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Comment by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS | Hacker News Reader

Republicans block bills because they're stuffed full of unrelated things (by design - that way they can easily be painted as the bad guys - which is working, see your own comment). I'm not saying that the reverse doesn't happen - perhaps Democrats are okay with bloated bills, I dunno.

Good rule of thumb is when a bill is blocked by one party, go find out everything that's in it and what parts the blocking party objected to. I guarantee it won't be the stuff the bill is named after.

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What you’re describing is called compromise: you get what you want in exchange for something else.

In context, he's not describing a compromise, he's talking about a 'wrecking amendment'. Adding something absurd to a bill. The difference is that the person adding the amendment doesn't actually want or expect their amendment to be passed.

Wikipedia has a fun example:

> The Wyoming House of Representatives Committee of the Whole amended House Bill 0085, a proposal to study the state's emergency preparedness, in order to kill the bill. The amendment would have required the state to consider purchasing an aircraft carrier (even though Wyoming is a landlocked state), purchasing fighter jets, establishing a military, initiating a draft, and creating a currency.

No, he definitely is not. Painting every bill Republicans have blocked as having a wrecking amendment is beyond silly. He’s describing a refusal to compromise.

Nonsense. Republicans were given everything they asked for on the border as a stand alone offer and refused it. It has nothing to do with some sort of genuine political position over riders on bills, and a simple examination of literally anything republicans have sponsored in the last 30 years will demonstrate that starkly. The point is obstructionism instead of governance.

It's still quote humorous how Biden can create these messes and yet Republicans are still the bad guys here... This is how nothing changes.

Republicans have blocked any attempt at reforming immigration, going back to Bush Jr's proposed bill in 2005. They have blocked bills with the exact terms they demanded just the day before. They are factually the bad guys here.

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