount of time. If maquiladoras are still a thing, you might have to do the same.
I don't think a wall is a good idea, but maybe US should try it. Please be accurate though, if you want to have an efficient border "wall", it should never be a wall, but a fence, and you should actually have border agent monitoring the fence at all time.
Also thank you for the video, i'll binge watch this tonight.
And even if, serious conservatives point at far better uses for the money, such as shoring up the system of immigration judges.
https://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration/examples-se...
At this point, it's not really about just how bad or good an idea it is. (And, of course, I agree with you that it's a monumentally bad idea.) It's about perception: how much suffering you can stand (and stand to watch), and how much you're willing to risk being perceived as causing that suffering by failing to knuckle under.
Also take into account the fact that this unpersuadable veto-holder seems to genuinely enjoy watching that suffering, and that his supporters appear to agree with him on that.
In terms of the facts, the choices seem fairly obvious. But our choices are often made primarily not on the facts at hand, but the fact that people disagree despite that.
This time around it's more of a siege tactic where the idea is to hunker down until one side feels enough pain that they will yield. It's really a case of which side's base can tolerate the pain longer without either flipping sides or losing faith in the leadership.
Plus it's Trump's power tactic at letting the Dems know he's the boss even now that they have the House. He has zero problem playing the bad guy to get what he wants and come out on top.
And like you say - it's really not a big ask. It's around .1% of the US spending last year.
Edit: Sigh. Downvoted for stating pretty obvious truths. 5 billion to the US govt is very little. Trump isn't a lifetime politician, he's just in it for a term or two. If anyone has a valid criticism of those two statements please write it down.
This is not true.
Trump could capitulate on the wall and he wouldn't lose a single voter in his "MAGA" base. He's basically a personality cult.
Sure the conservative talking heads will rant and rave for a while, but by 2020 it will all be forgotten. All of his supporters will find internal justifications to support him again even if it's a simple as "never supporting a 'libtard'". (They would rally around Gorsuch/Kavanaugh, low taxes, et al...) Trump will blame democrats (ofc) and his base will see it that way. "He didn't surrender it's the 'DEEP STATE' that got him!"
Pelosi/Schumer base is not so cultish - They won't forgive nor forget. They have everything to lose.
I disagree.
Trump is already on dangerous ground with his directing the recent bump stock ruling. Publicly failing on something as big as this in the public eye would be catastrophic to his campaign.
The reason is simple: walls aren't effective everywhere. The walls and fences that are up now? They weren't just randomly placed. They were put where they were to do the most good. Some have been more effective than others, but all together, the problem is no longer along the souther border.
As for the plan for the wall being immoral: it's not right to waste money on things that 1) don't have a real plan, and 2) we have solid evidence suggesting it won't be effective doing what we want it to do.
If you want to stop people from entering the US illegally and living here, you would do well to cut off their supply of jobs. This means going after organizations like the ones Trump runs that hire these people.
Not only will that be less expensive, it will be more effective, and have more of an immediate impact.
However, if illegal aliens do not have jobs, then they will need to be on welfare, which would definitely mean more than there are already currently.
If the existing unsecured border was truly secure, then there would not be 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States, so obviously something has to change since the status quo is unsustainable.
Illegal immigration from Canada is not a major problem, especially since it's so hard to get into Canada, both from an asylum/immigration standpoint, but also geographically (surrounded by water).
This headline is misleading. It suggests that Trump administration officials are publicly reporting this, when the question of who is saying this cannot be confirmed.
Then of course there's the more disturbing thought that if I were a Russian asset looking to sow chaos and economic instability in the country, a shutdown (and a trade war, and alienating our allies abroad) would do a pretty good job...
Can you please elaborate? From my limited knowledge, furloughed workers haven't got a paycheck (yet) for a one month. Is this kind of damage they will be recovering from for years?
Etc. etc. Government projects are stopped during shutdowns. It literally takes years to recover from a shutdown (another year or two before Flu Vaccination experiments were back up and running at full potential)
It's just work, and their lives are more or less unaffected (with the exception of a single - so far - paycheck being delayed).
Acting like this is not causing real damage is highly disingenuous.
Missing that paycheck means potentially missing rent (which could get you evicted), having to decide between keeping the lights on or buying food. The more paychecks people miss the worse this is going to get for some people.
> The administration had initially counted just the impact from the 800,000 federal workers not receiving their paychecks. But they now believe the impact doubles, due to greater losses from private contractors also out of work and other government spending and functions that won't occur.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/source-white-house-believes-...
(8 pages, I haven't read it all yet, but does seem to have some insights).
Most of the effects aren't immediate. The government does a lot of long term work, things that wouldn't otherwise be profitable. For example, with the shutdown, they've stopped inspecting our food supply. This will affect no one immediately. But in a few weeks, when we have our first e.coli outbreak, assuming we even hear about it (because that's something the CDC, another government org, tracks) then you can talk to those people about how it affected them, assuming they haven't died.
The government is currently missing their training and drills for hurricane preparedness. So in June-October, when a hurricane devastates some part of the US and everyone is screaming, "why aren't they helping people!?", the answer will be, "because they didn't get their training in January".
And right now NOAA isn't doing their climate research. So in 10 years, when there is a hole in the data that we need to fill out climate models, they won't be there. And no one will even remember why.
But no one thinks long term like that.
I'm no longer in research, but of my companions who are, this is definitely being felt.
This is also the first shutdown where military servicemen have not been paid.
Her blood sugar rose to a high level last week, but she said she felt forced to ignore it. Instead, she went to bed.
“When it gets that high you can go into diabetic ketoacidosis, you can go into a coma,” she said. “I can’t afford to go to the ER. I can’t afford anything. I just went to bed and hoped I’d wake up.”