Trump IS the swamp. But I agree with much of your post. You're right, professional politicians of both parties have behaved in exactly the manner you describe, and I, as a Democrat, am anxious to see a major change ASAP. Trump wasn't that change. He's even more a part of that elite group you describe than Obama, or Pelosi, or McConnell, etc. are. We need politicians who break with the lobbyists throughout their campaign, and stay separated from them throughout their term of office. And we need that from both parties--though I can see the Democrats are beginning that process. Several of the newly elected members of the House, like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for example, rejected all campaign donations from the oil companies & other establishment lobbyist firms. We need more of that. I agree with you, we need to drain the swamp. And the swamp is the coercive wealthy elites, NOT professional government employees who have dedicated their lives to making government more responsive to public needs.
Your post is a good argument for why we need a national healthcare program that is designed from the ground up to provide health care to our citizens and NOT to make a profit. The government is possibly the best way to arrange and manage that, though for certain, it won't be perfect. Perhaps we could have private companies offer complementary insurance for those who want & can afford it.
We just received what conservative Republicans call a tax cut. If your post is accurate, that tax cut will dramatically affect the impact those border expenses have on us, both as a nation and as individuals. If Trump & his minions were so concerned about illegal immigration, why would they vote to reduce the money available to pay for existing programs to control that immigration? Sometimes I find human logic confusing. Lately, I've found conservative logic confoundingly illogical.
Unless you stop them on the Mexico side of the border, detaining them will just cost more. We don't just hold them for and hour and send them back. We spend $2.5 million just to give 'em a bed for the duration, not including health care, food and providing them with an attorney for immigration court. The wall prevents them from ever getting on our soil to need the above mentioned services. Doing anything else would just increase the detention costs. Why should we continue with this expense, who should pay for it and from where? Because when we deport a visa overstay, the only way back in is across the open border. The guy in San Francisco who killed Kate Steinle was deported and came back 5 times, the guy in Nevada or Utah who killed Sheriff's Deputies was deported 8 times and came back. The wall cuts off the route for deportees to return. These are just the ones they catch.
You keep moving the goal posts. YOu dont know how either of them works, yet you keep regurgitatating incorrect talking points
We all should be concerned about illegal immigration, but some of us on both sides of the aisle have our own selfish reasons (vote harvesting, cheap labor) for not being concerned. The problem we have right now are all the incentives we are paying for illegals to come and stay here. If we eliminated those incentives it would more than offset any cuts in funding for border enforcement and perhaps eliminate the need for more border security. This is an interview with the libertarian former congressman from Texas, Ron Paul: Of course, it will be a cold day in Hell before the Left and Democrats support such measures...
Your comment is pretty far out. The wall is to stop illegal immigrants. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO STOP TRADE or anything else that is legal. And so you agree that walls work -- but in your opinion only the elite "public servants" deserve protection.
How am I moving the goal post? I've been talking about Medicaid the entire time...you are the one that started talking about a totally different program called Medicare.
Except one is administered by the Federal Government and the other is administered by the statevernments.
Trump's estimate for the wall was $25B. Now, he wants $5B. And, you are still pretending Trump is demanding a full wall? And, since when did anyone care what white supremacists at Breitbart claim?
Every state gets electors based on the number of Senators plus the number of Representatives. All states get two Senators and every state gets at least one representative. Because of that, states with low population (such as wyoming) have FAR fewer people per elector than do populous states such as California. Do the math! Wyoming: 3 electors, 580k population California: 538 electors, 39,500k population Wyoming people per elector: 193k California people per elector: 718k A person in Wyoming has THREE TIMES as much clout in a presidential election than a person in California. Let's also remember that Wyoming has THREE congressmen, while Washington, DC, with MORE PEOPLE, has ZERO congressmen.
DC has more Americans than two other states, yet those citizens have no voting representation in the House or the Senate. In fact, DC is not even allowed to do its own business - they have to appeal decisions on taxation and spending to the outside authority of the House - in which they have no voting members.
Cute - you propose one of the most blatant lies about undocumented aliens as a solution to one of the fundamental problems with our system of representative government! That doesn't even work as a cartoon.
True - it's a little off topic, but someone a page or so back was making statements about how our system of representation works, and I decided to address that.