The Trump Presidency – 2016

[JPhillips]

That doesn't mean the GOP gave up anything, though. When I start to see GOP Senators complaining about what was in the final bill, then I'll believe the Dems really got a win. The redlines for the GOP are state funding, USPS funding, and voter access. The Dems are making no headway on any of those.

They either aren't willing to use the leverage they have to get those things, or they don't care about them as much as they claim to.

[ISiddiqui]

Because what we really want is the House Democrats to hold up funding for hospitals and testings when they fought to get it into the bill. How many more weeks of hold up regarding that would be ok?

[tarcone]

Are we really going to toss money at the oil and gas corporations?

I bet if we threw money at the everyday person and opened stuff up, the oil and gas companies could go back to gouging us again and making their billions in profits real quick.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Because what we really want is the House Democrats to hold up funding for hospitals and testings when they fought to get it into the bill. How many more weeks of hold up regarding that would be ok?

No. What I want is Dems writing the bill they want, passing it, and then putting the burden on McConnell to say no. They may not win, but they'll have a clear position to negotiate from and to message with. Right now they negotiate in secret with the GOP and nobody knows what either side really wants. The Dems are choosing to repeatedly fight on ground of McConnell's choosing.

[ISiddiqui]

They've been constantly doing that over the last 2 years - hence the pile up of bills on McConnell's desk. Mostly things they know McConnell will never put to a vote. You remember this right?

Democratic senators tweet photos of pile of House-passed bills 'dead on Mitch McConnell's desk' | TheHill

Or maybe you don't, because passing a bunch of bills, putting the burden on McConnell hasn't really moved the needle. Some on the left still ask what the House Dems have done on, say, minimum wage, when the House passed a $15 minimum wage bill last year.

However, when it comes to desperately trying to get legislation passed to help save lives, the Democratic leadership wants to get something done. So they engage in conversation with the WH and McConnell (sometimes McConnell has actually been sidelined) so that it doesn't get added to the list on McConnell's desk, but actually passed.

[JPhillips]

Again, there's no comparison between passing bills that McConnell doesn't care about and passing bills that McConnell needs and wants.

[QuikSand]

haha nothing matters

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

What exactly do you expect the Dems, who only control one house of Congress to do? Hold up desperately needed assistance? I mean they got $200bil more money in the new spending bill than the GOP initially wanted including money for hospitals. Would you rather they hold that up for a few weeks denying desperately needed funding to hospitals?

Yes. Get on TV and explain that you are not passing a bill without assistance to hospitals and those most in need.

You'd be holding up PPP which is mostly just loans going to big businesses pretending to be small ones. And a big handout to the banks.

At some point you have to stand up for yourselves.

[thesloppy]

U.S. Citizens Married To Immigrants Are Blocked From Getting Stimulus Checks:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/u-ci...145343198.html

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Yes. Get on TV and explain that you are not passing a bill without assistance to hospitals and those most in need.

You'd be holding up PPP which is mostly just loans going to big businesses pretending to be small ones. And a big handout to the banks.

At some point you have to stand up for yourselves.

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY FUCKING DID. The bill now has assistance to hospitals and testing, which was not in there before. It's $200 billion more than the bill the Republicans proposed on April 9 because of Democratic efforts to hold up the bill (leading to Republican Congresspeople blaming her for shutting down small businesses, but they kept blocking it until they got hospital money and testing money in there).

I just can't. People on the left get hardons for McConnell's tactics, but McConnell would have gotten $10bil more and proclaim it as a victory and the right AND left would say McConnell won. Pelosi gets $200billion and the right and left are saying... oh, she caved. WHAT THE FUCK?!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY FUCKING DID. The bill now has assistance to hospitals and testing, which was not in there before. It's $200 billion more than the bill the Republicans proposed on April 9 because of Democratic efforts to hold up the bill (leading to Republican Congresspeople blaming her for shutting down small businesses, but they kept blocking it until they got hospital money and testing money in there).

I just can't. People on the left get hardons for McConnell's tactics, but McConnell would have gotten $10bil more and proclaim it as a victory and the right AND left would say McConnell won. Pelosi gets $200billion and the right and left are saying... oh, she caved. WHAT THE FUCK?!

This more goes back to what I was saying before. Why is it that the Dems are having to argue for money for the hospitals? How is that not bipartisan?

It feels like the GOP sets up these artificial goalposts ("we're not giving any money to hospitals"). And the Dems are like "damn, we have to give up something else to get them like trying to fund free elections or the USPS" (again, things that shouldn't be partisan to begin with, but here we are).

SI

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Why is it that the Dems are having to argue for money for the hospitals? How is that not bipartisan?

Because the GOP doesn't care. It's not artificial goalposts, they wanted more money for businesses to prevent a deeper recession - that's it. Hospitals and testing, most of them probably half-agree with the Administration who seem to think it's a state problem.

And the GOP REALLY does not want free elections or the USPS - that's definitely not an artificial goalpost any way you slice it. They think it'll cost them elections. Far right people are decrying Pelosi every day for 2 months for wanting vote by mail. I see Facebook posts that go "SAY HELL NO TO PELOSI ON VOTE BY MAIL".

Though in this case, the Dems didn't give up anything else - they just blocked the legislation for 16 days until the GOP caved on the additional spending.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY FUCKING DID. The bill now has assistance to hospitals and testing, which was not in there before. It's $200 billion more than the bill the Republicans proposed on April 9 because of Democratic efforts to hold up the bill (leading to Republican Congresspeople blaming her for shutting down small businesses, but they kept blocking it until they got hospital money and testing money in there).

I just can't. People on the left get hardons for McConnell's tactics, but McConnell would have gotten $10bil more and proclaim it as a victory and the right AND left would say McConnell won. Pelosi gets $200billion and the right and left are saying... oh, she caved. WHAT THE FUCK?!

All she got was $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing. Hospitals which I should add that are mainly private which I was told by her is way better than a public health care system (so why are taxpayers paying for that anyway?).

Otherwise it's $60b for banks, $250b in PPP going to mostly medium to large businesses, $60b for disaster relief which again, ain't going to small businesses.

No money for states, no vote-by-mail, nothing for food banks, people out of work, etc.

But she is keeping Donna Shalala on to oversee that bailout money.

NEW: Miami Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala violated federal law when she failed to disclose stock sales while serving in Congress. https://t.co/rdPu6tV2vr

— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) April 21, 2020

[JPhillips]

But they did give things up. They didn't fight for vote by mail. Or the USPS. Or funding for states.

I'll give you that they're in the more difficult position as the GOP can achieve their goals right now just by doing nothing, but at some point the Dems are going to have to fight for these things if they really want them. So the question is, when do you fight? Dems seem to be willing to wait until they have no leverage, and that won't work.

I don't believe McConnell will ever see the wisdom of these bills, so when and how will the Dems fight to get them?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

But they did give things up. They didn't fight for vote by mail. Or the USPS. Or funding for states.

I'll give you that they're in the more difficult position as the GOP can achieve their goals right now just by doing nothing, but at some point the Dems are going to have to fight for these things if they really want them. So the question is, when do you fight? Dems seem to be willing to wait until they have no leverage, and that won't work.

I don't believe McConnell will ever see the wisdom of these bills, so when and how will the Dems fight to get them?

She got a big bailout to our private health care system. That's somehow a win in Democrat circles these days.

Food bank lines, USA. https://t.co/JvDjIXOCK3 pic.twitter.com/WqBgHuAzk1

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) April 20, 2020

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

But they did give things up. They didn't fight for vote by mail. Or the USPS. Or funding for states.

While getting $200bil in additional funding - what in the world is this nonsense that if you don't get 100% of what you asked right away when you have very little power, you've caved. And this is assuming this isn't going to come up again. Considering Pelosi is currently saying right now that vote by mail is going to be in the 4th COVID bill. Which is what she's being attacked all over the place by right wing sites.

McConnell is getting dragged today because of his states should go bankrupt comments in response to House Dems wanting to see it in a stimulus bill.

But the Dems by blocking were able to get $60B in the PPP for small lenders (which will go to small businesses), $60B in the SBA fund that's completely depleted, $75B for hospitals, $25B for testing... while only having control of one house of Congress. Do you mean to tell me that they should have kept blocking for 2 more weeks preventing hospitals from getting needed funding now? And so more small businesses can fail because they got locked out of the original PPP process because the funds ran out?

I don't believe McConnell will ever see the wisdom of these bills, so when and how will the Dems fight to get them?

While McConnell is willing to play with people's lives for it, Democrats should not - if you can at least get hospital funding and testing funding, you get it done and then get try to get the other things done in the next bill, which you know is going to happen. Get the most important things done and through. I am not surprised when Republicans don't give a shit about delaying funding to overworked and underfunded and understaffed hospitals which are trying to keep people alive, but when Democrats do, it makes me livid.

In the original stimulus plan they did pass a $10bil loan for USPS, which Trump is now trying to leverage for USPS changes - but when you have the White House you can do that. Congress can't make Mnuchin distribute the funds absent a lawsuit (and even then Courts generally side with the Executive Branch on the execution of laws - remember GW Bush's signing statements?).

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

All she got was $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing. Hospitals which I should add that are mainly private which I was told by her is way better than a public health care system (so why are taxpayers paying for that anyway?).

Otherwise it's $60b for banks, $250b in PPP going to mostly medium to large businesses, $60b for disaster relief which again, ain't going to small businesses.

Yes, of the ~$200B she was able to wring out of the party that controls the Senate and White House by delaying voting on a $250B PPP bill only about half is for hospitals and testing. And right, the $60B for small lenders as part of the PPP process and $60 to SBA disaster relief program (which includes economic disaster relief) isn't going to help small businesses. Do you even think before you post?

[JPhillips]

I don't think they have very little power, at least they didn't as long as the GOP needed things. I still don't understand why they don't pass what they want in the House and start from there. Their biggest advantage is that they can pass bills without GOP help, but they instead insist on negotiating in secret and never presenting what they really want.

Each bill passed makes it less likely that the next bill will pass. What's the GOP must-have in the next bill? Maybe the PPP runs out and we're back to where we were last week, but maybe it doesn't. At that point what do the Dems do? Then they really are back to messaging bills with no hope in the Senate. There are limited opportunities, and the Dems have let two big opportunities go without even passing a bill showing their priorities.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I don't think they have very little power, at least they didn't as long as the GOP needed things. I still don't understand why they don't pass what they want in the House and start from there. Their biggest advantage is that they can pass bills without GOP help, but they instead insist on negotiating in secret and never presenting what they really want.

But they did present what they want with the CARES bill. Yes, you are right, they did not get it to a floor vote, but it was a fully fleshed out bill. There was likely a concern that the money had to get to people right away and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to grandstand with a bill that included controversial things (we discussed them here).

Which leads me to:

Each bill passed makes it less likely that the next bill will pass. What's the GOP must-have in the next bill?

It is almost a given that CARES2 is going to happen. McConnell has been discussing the need for it even. Trump definitely wants it. And Pelosi has been discussing what needs to be in CARES2, including vote by mail. I'm pretty sure they are working on the bill.

[ISiddiqui]

I'll also post this article about a Slate columnist who sees the bill as a disappointment, but also looks to see why:

The new coronavirus relief bill is a disappointment.

What did Democrats get? Congress is going to stick a $310 billion IV infusion into the Paycheck Protection Program while pumping much-needed money into an even more woefully underfunded disaster loan program that’s equally important, if not more so, for many small businesses struggling to survive. It’s setting aside $75 billion to help hospitals and $25 billion for a national effort to ramp up coronavirus testing (contra Grunwald’s tweet above, the bill does include contact tracing).

These are all important steps. What’s frustrating about this deal is that it seemingly consists of things any rational person should want—even a Republican. Everyone knew small businesses needed more aid. We need hospitals to keep functioning while they’re dealing with the surge of COVID patients and can’t do the sort of normal surgeries that pay their bills. A dramatic increase in coronavirus testing is a must before we can reopen the economy, and a big federal push is probably necessary to get it done.

Even things that got left out of the bill seem like they would be obviously beneficial to a sitting president. State and municipal governments are already staring down massive budget cuts that could help turn the immediate crisis we’re now facing into a lingering depression, the same way state and local austerity weighed the U.S. down after the financial crash of 2008. One would think Trump would want to avoid that sort of scenario as he heads toward the November election.

The problem is that the administration did not necessarily want these things. Nor did many of the Republicans in Congress, which was seeking to pass this bill by unanimous consent. Money for states? According to the New York Times, the GOP decided it was a “red line” because they didn’t want to “effectively subsidize bad fiscal decisions that occurred before the pandemic.” Hospitals? Republicans said there wasn’t a need yet because the last round of funding hadn’t run out yet. (Apparently we still haven’t learned that it’s good to sometimes deal with obvious problems on the horizon.) Testing? This is a president who on Monday told reporters, “Not everybody believes we should do so much testing,” and that Democrats are demanding more because they “want to be able to criticize” his administration’s response. During negotiations over the bill, the Wall Street Journal reports that the White House “wanted states to take the lead on testing, arguing that local governments are better judges of what steps are necessary to respond to the pandemic.” What it sounds like is that Trump resisted the idea of a national effort because he would have to accept responsibility for it, rather than blame governors if something went wrong, which is his current M.O.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that Republicans are playing a four-dimensional game of chess. Maybe they are proposing completely insufficient bills to deal with our current crisis so that Democrats will waste their energy fighting for basic steps everybody can actually agree on rather than more ambitious liberal priorities.

But the more obvious explanation is that national Republicans mean what they say and simply oppose many of the things that seem obviously necessary to fight this virus and prevent a depression, and that our president is a nihilist mostly interested in deflecting political blame while he tries to prematurely open the economy. (McConnell, for his part, is already making noises about the deficit again.) And so Democrats have been forced to bargain for the bare bones of a pandemic response. Pelosi and Schumer could have walked away from the table and prayed that led to a better deal with the guy who wanted the churches packed by Easter. But in the meantime, the country would continue to barrel toward disaster.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Yes, of the ~$200B she was able to wring out of the party that controls the Senate and White House by delaying voting on a $250B PPP bill only about half is for hospitals and testing. And right, the $60B for small lenders as part of the PPP process and $60 to SBA disaster relief program (which includes economic disaster relief) isn't going to help small businesses. Do you even think before you post?

Perhaps follow the news on PPP and EIDL. It ain't going to small businesses.

[RainMaker]

Sorry I forgot that the banks made a lot too. Much more important than the 6 hour waits at food banks or being able to actually vote.

Report: Banks earned more than $10 billion in fees processing small-business loans | TheHill

[ISiddiqui]

Right, because some of the PPP went to public companies, lets ignore the the rest of it, 87.5% going to companies asking for less than $350,000 in loans, 75% going to companies asking for less than $150,000 - average loan of $208,000. Screw those small businesses, right? Even if SBA issued new guidance to try to prevent the same abuses in the original PPP (and hopefully they do). Not to mention that PPP part was literally the only part that was in the original bill and Pelosi got the other parts, which is what I mentioned. The EIDL is administered directly by SBA and generally goes to smaller companies, and smaller lenders as part of the PPP will definitely have smaller clients. So blaming her for the PPP portion means either you either haven't been paying any attention or are being deliberately obtuse.

[RainMaker]

Keep defending it.

Crony Capitalism: Why The Best-Connected Businesses Got Much Of The SBA Coronavirus Cash

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/larg...oll-loans.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/b...ronavirus.html

[ISiddiqui]

Keep ignoring that was the only part of the bill before Pelosi held it up.

Not to mention I will defend it overall because I don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. I don't get want to junk welfare because of welfare fraud after all, nor Medicare over Medicare fraud (which is quite large fwiw).

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[JPhillips]

Hopefully, there is another bill where the GOP wants to pass something. Hopefully, when that day comes the Dems will fight for voting access, state funding, and USPS funding.

I just know they haven't yet. All of those things the GOP isn't just ambivalent about but is actively opposed to. Getting them will be hard, but you can't ever get them if you don't ever try.

[RainMaker]

I need the people who said there is no difference in Trump and Clinton managing this pandemic to comment on today's press conference.

[RainMaker]

Also boomers can never make fun of young people for eating Tide Pods again.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Also boomers can never make fun of young people for eating Tide Pods again.

I think anyone can make of a person who ate a tide pod.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I need the people who said there is no difference in Trump and Clinton managing this pandemic to comment on today's press conference.

Holy shit I just saw the quotes. Is he seriously suggesting injecting bleach and and putting an ultraviolet light inside the body to treat COVID?

[RainMaker]

In fairness he said disinfectant, so maybe just 409 or Lysol.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Also boomers can never make fun of young people for eating Tide Pods again.

Not all boomers are created equal my friend, or in this case even created on the same planet.

[thesloppy]

I mean, I do know it's nothing but beating a dead horse at this point, but it's crazy that we're in the middle of a literal global crisis and the leader of the free world is out here talking about fucking injecting light & disinfectant (and 40% of America is cool with that).

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I mean, I do know it's nothing but beating a dead horse at this point, but it's crazy that we're in the middle of a literal global crisis and the leader of the free world is out here talking about fucking injecting light & disinfectant (and 40% of America is cool with that).

Most of them will play mental gymnastics with how he was really owning the dems with that statement.

[cuervo72]

Pat Robertson and Alan Keyes are already selling bleach cures anyway, right? Maybe Trump wants in on the action.

[kingfc22]

My parents, god bless them, called me this evening and during the conversation my dad proceeds to tell me if I saw that Trump had another scientist, specifically mentions not Fauci, who said sunlight can kill the virus. Knowing that they likely heard this from Fox News and or Limbaugh which they watch/listen to religiously I decided to do a quick check on things.

First stop, Fox News website. Sure enough, the main headline and talking point is how heat can weaken the Coronavirus. Ok. So now I know where they got this from, let’s check on this “scientist who isn’t Fauci”.

https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-tech...illiam-n-bryan There isn’t a single thing in this guys bio that tells me I should listen to anything he has to say as it pertains to a novel coronavirus. But hey, he isn’t Fauci and Trump says Fauci is bad so we’ll take this “scientists” word at face value.

This whole scenario has played out over and over again on so many topics. It just amazes me how much power Fox and Trump have over 40%+ of the population.

[Atocep]

I going to go out on a limb and say the FDA Commissioner never imagined scenario where he had to tell the public not to ingest disinfectant in the middle of a pandemic.

[albionmoonlight]

States should always plan for a rainy day just like any business. I disagree that states should take Fed money or be bailed out. This will lead to taxpayers paying for mismanagement of poorly run states. States need to tighten up, make some cuts, and manage.

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 23, 2020

Honest good-faith question for the fiscal conservatives in this thread (who have valiantly stayed in a Trump thread to try and provide some small amount of balance to the force).

Nikki Haley says that the Feds should not bail out the states because the states should have rainy day funds to prepare for disasters like this.

How is that a conservative position? She says that states and counties and large cities across the country should have what would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money just sitting in rainy day funds.

Isn't the conservative position that if a state is running a consistent budget surplus that it should cut taxes and give that money back to the citizens? Do we really want the stewards of our public money building lots and lots of slack into the system to create these emergency accounts (which, let's be honest, would just become slush funds as soon as anyone without scruples got elected anyway).

This is not a question over how much a state/city/county government should do. I am sure we disagree over that. This is a question over how efficiently that government should run--regardless of its size. And Haley seems to be saying that they should all run inefficiently so that there's a lot of room there to absorb a once-in-a-century pandemic.

It seems like the real conservative approach should be to tell states/counties/cites to run very efficiently and to respond to budget surpluses with tax cuts. And, in exchange, the fed will have your back when there is a COVID, Katrina, etc. type situation.

Personally, I think that this is simply the GOP using COVID as an excuse to cripple state budgets.

But I am very open to being convinced otherwise. What is the non-"drown it in the bathtub" justification for not bailing out the states?

[albionmoonlight]

dola: I see she didn't say "rainy day fund." But she either means that or that states should intentionally be performing pointless services that they can eliminate to save money. So it's kind of the same thing.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I going to go out on a limb and say the FDA Commissioner never imagined scenario where he had to tell the public not to ingest disinfectant in the middle of a pandemic.

That clip between him, Cooper, and Gupta is so cringe-y.


SI

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

States should always plan for a rainy day just like any business. I disagree that states should take Fed money or be bailed out. This will lead to taxpayers paying for mismanagement of poorly run states. States need to tighten up, make some cuts, and manage.

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) April 23, 2020

Honest good-faith question for the fiscal conservatives in this thread (who have valiantly stayed in a Trump thread to try and provide some small amount of balance to the force).

Nikki Haley says that the Feds should not bail out the states because the states should have rainy day funds to prepare for disasters like this.

How is that a conservative position? She says that states and counties and large cities across the country should have what would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money just sitting in rainy day funds.

Isn't the conservative position that if a state is running a consistent budget surplus that it should cut taxes and give that money back to the citizens? Do we really want the stewards of our public money building lots and lots of slack into the system to create these emergency accounts (which, let's be honest, would just become slush funds as soon as anyone without scruples got elected anyway).

This is not a question over how much a state/city/county government should do. I am sure we disagree over that. This is a question over how efficiently that government should run--regardless of its size. And Haley seems to be saying that they should all run inefficiently so that there's a lot of room there to absorb a once-in-a-century pandemic.

It seems like the real conservative approach should be to tell states/counties/cites to run very efficiently and to respond to budget surpluses with tax cuts. And, in exchange, the fed will have your back when there is a COVID, Katrina, etc. type situation.

Personally, I think that this is simply the GOP using COVID as an excuse to cripple state budgets.

But I am very open to being convinced otherwise. What is the non-"drown it in the bathtub" justification for not bailing out the states?

At least on this topic she's consistent. The few and far between non-hypocrites.

[spleen1015]

Hey guys. We're saved! Injecting Lysol will save us from the Coronavirus.

[Mota]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Hey guys. We're saved! Injecting Lysol will save us from the Coronavirus.

Oh, he said to inject it? I just drank a bottle. Oh crap...

[Kodos]

Better wash that down with some bleach.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Hey guys. We're saved! Injecting Lysol will save us from the Coronavirus.

He's actually not wrong...

[albionmoonlight]

hXXps://local.theonion.com/man-just-buying-one-of-every-cleaning-product-in-case-t-1842493766

I hxxp'd the link b/c The Onion links have broken the board in the past.

This was written a month ago.

[whomario]

You guys laugh at it, but ...

Poison control sees spike in calls for cleaner, disinfectant accidents amid COVID-19 pandemic | Live Science

And the real number might be higher if you add the people who were 50/50 on seeking help and didn't that might have done so in normal times.

And that's just people screwing up or overreacting due to confusing information. So you better hope people do not interpret an insanely muddy message by the fucking president.

[JPhillips]

It's fine, Trump says he was just being sarcastic.

[QuikSand]

Fox News now in a dizzying spin on how everyone hosting tonight will scrap their circa 10am "yes, everyone should immediately go drink bleach" scripts, and instead go with the "come on, everyone can tell it was all just a joke" scripts.

[JPhillips]

I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,

Trump was outthinking all of us.