We shouldn't be giving Ukraine one dime to extend this war. They're inevitably going to lose and it's time to negotiate to saves lives. As for Israel, is there some reason we're providing funding for their ill thought out plan to turn Gaza into a burnt cinder and permantely mess up the lives of 2 million mostly innocent Palestianians (50% of whom are under the age of 18)? Don't get it.
As for the border, I wouldn't trade on this issue. If the Dems want to continuing having a porius border the Southern States will continuing busing new friends to Northern Dem run cities. It's their call when to cry "uncle".
Democrats’ Border Unreality
Republicans turn out to be serious about reforming asylum and parole rules.
By Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ
Dec. 7, 2023 4:39 pm ET
Think of the Senate’s failed Wednesday vote on Ukraine and Israel funding as the early stages of Democratic grief—denial, anger, bargaining. It seems Republicans are serious about border security after all. Will depression give way to Democratic acceptance?
The unified Republican opposition to the vote sent a clear message to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his liberal troops, who’ve labored to ignore what’s been politically plain for months. In August, when the White House asked for a further $24 billion in Ukraine aid, it recognized the Republican price of more foreign aid would be greater national security at the southern border. That’s why Joe Biden’s August funding request paired Ukraine dollars with an additional $4 billion for border security.
The White House’s mistake was betting it could simply buy off the opposition. Senate Republicans had swallowed that lure in the past. More than 16 of them—including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—had rushed to help the Biden White House pass blowout bipartisan infrastructure and semiconductor bills. And so the administration stuck with its money-solves-all approach, in October upping its border offer to $6.4 billion in return for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan dollars.
But the crisis at the border made this approach untenable. Daily crossings are again surging toward unprecedented levels. Republicans worry about the growing risk of a terrorist incursion across the southern line. And they know they’ll get no credit for greenlighting cash that is essentially used to facilitate today’s open-border policies. For more than a month, the GOP has made clear that the only trade to be made is real policy change on asylum and parole rules in return for Ukraine dollars.
The White House’s problem—and by extension Mr. Schumer’s—is the Democratic left. Policies that slow the border flow would help Mr. Biden and vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election. The president is facing crises abroad and home, his poll numbers are dismal; signing a Ukraine and Israel aid bill would count as a real political win.
But progressive lawmakers and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are furious, decrying any changes to the status quo as unacceptable. The left might be able to swallow a change to the asylum standard, but they are refusing to budge on the parole issue—since that is Mr. Biden’s tool to allow into the country sweeping categories of noncitizens who otherwise lack a legal basis for admission. Lawmakers on the left also want to keep the asylum and parole issues as bargaining chips for a future debate over paths to citizenship.
Joe Biden remains terrified of his party’s left, which is why instead of coming to an agreement with the GOP—something that could have happened weeks ago—the White House has been running every play in the book. It tried the anger approach—berating Republicans as unreasonable and arguing the border is unrelated to national security. It tried fear-mongering. Mr. Biden warned this week that failure to pass the package immediately will lead to a Russian incursion into NATO lands and U.S. boots on the ground. It tried the straw-man ruse, suggesting there was no time to negotiate comprehensive immigration reform—when nobody was thinking that big in the first place.
Mr. Schumer tried the bargaining tactic, offering to give the GOP “an amendment vote for a border package entirely of their choosing, no conditions.” That one had Republicans in stitches. They knew Mr. Schumer would set the level for amendment passage at 60 votes and hold back enough Democrats to ensure failure—even as he allowed vulnerable red-state Democrats like Montana’s Jon Tester to help himself by voting for a doomed border security package. Even Republicans aren’t that dumb.
Wednesday’s failed vote also made that point, and Democrats are already glumly beginning to confront facts. “Senators work to revive border talks after foreign aid face plant,” explained Politico, noting that Mr. Biden has now “cracked the door open to further Democratic concessions.” Republicans know they have real leverage and came out of the vote reiterating core demands of tougher asylum requirements and a reduction in mass releases of immigrants into the U.S.
The White House has everything to gain by taking the lead in crafting a deal and then persuading Senate Democrats to help produce a strong bipartisan vote that would put pressure on the House to follow suit. Mr. Biden might have had his foreign aid already if he had been willing to confront the left and make a deal that would help both the president and the country. Better late than never.
Write to kim@wsj.com.
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