The White House on Thursday reiterated its willingness to risk shutting down the government to obtain funding for President* Donald Trump's long-promised wall between the United States and Mexico.Donnie the Petulant has always claimed that he's going to make Mexico pay for the wall. Mexico has, from Day One, told Trump to go fuck himself (in more diplomatic language, of course). So, realizing that the Mexicans aren't going to pay for The Great Wall of Trump, he'd shut down the government and default on the debt over his precious wall.
Makes some sense, when you think about it. The wall is popular with what remains of his base. So what if a goodly percentage of them will find themselves out of work in the subsequent recession? Trump's probably gambling that his base is too crazily batshit racist to figure that out for themselves.
The GOP should listen to their elder statesmen. Trump is in the process of turning the GOP into the American Nazi Party. Assuming that Trump can't destroy the electoral process, becoming the Party of Sheet-Wearing Racists will spell doom for the GOP.
If they don't want that to happen, they had better figure out a way to legally kick him out of office.
Mexico's initial response wasn't exactly diplomatic and more the sort of thing you want to hear: "We are not going to pay for that fucking wall." (From Mexico's former president.
ReplyDeleteEven if he could, would those poltroons in congress do it? That will be interesting to watch, as his poll numbers subside down out of the primary threat zone, will the Republicans in congress have the stones to get rid of him?
ReplyDeleteMcConnell has to be ready to snap out: he probably figures he could have had his whole hideous agenda signed into law by now by a more competent president, so will the question boil down to whether he and Ryan see Pence as that person or not?
It could still backfire if they do it. Trump's base may be shrinking, but they're still loud as hell.
-Doug in Oakland
The timing question is interesting. I don't think many observers have contemplated one of the options Donnie has in this fight. Let's say Congress passes a clean debt limit increase on September 28th, a day early. Well, then Donnie sits on the bill till October 8th...no veto, but the bill cannot take effect until October 8th, so the U.S. defaults...
ReplyDeleteSome song, different verse, on spending. So Congress has to past a debt increase by Sept. 18th and a budget/spending bill by Sept 20th. Otherwise, ol' Mafia Donnie may take hostages.
He promised the wall, and the deep state has blocked him every step of the way. If we had an actual, you know, BORDER, that kept so many illegals from entering, then we'd be a lot better off economically.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the Border Patrol is now pretty much powerless and useless. Lots of blame for that, not just Barry. If we'd get serious about border security, our country would be much better. But only liberals who like the idea of open borders want there to be no border. Hell, if we had immigration laws as strict and Mexico has, we'd be better off. Letting criminals stay and abuse our freebies is a crime in itself....
I fail to see how wanting a real border makes him or anyone a sheet wearing racist. (and I am of partial Mexican descent, so stop that part right there.) My family are border people, but they are legal.
B., please expound on how the "Deep State" has stopped the wall. In my Civics class, it was clearly covered that the House (Republican controlled) originates spending bills, then the Senate (Republican controlled) approves them and the President (Republican) signs them.
ReplyDeleteAs for "better off", every economic anaylsis I've seen contradicts your position, sir.
And which "freebies", since they are not eligible for freebie...unless you mean those inconvenient American Citizen children, eh?
OK, let's talk about Fergus' lie that his massive tax cut for the wealthy will be paid for by sustained growth above 3% (he actually originally said 4%, but he's an idiot so I'll just leave that aside).
ReplyDeleteNow, we all know that it is a cheap lie to cover a massive, greedy, redistribution of wealth from everyone else to the people who are already obscenely wealthy, but as Fergus is the president, let's pretend like his words mean anything.
The US workforce is not replacing itself anywhere near quickly enough to support that kind of growth.
So in order for his claimed numbers to work, that is, for them not to be a lie designed to steal everyone's money and give it to his friends, he would need a fairly massive influx of immigrants.
For his own damn "plan" to work.
I keep reading about how the "illegals" are gonna drain all the social insurance resources, but I haven't seen it yet, and we have as large of an undocumented population here in Oakland as you're likely to find in a city of our size. In fact, we have a long tradition of immigrants coming here and starting businesses that everyone benefits from. There's an entire block off of the Southwest corner of High street and International Blvd. that is owned by some folks who started off there a long time ago with a taco stand.
-Doug in Oakland
Doug, you missed the chip shot...
ReplyDeleteIn 2010, a Congressionally commissioned report showed a net positive of $12 Biliion a year into Social Security and Medicaid due to the "illegals". The hole that is future Social Security/Medicaid would be over 10% deeper without these payments, and the current "tax deficit" to be made up to fund these programs would be around 0.2% larger (1.6% vs 1.8% increase in tax rate needed).