# How Compromise Works **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 5, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029 "2019-02-05T21:40:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/21 "2019-02-06T04:44:36Z")
Here is a good example of compromise. Bush wanted to fund the Iraq war in 2007, so the democrats tacked a minimum wage bill onto the Iraq war funding bill. > **[U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Troop_Readiness,_Veterans%27_Care,_Katrina_Recovery,_and_Iraq_Accountability_Appropriations_Act,_2007)** > > The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, (Pub. L. 110–28 (text) (PDF), 121 Stat. 112, enacted May 25, 2007), is an emergency appropriations act passed by the 110th United States Congress that provides funding for the Iraq War through September 30, 2007. A prior version of the act, H.R. 1591, included a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. H.R. 1591 was passed by Congress but vetoed by President George W. Bush. > ... I’ve heard that this is harder now, that tacking bills onto each other is more difficult, but also that pork is more difficult. On paper it sounds great, but in practice supposedly it made politics much more difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/22 "2019-02-06T05:44:14Z")
Go get pizza tonight, go get crap the next time. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/23 "2019-02-06T05:59:25Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > YOU can send him a letter. YOU can ask either of YOUR two Senators to contact the Minority Leader on YOUR behalf. YOU can visit the Capital and talk to him in person. Or YOU can ask someone else to do it for YOU. Whichever is easier for YOU to perform. So, which of those things have you done to make your displeasure with uncooperative Democrats personally known to them? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/24 "2019-02-06T11:53:11Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Did you read the OP? There is no Carmen. And this thread is about How Compromise Works. He got her name a little wrong–it’s Mitch McCarmen. And it’s totally on-point. Since you’re having trouble following the analogy, I’ll let this be my last post to you. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/25 "2019-02-06T13:17:31Z")
Alonso and Bree will never make this relationship work. They should agree to see other people. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/26 "2019-02-06T13:42:07Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Alonso and Bree will never make this relationship work. They should agree to see other people. Ain’t that the truth. Problem is, their country doesn’t have divorce laws. Also Alonso has the nuclear launch codes. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/27 "2019-02-06T13:49:06Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > YOU can send him a letter. YOU can ask either of YOUR two Senators to contact the Minority Leader on YOUR behalf. YOU can visit the Capital and talk to him in person. Or YOU can ask someone else to do it for YOU. Whichever is easier for YOU to perform. > > In 2017, elected Democrats made it abundantly clear that they were going to “resist” everything, and anything, the majority party proposed. Are you now suggesting that they didn’t do that? And as you were told earlier, Mitch McCuckold did the same thing to the Obama administration. Since that party started this stupidity, they have to be the first to cop a plea and end it. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/28 "2019-02-06T13:52:37Z")
Let’s say I get a new job that is located 30 miles east of where my family currently lives. I want to take my husband and family and move to a new home east of where I now live. But my husband just got a new job 30 miles west of where we live. He wants to move west. So we stay where we are and don’t move. When ALL your goals are in diametric opposition to each other’s, the stalemate IS the compromise. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/29 "2019-02-06T14:17:09Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Did you read the OP? There is no Carmen. And this thread is about How Compromise Works. I read the OP. Did you read the history of the United States, January 2017 - January 2019? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/30 "2019-02-06T15:36:59Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > I think it’s easier to say “who owns the car”? Well, if they’re a married couple who split the car, that can get awkward and fast… > > Partisanship means you have to look like you’re opposing the other side in all things, even if you agree with them some of the time. So many Republicans publicly side with Trump but privately disagree with much of what he wants, and would vote for reasonable government bills if they could somehow do that privately (but they can’t). There’s a group of Republicans who got voted in specifically to oppose the Democrats, and generally represent very conservative districts. They’re not only “true believers”, but if they ever compromised they get primaried. And then there’s a group of moderate Republicans who fear they’ll get primaried if they compromise, because it’s the most conservative voters who vote in primaries, and they will vote any “collaborators” out, calling them RINOs. It’s a terrible system (except for almost all the others). That’s exactly what happened in my Texas House district election- our moderate, reasonable, Trump-criticizing Republican incumbent legislator(Jason Villalba) got primaried by a crazy woman who was super-religious, a Trump supporter, Brett Kavanaugh supporter, anti-vaxxer and Tea Partier (Lisa Luby Ryan). Luckily the district elected a Democrat instead (John Turner) instead of that lunatic by more than 11 percentage points. I think had Villalba not been primaried, it would have been a MUCH closer race. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/31 "2019-02-06T16:38:27Z")
You can’t negotiate a compromise if one side is determined that the other side doesn’t get any of what is important to him. Trump wants five billion for a wall. The Democrats don’t want a wall. So they aren’t going to split the difference and give him two and a half billion, or one billion, or anything else. The important thing about the deal is that Trump doesn’t get anything that will go to the wall. They will negotiate on DACA or border security or whatever - but not a wall. It is reminiscent of the deal with Bush 41 and the Democrats at that time. The important thing, the purpose of the negotiation, was to get Bush to break his promise of “no new taxes”. And Bush was defeated for re-election. The Dems are trying to do the same here. The important thing is to get Trump to break a campaign promise, and hope they can use it in 2020. Nothing more to it than that. There is not much room for compromise in that. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/32 "2019-02-06T16:57:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You can’t negotiate a compromise if one side is determined that the other side doesn’t get any of what is important to him. Trump wants five billion for a wall. The Democrats don’t want a wall. > > So they aren’t going to split the difference and give him two and a half billion, or one billion, or anything else. The important thing about the deal is that Trump doesn’t get anything that will go to the wall. They will negotiate on DACA or border security or whatever - but not a wall. > > It is reminiscent of the deal with Bush 41 and the Democrats at that time. The important thing, the purpose of the negotiation, was to get Bush to break his promise of “no new taxes”. And Bush was defeated for re-election. > > The Dems are trying to do the same here. The important thing is to get Trump to break a campaign promise, and hope they can use it in 2020. Nothing more to it than that. > > There is not much room for compromise in that. > > Regards, > Shodan This doesn’t reflect reality as I understand it. In the version of reality that I see, Democrats and Republicans both stated that they wanted to fund the government at roughly the same levels as the previous year. Then, at the last minute, the President decided to stop this (even though he stated he wanted to fund the government) because he wanted wall funding, and the Republicans leading Congress decided to go along with it, and refused to fund the government even though they said they wanted a funded government. So then the government shut down. There wasn’t much negotiating, because the President and Republicans had already stated they wanted to fund the government. They weren’t offering to _give_ anything in the give and take – since funding the government was a give to both parties. They just wanted to take wall funding, while offering nothing in return, when the other party opposes wall funding. There have in fact been previous deals offered, agreed to at least partially by “both sides”, which include wall funding in exchange for a Democratic priority like a permanent solution for DACA. But Trump nixed those, and thus there doesn’t seem to be the possibility of any negotiation going forwad. It seems silly to expect the Democrats to start negotiating when Trump is not offering anything in exchange for wall funding. And even more silly when you look at the polling and see that most Americans are blaming Trump and the Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/33 "2019-02-06T17:01:57Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I’ve heard that this is harder now, that tacking bills onto each other is more difficult, but also that pork is more difficult. > > On paper it sounds great, but in practice supposedly it made politics much more difficult. That’s the earmarks ban, I believe. Earmarks are where politicians will attach little appropriations to bills in order to pass them. So for example, you may have a relatively large scale Democratic-led anti-poverty bill with a few lines appropriating funds for some sort of Texas panhandle cattle ranching stuff. That’s the earmark- in order to get some votes from the Texas panhandle republicans, they funded a project that positively affects their districts in exchange for votes. Basically it was one of the primary Congressional political horse-trading mechanisms until the ban. Now with the ban, there’s no incentive to compromise. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/34 "2019-02-06T17:23:24Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You can’t negotiate a compromise if one side is determined that the other side doesn’t get any of what is important to him. Trump wants five billion for a wall. The Democrats don’t want a wall. > > So they aren’t going to split the difference and give him two and a half billion, or one billion, or anything else. The important thing about the deal is that Trump doesn’t get anything that will go to the wall. They will negotiate on DACA or border security or whatever - but not a wall. Trump says he wants a wall **for the purpose of** border security. It just so happens that a wall is a (literally) monumentally stupid and cost-ineffective approach to border security. Trump refuses to recognize that because, as a real-estate grifter and reality-show celebrity with only the most tenuous grasp of the actual facts of governance and public policy, his conception of a worthwhile achievement is a big physical object that he can display his name on. It is not in any way unreasonable or intransigent for the Democrats to deny funding specifically for this “wall” bullshit, while remaining willing to compromise on more rational and cost-effective border security issues. Similarly, if two sides were trying to negotiate a plan for addressing childhood autism and one side insisted that some of the money should be spent on measures to reduce or limit routine vaccination programs because “vaccines cause autism” [_sic_], it would not be unreasonable or intransigent for the other side to reject that nonsense while still being willing to compromise on autism-handling measures that actually make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/35 "2019-02-06T17:29:47Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > In 2017, elected Democrats made it abundantly clear that they were going to “resist” everything, and anything, the majority party proposed. Are you now suggesting that they didn’t do that? Democrats undertook to resist the destructive, criminal, destabilizing and/or racist measures that the Trump administration and its Republican lackeys were proposing. The fact that those categories happen to include almost everything in the Trump/Republican agenda is not the fault of the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/36 "2019-02-06T17:38:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Trump wants five billion for a wall. The Democrats don’t want a wall. > > So they aren’t going to split the difference and give him two and a half billion, or one billion, or anything else. The important thing about the deal is that Trump doesn’t get anything that will go to the wall. They will negotiate on DACA or border security or whatever - but not a wall. You do know that the Dems already proposed $25 billion for border security, including the wall, in exchange for DACA protections and were told to fuck off by Trump. So yeah, your post is demonstrably untrue, and if a deal doesn’t get done, he only has himself to blame. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/37 "2019-02-06T17:41:31Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You can’t negotiate a compromise if one side is determined that the other side doesn’t get any of what is important to him. Trump wants five billion for a wall. The Democrats don’t want a wall. > > So they aren’t going to split the difference and give him two and a half billion, or one billion, or anything else. The important thing about the deal is that Trump doesn’t get anything that will go to the wall. They will negotiate on DACA or border security or whatever - but not a wall. [This is what that looks like in reality](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/democrats-schumer-trump-border-wall-daca/551288/): > [@](#): > > Vacuous and expensive. Pointless. Ineffective. Medieval. A non-starter. > > Over the last year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has used each of those words, and many more, to denigrate the proposed southern border wall that President Trump made a centerpiece of his campaign. Hamming it up on the Senate floor, Schumer frequently mocked the president’s demand that Congress front the money for a structure he repeatedly assured voters Mexico would pony up to build. > > But on Friday afternoon, as the hours ticked away toward a government shutdown, Schumer went to the White House and told Trump he could have his wall. “The president picked a number for the wall, and I accepted it,” Schumer recalled in the midst of the shutdown. He had agreed to a significant sum of money for the wall—reported to be $20 billion, though the Democrat’s office will neither confirm nor deny that figure—in exchange for Trump’s support of permanent protections for the nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants covered under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. > > The White House ultimately rejected the offer, and later that night, Senate Democrats withheld their votes for a stopgap spending bill, leading to the three-day shutdown. Democrats already know that Trump’s not a reliable negotiator. He wants to act like he’ll agree to a reasonable compromise, but when it comes time to agree, he’s repeatedly backed out. It’s no longer possible to trust him in a compromise. Post 14 already covered this ground. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/38 "2019-02-06T17:44:49Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The important thing is to get Trump to break a campaign promise, and hope they can use it in 2020. Nothing more to it than that. Trump’s campaign promise was that Mexico was going to pay for the wall. The Democrats are preventing him from breaking a campaign promise. Nothing more to it than that. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/39 "2019-02-06T17:53:42Z")
[Compromise also looks like this](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-hold-rally-in-el-paso-on-monday-as-he-continues-to-press-for-wall-funding/2019/02/06/a2ae6d2e-2a1c-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html?utm_term=.19c127a75b3b): > [@](#): > > House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that she would be willing to support any compromise border-security legislation that emerges from a bipartisan committee and that she has urged the White House to adopt the same “hands-off” posture. Obviously Pelosi thinks the wall is stupid and a waste of money. But she’s willing to compromise on that, willing to do something she thinks is stupid, if it means advancing priorities that she thinks comprise good governance. We’ll see if McCarmen and Alonso will go along with actual compromise. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029/40 "2019-02-06T17:57:13Z")
There is no incentive for compromise. For the last 20+ years there has been a cycle of power. The governing party is unpopular and loses big allowing the other party to gain the presidency and congress. They then push through whatever piece of their agenda they think is important and popular. This makes them unpopular and they lose the congressional majority at the next election. This leads to six years of gridlock which renders the incumbent’s party unpopular and the cycle repeats itself. Why compromise if you can get what you want just by waiting for your party’s turn to be on top? This is exacerbated by the partisanship of much of the electorate and the hatred of politics by the rest. Partisans hate the other side more than they want to accomplish legislation so giving the other side something is anathema to them. Independents claim to want compromise but the process of vote trading, insult hurling, and negotiation puts them off and so they vote the incumbent party out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-compromise-works/829029.md?page=3)