Over the past few years there were several attempts by the Republicans to get legislative priorities passed by attaching them to federal funding bills, threatening to shut down the government unless their legislation was attached to it. At those times, the line pushed by liberals/Democrats - both in and out of government, including this board - was that this was unconscionable, and that the government had a responsibility to fund itself, and that there needed to be a “clean” funding bill with no partisan legislation attached.
Anyone who thinks aid to a city that was poisoned by its own state government is an unnecessary pork barrel expenditure needs to take an ethics class. Whether that’s a politician who will be voting that up or down or just a citizen.
So, yeah - the Democrats are insisting that if the CR is going to include disaster relief, it should include some for the place represented by them, too.
I’m not saying it’s right. But how long were the Democrats expected to put up with the Republicans doing this before they did it back at them? Maybe now both sides will agree to pass clean bills.
The Democrats’ version of a clean bill is one that does not have riders to kill Planned Parenthood or the ACA, in other words Democrats object to bills that hurt people.
The Republicans’ version of a clean bill is one that doesn’t have riders to provide aid to people poisoned by water or devastated by nature. In other words, Republicans object to bills that help people.
Do you have any particular thoughts on a provision in the spending bill authored by Republicans that prevents the Securities and Exchange Commission from drafting regulations that would require corporations to disclose political activity, such as campaign fundraising? And how Senator McConnell does not support a bill to keep government operating unless this provision is in there?
You think we have gridlock now? Compromise is the only way anything gets done. Admittedly, compromise is in short supply at the moment, but get rid of the ability to do “OK, we’ll give you something you want, but you’ve got to give us something we want, too,” and no bills will pass at all.
This is the core of the problem. And tis is part of a broader attitude that applies to a lot more than this one issue.
The fact is that there are a lot of Republicans/conservatives around. They have different opinions than you on what’s a good idea and what’s not. If you have a principle that certain tactics are OK for you because your ideals are so righteous and not OK for the other guys because their beliefs are so slimy, then that’s effectively the same thing as endorsing those tactics as a matter of principle.
[As above, this is a broader issue. It comes up a lot in the context of personal insults. Ours are OK because they’re true, but theirs are not because they’re false. And so on.]
Can you cite something that’s not written by an activist?
All the coverage I’ve seen in the mainstream media only mention the Flint issue as the sticking point.
It wasn’t in the articles that I read about it. Can you clarify what you’re talking about or were you just leaping at the opportunity to say something snarky?
FP – maybe I’m not understanding your point in this thread. I see several options of what you’re trying to argue, but I’m not clear which points I may be inferring and which you may be trying to make:
Are you saying that temporary funding bills ought to be clean and as free as possible from policy positions? (Which is why I raise the SEC rider.)
Are you saying that neither party should threaten to vote against a funding bill?
Are you saying that because Republicans shut down government in 2013 over an attempt to defund Obamacare, that Democrats should not seek to influence spending legislation?
Are you saying that Democrats pushing for spending for Flint in a spending bill is basically the same thing as Republicans pushing to not spend money for Obamacare without actually being able to repeal the law?
Are you saying that threats not to vote for a spending bill unless there is a compromise is basically the same as actually shutting down the government?