The Republicans (and specifically Speaker Boehner) own the shutdown, and own any possible default, because they are the only ones who can actually take action to end it on their own. The President can’t- he can ask and beg and even capitulate to every single demand, but it takes Congress to act to end the shutdown and pay our bills. It’s the same principle in a hostage situation- if the kidnappers kill the hostage, they are responsible for the murder- it doesn’t matter if the police negotiator made a bad move, or the SWAT team broke in too early. They might have made a mistake, but the only ones to blame are the killers.
Only Boehner and the rest of the House can actually take action to end the shutdown and prevent default, so they own the results. And considering that there’s plenty of documented statements and memos detailing how the Republicans planned this (and even are celebrating it), it’s a joke to consider anyone else responsible.
Factually incorrect. There is a bill sitting in front of the Senate that came from the House. If the Senate approves it (and Obama signs it), the shutdown ends.
Yes, you really don’t like that they are doing this. We get it.
But let me ask you a question: Is it an accident that the House controls the purse strings? A simple matter of red tape that should be there? Once something is passed law the house has no right to defund it?
Or is the house having control of the budget by design and part of the checks and balances of our system of government?
Do you get that you lost? That we *had *the debate, made the decision through the legitimate process of democracy, and you lost? That your views have been soundly rejected by We the People at every stage? *Do *you?
Factually false. Spending bills merely *start *in the House, and there are ways around that if needed. The Senate and the President play their roles as well. Really, this is Schoolhouse Rock stuff. Is your flat ignorance of the basic process, the rules of the game if you will, what is leading to this bizarre fantasy notion that the House controls *all *spending, end of story?
Which one, the one where the ACA is defunded? The one where it is delayed? The one where the Republicans say that only the mandate should be delayed? Or perhaps the one coming where the Republicans punt it for later with no ACA requests?
As I said, it is like a dance of the 7 veils and many rank and file republicans are not noticing that the Republicans are caving in, slowly, but the evidence of it is clear.
What bill? The House sent over three CRs with strings attached, and the Senate voted each one of them down by majority vote. Those bills are dead. Cite,cite,cite.
Meanwhile, the House actually has a pending, Senate-passed bill which has not received an up-or-down vote. Why can’t the House vote on the Senate proposal, as the Senate voted on the House proposals?
Already voted on by the Senate and sent back to the House (in a modified form)- Boehner refuses to allow a vote. Only his action can end this. And only his actions can prevent default- they haven’t even tried on a vote for that.
I think good faith negotiation does not allow for the deliberate creation of a crisis in order to get your way.
Let’s say you need to use the bathroom, and go into a fast food restaurant to use their facilities. The management says the bathroom is for paying customers only. You say, let’s negotiate. Good faith negotiation is to give the guy your DL so you can pee before waiting in the long line. You get to use the toilet, he gets a paying customer, you agree to buy food, he lets you in the door. Give and take on both sides. Good faith negotiation is not “I’m gonna piss all over myself right in the middle of your store, if you don’t let me in there.”
Or a town wants to buy property and when you say no to their offer, they tear up the street for “repairs” and leave you with a rocky mudhole of a street, for however many months it takes to get the “repairs” done, or until you agree to their offer.
Instead of negotiating a solution to a problem, you become the problem and force the other person to negotiate with you to solve… you.
The other side is that we’re negotiating a long term change to a huge piece of legislation for a 6 week CR. Is anything going to be different in 6 weeks? Will the Republicans want tax cuts, or welfare cuts, or something else they can’t get passed as a law on its own, in return for another 6 weeks of operation? Is anything there to stop them?
The only way to stop this from being THE way to legislate is to nip it in the bud.
With l due respect, that isn’t the topic of this thread. We have a gazillion threads devoted to that topic so one can hardly fault Bricker for debating the OP as written.
As I said in an earlier post, I invite lawyers to weigh in on what literally constitutes extortion. Honestly I’ve never spent much time asking myself what essentially divides negotiation (including infuriatingly cynical and unproductive negotiation, but negotiation nonetheless) from extortion, which last I checked was a criminal offense and it’s a charge being bandied about by Democrats quite loosely at the moment. I don’t know where that line is drawn. I sought some systematic way to think about it in an article on property law, as you point out. Maybe it’s not perfectly relevant. But so far I don’t think anyone in this thread has done a good job at defining basic terms.
My own intuition tells me that the House GOP in this context has a legitimate right–which they are assholes of the first order to invoke, mind you–to shut down the government for whatever reason they like. Among other things, I think it sets a bad precedent for how policy disputes should be resolved, so I deplore the use of this tactic. But in my book, it’s not extortion. I’ll readily admit that I don’t have a fully-baked sense for what constitutes extortion as opposed to hard bargaining, so I’m open to changing my views on it.
There are more definitions of terms than you’ll find in Black’s. Many terms that you’ll find in law are used colloquially in other contexts. Complaining that the legal-environment definitions are not the only ones used gets you precisely nowhere.
Are you referring to some defined rule or custom that requires some sort of observance to conditions set down by the title of the thread? Or by the OP?
Is it your contention that the actual and true focus of the thread is the precise definition of the word “negotiation”?
Have we an Arbiter of Relevance, or are you volunteering yourself for the position? Would that require some sort of election, or a dove landing upon your shoulder?
The Senate sent back a modified version- Boehner refuses to allow a vote. Boehner is the only one who can actually end the shutdown, and they’ve taken no action whatsoever to prevent default (another thing that requires Boehner to act). So Boehner and the House own it.
To be clear, I’m not insisting on using legal definitions per se. But I maintain that the terms have been pretty murkily defined. If someone’s going to argue that the Republicans are extorting the Democrats, or deny that Republicans are in a sense negotiating, I think it’s helpful to state clearly what extortion and negotiation are and where the line between them is drawn.
Exaggeration for the purpose of illuminating an underlying point is entirely within the accepted parameters of debate and argument, so long as the exaggeration is honestly intended. Regrettably, this can depend on the capacity of the reader to detect sarcasm and humor, but that does not render it illegitimate.
For instance, it is a cliche hereabouts to suggest that someone is offering an argument that is reminiscent of authoritarian repression, as in “You know who else said that”? Only a humorless pickle-up-the-butt pedantic prick would hijack the conversation into whether or not somebody here actually is Hitler.
Why does everything need to be repeated six friggin’ times before its understood? The Senate voted on multiple House proposals. The House has not voted on the one Senate proposal.
Would you like me to repeat this four more times in my next post so we can skip around all the non sequiturs you are surely composing, so there’s some hope you can actually respond to the point I’m actually making?