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Family Separation at the Border: US citizens are now being detained

PhDeac said:
History isn’t deceiving. We deceive ourselves. We teach ourselves that everyone was sad when JFK, MLK, and RFK were assassinated. No. Plenty of people were happy about it because those three men directly threatened their way of life. Those people have came of age during the Civil Rights Era and have been working to dial the clock back to before that era.

We teach ourselves that Nixon was a crook and everybody knew it and acknowledged it. No. He had plenty of support throughout the Watergate investigation. Those people think the problem is Republicans didn’t fight the facts. They’ve been working to build a conservative echo chamber to withstand Walter Cronkite to make sure the people won’t turn against their President. They are making sure the Supreme Court is on their side as well.

We don’t truly learn our history. Now we are repeating it. We are in a new Civil Rights Era. We are in a new Watergate. One side has been preparing for war. The other side thought the battles were fought and won.
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My Grandma was living in Meridian, MS at the time of JFK’s death and she told me people were celebrating for weeks afterwards since a Catholic wasn’t president anymore.
 
Strickland33 said:
There are good reasons reason that the left criticized Obama for being Deporter-in-Chief and Bill Clinton (rather than the right) for fathering mass incarceration, the foreclosure crisis, and welfare reform.

I’m a fan of being honest. I’m a registered Dem and I vote pretty much straight ticket. I do that because I find most of the right repugnant and there hasn’t been a viable far left candidate in a general election in my lifetime. My political end game is to lift up as many people as possible. I may never have the portfolio that you do, but that’s just not what I believe in.

All of that is to say, to say that the Democratic Party cares about working class Americans is a joke.
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Lift up which people? Working class Americans? Working Class People around the world? Because those aims often conflict with each other. Bernie Sanders isn't nearly as pro-immigration is a lot on the far left because he realizes the disconnect between open immigration with an easy quick path to citizenship and desire to massively expand the welfare state.

I think establishment Democrats care about the working class of America. They're just more cognizant of The Balancing Act between promoting Innovation and growth which ends up funding welfare programs and the general welfare programs that support the citizens of the country
 
texasdeac said:
My Grandma was living in Meridian, MS at the time of JFK’s death and she told me people were celebrating for weeks afterwards since a Catholic wasn’t president anymore.
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How many of those same people are celebrating Trump nominating a Catholic to the Supreme Court? Progress!
 
ALL POSSIBLE RESPONSES TO “THEY SHOULD GET IN LINE AND DO IT THE RIGHT WAY, THE WAY MY FAMILY DID,” WITH CITATIONS (ALSO JOKES)
https://www.facebook.com/notes/matt...do-it-the-right-way-the-wa/10155288583987693/

[h=3]2/ “THESE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE JUST GOTTEN IN LINE, AND IF THEY WANT A CHANCE NOW THEY CAN GO TO THE BACK OF THE LINE!”[/h]
  • A line, you say?
    • Where is this line
    • Where does it start
    • How long is it
    • Are there bathrooms?
    • It seems like maybe there should be bathrooms.
  • THERE IS NO LINE
    • For real, I promise.


[h=3]3/ “WHATEVER, THEY SHOULD DO IT THE RIGHT WAY AND GET THEIR PAPERS NOW”[/h]
  • Which way is that?
  • Like, how do you *actually* do it
  • No, please, go ahead you were saying
    • How does it work
    • How much does it cost
    • What are the exact legal requirements for applying
  • Which papers?
    • What are they
    • How long do these papers allow them to stay
    • What do they look like
    • How does one get them
    • What are they called
  • Did you mean a greencard (aka “lawful permanent residence”), because there are really only a few narrow and often lengthy paths to those as of 2018 and most of them are unavailable to people who have ever been undocumented or out of status, and never would have been available to them before they came here.
    • We can debate the merits of how visas should be awarded and how many should be available, but I’m really over doing that with anyone who doesn’t take the time to understand the system that we actually have and just wants to keep going on about “the line.”
  • Did you mean citizenship, because immigrants have to have been a greencard holder for at least five years (three if married to a U.S. citizen) before applying, so see above.
  • Do you think it’s possible that you’ve never actually given any serious thought to how the modern American immigration system actually works in practice and have just always assumed that it’s something like how it worked at Ellis Island back when your family immigrated--or at the very least had something to do with generally applying for an immigrant visa
    • No?
    • What if I told you that… it seemed like maybe you hadn’t?
    • That’s totally okay! If you were born here, you’ve probably just never had to think about it before. I didn’t either before I started doing this work.
    • And now I get to think about it 24/7, so here we are.
  • THERE IS NO LINE
 
[h=3]9/”ARE YOU SERIOUSLY DEFENDING PEOPLE WHO CAME TO THE UNITED STATES WITHOUT A VISA?”[/h]
  • Well, yes. That’s my *actual job*
    • But that’s not the point
  • The point is that if you are a third (and, in many cases, second) generation American your family almost certainly didn’t come with a visa.
  • And even if they did, before 1965 it was as simple as applying for and receiving one from the general pool of available visas from your country when your number was up.
  • Either way, all of this was so totally different from today’s system that “my family did it the right way” as a response to those who came without inspection or overstayed their visas as if that ends the argument is… not helpful.
    • Imagine bragging that “My family has been using iPhones for four generations!”
    • Or “My family in the U.S. goes back to the Mayflower, and we’ve always paid our income taxes every generation since then” (there was no annual federal income tax until 1913)
    • Or “After extensive genealogical research going back to 1636, I am proud to announce that *none* of my ancestors were *ever* convicted of carjacking!”
    • To anyone who knows anything about the actual history of U.S. immigration law and policy, that’s pretty much what “my family did it the right way, why can’t these people?” sounds like.
  • There are serious, adult conversations to be had about immigration policy, and I’m always down to have them.
    • It is not at all necessarily racist, bigoted, or xenophobic to want to consider different policies which would regulate how many people should be allowed to come to the U.S. each year, and to debate what should disqualify applicants from a visa.
    • Like every public policy issue, there is certainly a reasonable range of opinion to be had here and so long as your arguments aren’t based (explicitly or implicity) in prejudice against race, religion, or national origin I’m here for that.
  • But it’s just extremely unhelpful to bring up your family’s immigration history as some kind of argument-ending objective fact to demonstrate that your family was better or more law-abiding than today’s immigrants.
    • Seriously, it just makes no sense at all, and I would be very happy if everything I just wrote above convinced even one person to stop doing it.
  • THERE IS NO LINE
 
We need comprehensive immigration reform.



Not seeing it happening anytime soon.
 
ChrisL68 said:
They're just more cognizant of The Balancing Act between promoting Innovation and growth which ends up funding welfare programs
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That is corporate trickle down deregulatory rhetoric. The modern welfare state has not grown in proportion with modern economic growth/GDP. Income hasn't gone up proportionally either, in fact it has actually gone down in relation.

There is no question that our economy requires a certain amount of annual growth, but in the current era of efficiency driven technocracy, national economic growth does not directly contribute to general welfare and equality as has been traditionally argued.
 
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
That is corporate trickle down deregulatory rhetoric. The modern welfare state has not grown in proportion with modern economic growth/GDP. Income hasn't gone up proportionally either, in fact it has actually gone down in relation.

There is no question that our economy requires a certain amount of annual growth, but in the current era of efficiency driven technocracy, national economic growth does not directly contribute to general welfare and equality as has been traditionally argued.
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No, it is non democratic socialist reality. US social spending is about 20% of GDP compared to 25% on average for most of your Euro countries, but it doesn't factor in that most of our health care spending is employer based, and we have a fair bit of redistribution in the tax code and through programs like EITC.

That's why most economists are negative about massive spending increases on entitlements without fixing these aspects of the tax code.
 
ChrisL68 said:
No, it is non democratic socialist reality. US social spending is about 20% of GDP compared to 25% on average for most of your Euro countries, but it doesn't factor in that most of our health care spending is employer based, and we have a fair bit of redistribution in the tax code and through programs like EITC.

That's why most economists are negative about massive spending increases on entitlements without fixing these aspects of the tax code.
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Que?
 
ChrisL68 said:
No, it is non democratic socialist reality. US social spending is about 20% of GDP compared to 25% on average for most of your Euro countries, but it doesn't factor in that most of our health care spending is employer based, and we have a fair bit of redistribution in the tax code and through programs like EITC.

That's why most economists are negative about massive spending increases on entitlements without fixing these aspects of the tax code.
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Those are just bad libertarian talking points.

1. "Social Spending', as measured by your OECD quote of 20%, already factors in redistributive tax measures

2. 5% of GDP is a HUGE difference

3. It's far more accurate to measure Social Spending vs poverty level, or consumption, rather than as percentage of GDP.

4. The US expends far more resources on tax incentives for private social spending than any other country, which is shown determinatively throughout history to be VERY inefficient in addressing poverty.

4. As a proportion of total health care spending, the US has far less public health care spending than any other developed nation. We still spend more per capita on health care than other countries with socialized health care because our mixed private/public system is very inefficient.



https://peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/26/the-u-s-spends-far-too-little-on-social-welfare/

https://mises.org/wire/social-expenditures-us-are-higher-all-other-oecd-countries-except-france

https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm

1a38885d81a1b995b5655366b50e21b8.jpg
 
I support universal health care, but I think the German model makes more sense for us. I agree that our healthcare system is inefficient, and we should look to models that reduce cost and provide coverage to everybody.

I read the OECD guidelines and apparently they do now include true redistribution tax payments like EITC, but they are certainly are not including the highly progressive nature of our federal tax code in social spending. I am glad they have changed their methodology because when I have looked at this in the past they didn't include those measures in social spending. I am glad they changed that. Most of these other countries also take a much higher % of tax revenues using consumption taxes than we do, which is highly regressive.

I think if we fixed the discrepancies in our healthcare delivery system, we would be most of the way back to our peers.
 
HHS and ORR preparing for increased influx of minors (either unaccompanied or through separation). It pans to pay for this by reallocating funds from the Ryan White Funds and the Refugee Resettlement program.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...dgeting-for-a-surge-in-child-separations.html (by the way, the numbers given by the Sec. of DHHS for separated minors are low, the actual numbers are around 4000+)

The internal documents estimate that if 25,400 beds are needed, ORR would face a budget shortfall of $585 million for ORR in fiscal year 2018, which ends on Sept. 30. Under this scenario, that shortfall would increase to $1.3 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019, adding up to a total shortfall of $1.9 billion for the period between Oct. 1, 2017, and Dec. 31, 2018. The documents stress that these budget estimates represent maximum possible expenditures and that actual expenses may be lower.

To help cover these potential costs, the documents say, HHS will seek supplemental appropriations from Congress. The documents also indicate that HHS plans to pay for child separation by reallocating money from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which, according to its website, “provides a comprehensive system of care that includes primary medical care and essential support services for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured.” Per the documents, the process of transferring those HIV/AIDS funds has already begun.

In addition, HHS plans to reallocate $79 million from programs for refugee resettlement, a move that could imperil social services, medical assistance, and English language instructions for refugees in the U.S., as well as programs for torture survivors.
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ChrisL68 said:
I support universal health care, but I think the German model makes more sense for us. I agree that our healthcare system is inefficient, and we should look to models that reduce cost and provide coverage to everybody.

I read the OECD guidelines and apparently they do now include true redistribution tax payments like EITC, but they are certainly are not including the highly progressive nature of our federal tax code in social spending. I am glad they have changed their methodology because when I have looked at this in the past they didn't include those measures in social spending. I am glad they changed that. Most of these other countries also take a much higher % of tax revenues using consumption taxes than we do, which is highly regressive.

I think if we fixed the discrepancies in our healthcare delivery system, we would be most of the way back to our peers.
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I would certainly hope not as taxing is not spending. I also wouldn’t call our tax code “highly progressive.”
 
RChildress107 said:
I would certainly hope not as taxing is not spending. I also wouldn’t call our tax code “highly progressive.”
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it is the most progressive tax system in the world. If you don't want to believe me then believe the oecd. And taxing is very closely related to spending. If a family is making $50,000 a year and I tax them $10,000 instead of $20,000, and then turn around and give them the extra $10,000 I tax them as social spending, then aren't you in the exact same spot? https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...axes-really-are-unusually-progressive/252917/
 
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The tax code got significantly less progressive effective January 1, 2018. It will be interesting to see what this analysis looks like now that we've blown a giant hole in our budget to give giant tax cuts to the top 1%.

I am familiar with the comparative progressiveness of our tax code vs. other countries (mainly, as pointed out, because most of them have VATs which are regressive). However, the net redistribution of our system, taken as a whole, is significantly less progressive because of our massive spending on the military and incarceration, and comparative lack of public spending on health care and higher education. Thus in the US, upper income people pay more taxes but they perceive they get less for their money than similarly situated people in Europe. the top 10% here pay big taxes, but still get killed with health insurance and college costs. They don't see the "benefits" of a giant military and prison-industrial complex in their own lives. I think this dynamic largely fuels some of the rabid anti-tax sentiment we have in the US.
 
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