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The bill was co-sponsored and put together by Republican and Democrat senators which is why they call it bipartisan. I agree that I would prefer the bill didn't

The bill was co-sponsored and put together by Republican and Democrat senators which is why they call it bipartisan. I agree that I would prefer the bill didn't have any riders and was just a border bill but none of the Republican complaints have to do with the aid to Ukraine so I don't think it is relevant here.

roenxi 2y ago
> ... but none of the Republican complaints have to do with the aid to Ukraine ... I'm repeating myself here I suppose, but do you have any references for what the Republicans are saying in their own words? Because the links were doing line-out-of-context quotes and I don't have confidence those are representative. I don't think there is strong evidence here that the Republicans were shooting things down border legislation to avoid giving Biden brownie points. The situation appears to be the the Democrats were trying to send ~$80 billion split among Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan and their negotiations to get that through Congress failed. In that process it doesn't look like the Dems were even trying to deal with the border except as a compromise. Occam's razor suggests that the bill wasn't going to get the outcome on the ground that the Republicans wanted. Otherwise the story is they negotiated to add something unrelated in only to vote it away, which seems a bit counterproductive even as political theatre (ie, why? it only gives the Dems something to talk about). They don't gain anything by voting down something that they nominally wanted and asked to be included in a totally unrelated bill. If anything the process would suggest they were being disingenuous on being willing to fund Ukraine rather than anything border related.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  You say the quotes are out of context so what exactly do you want to see? > Otherwise the story is they negotiated to add something unrelated in only to vote it away, which seems a bit counterproductive even as political theatre (ie, why? it only gives the Dems something to talk about) This is what happened though.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Ideally I was hoping to see the congressional records of what they said in debate before they voted the bill down (I looked myself but didn't find it), but any longform text version of Republicans speaking. Even video. Although frankly it probably isn't worth much more effort, this is clearly not a "border bill". It is an appropriations bill for sending money to various military theatres a long way from US borders [0]. They've stapled some border-related appropriations to it and added Sec 3301 to declare a border emergency; but that doesn't change the basic nature of this as defence spending. The Republicans voting down defence spending doesn't tell me much about their views about the border. > This is what happened though. For the sake of argument, ok. But that isn't consistent with the idea that they torpedoed a recent border bill because they didn't want to give Biden brownie points. The Democrats don't seem to think that this gives their team brownie points - they didn't even want it included in this amendment. The person introducing it literally says that! So whatever the Republicans are doing it isn't trying to deny Biden brownie points, because that would rely on the Republicans offering brownie points to deny him - which makes no sense (outside wild incompetence, and even then that doesn't fit well with the theory they are doing this just to deny a good look - it fits with the idea they are incompetent and did something silly). It is much more likely that either the negotiations over the Ukraine spending were in good faith but failed (which happens all the time) or the Republicans were bluffing in negotiations and didn't think the border provisions would be included then had to vote the amendment down when their bluff was called (less common, but that would just suggest they value blocking Ukraine spending at a higher priority than the border provisions the Democrats offered). Neither of those explanations (both of which are routine politics) even involve the Dems wanting the border provisions or thinking they are strategically helpful. If either of those things were true they should have introduced an actual border bill in a non-appropriations setting. [0] I suppose technically it is a pure border bill in the sense that we're talking about Ukraine's/Taiwan's/Israel's/the States' borders but I don't think you meant that.

roenxi 2y ago

> ... but none of the Republican complaints have to do with the aid to Ukraine ... I'm repeating myself here I suppose, but do you have any references for what the Republicans are saying in their own words? Because the links were doing line-out-of-context quotes and I don't have confidence those are representative. I don't think there is strong evidence here that the Republicans were shooting things down border legislation to avoid giving Biden brownie points. The situation appears to be the the Democrats were trying to send ~$80 billion split among Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan and their negotiations to get that through Congress failed. In that process it doesn't look like the Dems were even trying to deal with the border except as a compromise. Occam's razor suggests that the bill wasn't going to get the outcome on the ground that the Republicans wanted. Otherwise the story is they negotiated to add something unrelated in only to vote it away, which seems a bit counterproductive even as political theatre (ie, why? it only gives the Dems something to talk about). They don't gain anything by voting down something that they nominally wanted and asked to be included in a totally unrelated bill. If anything the process would suggest they were being disingenuous on being willing to fund Ukraine rather than anything border related.

BadHumans 2y ago
You say the quotes are out of context so what exactly do you want to see? > Otherwise the story is they negotiated to add something unrelated in only to vote it away, which seems a bit counterproductive even as political theatre (ie, why? it only gives the Dems something to talk about) This is what happened though.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Ideally I was hoping to see the congressional records of what they said in debate before they voted the bill down (I looked myself but didn't find it), but any longform text version of Republicans speaking. Even video. Although frankly it probably isn't worth much more effort, this is clearly not a "border bill". It is an appropriations bill for sending money to various military theatres a long way from US borders [0]. They've stapled some border-related appropriations to it and added Sec 3301 to declare a border emergency; but that doesn't change the basic nature of this as defence spending. The Republicans voting down defence spending doesn't tell me much about their views about the border. > This is what happened though. For the sake of argument, ok. But that isn't consistent with the idea that they torpedoed a recent border bill because they didn't want to give Biden brownie points. The Democrats don't seem to think that this gives their team brownie points - they didn't even want it included in this amendment. The person introducing it literally says that! So whatever the Republicans are doing it isn't trying to deny Biden brownie points, because that would rely on the Republicans offering brownie points to deny him - which makes no sense (outside wild incompetence, and even then that doesn't fit well with the theory they are doing this just to deny a good look - it fits with the idea they are incompetent and did something silly). It is much more likely that either the negotiations over the Ukraine spending were in good faith but failed (which happens all the time) or the Republicans were bluffing in negotiations and didn't think the border provisions would be included then had to vote the amendment down when their bluff was called (less common, but that would just suggest they value blocking Ukraine spending at a higher priority than the border provisions the Democrats offered). Neither of those explanations (both of which are routine politics) even involve the Dems wanting the border provisions or thinking they are strategically helpful. If either of those things were true they should have introduced an actual border bill in a non-appropriations setting. [0] I suppose technically it is a pure border bill in the sense that we're talking about Ukraine's/Taiwan's/Israel's/the States' borders but I don't think you meant that.