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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe shutdown is intractable because Trump's wall is ridiculous and Republicans know it
Spending billions of dollars to build hundreds of miles of additional walling or steel slats or whatever you want to call it on the US-Mexico border is a bad idea. Thats a critical, underrated feature of the current standoff that has led President Trump to partially shut down the government.
After all, if the president of the United States wants a $5 billion appropriation for a pet project thats important to him personally and partially fulfills a campaign promise, then he ought to be able to get it. And the time-honored way to get it is to give congressional skeptics something else in exchange. Thats how the system has worked ever since Alexander Hamilton got James Madison to back federal assumption of state debts in exchange for locating the nations capital on the banks of the Potomac River.
But back at the beginning of the year, when it seemed as though a compromise involving wall money and a path to citizenship for DREAMers was in the works, it was immigration hardliners in Trumps own administration who scuttled the deal. Thats certainly their prerogative, but it underscores the core truth of this standoff: Immigration hardliners themselves dont think the wall is especially useful or important in the real world. If they really wanted a wall, they would go get a wall by offering something it wouldnt even necessarily have to be immigration-related in exchange for it. But since they know the wall is a bad idea, they wont trade it for anything.
Yet precisely because the wall idea is so bad, Democrats, rightly, arent going to give it away for free....
After all, if the president of the United States wants a $5 billion appropriation for a pet project thats important to him personally and partially fulfills a campaign promise, then he ought to be able to get it. And the time-honored way to get it is to give congressional skeptics something else in exchange. Thats how the system has worked ever since Alexander Hamilton got James Madison to back federal assumption of state debts in exchange for locating the nations capital on the banks of the Potomac River.
But back at the beginning of the year, when it seemed as though a compromise involving wall money and a path to citizenship for DREAMers was in the works, it was immigration hardliners in Trumps own administration who scuttled the deal. Thats certainly their prerogative, but it underscores the core truth of this standoff: Immigration hardliners themselves dont think the wall is especially useful or important in the real world. If they really wanted a wall, they would go get a wall by offering something it wouldnt even necessarily have to be immigration-related in exchange for it. But since they know the wall is a bad idea, they wont trade it for anything.
Yet precisely because the wall idea is so bad, Democrats, rightly, arent going to give it away for free....
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/28/18158873/wall-shutdown-trump-dreamers-deal
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The shutdown is intractable because Trump's wall is ridiculous and Republicans know it (Original Post)
mia
Dec 2018
OP
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)1. He should get his wall
after every breathing patriot is gone.
Not before.
dawg day
(7,947 posts)2. For DACA, sure. Give him 5 billion.
1 million good American kids will get to stay in their homes.
But he wants to be cruel as well as stupid.
MiniMe
(21,716 posts)3. Talk to Mexico, not the taxpayers