Harris decides on Tim Walz as running mate

[ThatRobGuy]

B is actually the real reason. "Don't give a inch" is the only reasonable position when facing an opponent who has made it clear that he won't give up until he has the mile.

...but is the republican position on immigration actually "the mile", or is theirs just closer to what most of Western Europe already does?

Keeping in mind, if the US Democrats want to pass some of the safety net and social benefit policies of Western Europe...it's almost a logistical requirement to have precision control over population numbers.

You can't plan well for certain spending without having some reasonable level of control over the headcount.

I've used the dinner party analogy, the more lavish/generous the dinner, the more crucial it is that I know how many people are going to going to be attending ahead of time.

If I planned for having 8 people over for steaks, and 12 people show up and I have to buy 4 additional steaks I wasn't planning on via my credit card, that's going to be an issue.

The solution to that problem wouldn't be "just let them attend now, an we'll just find a way to retroactively add them to the invite list", the issue is that if I'm budgeting for 8, I need to try to keep it as close to that number as possible.

 

[KCfromNC]

So you:

1. Won't answer any questions
2. Won't do any research

3. Won't be distracted by attempts to make this about me rather than a failure to be able to back up any of the talking points.

 

[BCP1928]

...but is the republican position on immigration actually "the mile", or is theirs just closer to what most of Western Europe already does?

Why do we have to want what Western Europe does? You're "packaging" these issues again; we were talking about abortion and gun control. And yes, sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote because of policies that are important to you. If you oppose one party's policy and think the other side is too extreme the other way, you may vote extreme because in the long run it will do less harm. This is especially true if the positions are ideological (which most of them seem to be these days) as a moderate you must decide on which ideology is the least noxious even if the position on a particular issue is not entirely satisfactory to you. The Christian Right is a good example of this. Many Republican policies are no more in line with Christian values than Democratic ones, less so, in the opinions of many Christians, but only Republicans will give them the sex laws they want, so they vote.
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Keeping in mind, if the US Democrats want to pass some of the safety net and social benefit policies of Western Europe...it's almost a logistical requirement to have precision control over population numbers.

You can't plan well for certain spending without having some reasonable level of control over the headcount.

You don't have to control it, you just have to know what it is.

I've used the dinner party analogy, the more lavish/generous the dinner, the more crucial it is that I know how many people are going to going to be attending ahead of time.

If I planned for having 8 people over for steaks, and 12 people show up and I have to buy 4 additional steaks I wasn't planning on via my credit card, that's going to be an issue.

The solution to that problem wouldn't be "just let them attend now, an we'll just find a way to retroactively add them to the invite list", the issue is that if I'm budgeting for 8, I need to try to keep it as close to that number as possible.

So you count them.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Why do we have to want what Western Europe does?

Safe to assume they have a lot more practice with budgeting for things like universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, extended paid family leave, and other programs of that nature, correct?

Their guardrails for such programs are
A) keeping somewhat tight controls of their borders
B) even when people are there legally after approval, they have to live, work, and pay taxes in the country before they're eligible to participate in any of the aforementioned benefits

You don't have to control it, you just have to know what it is.

If you wish to keep benefits programs solvent and adequately funded, your choices are

Control it...or scale down the benefits so that more people can collect on them without impacting the budget.


To continue on my dinner party analogy.

If I have budgeted for steaks for 8 based on a $150 budget.

If the plan is to "let me know ahead of time that it'll be 12 people and not 8", I still have the $150 to work with, so that means people won't be getting steak, they'll be getting pizza.


Many of the current Democratic proposals both A) ask for the benefits to be upgraded, while simultaneously proposing B) policy changes that will make the headcount even larger in ways that aren't easily predictable.

Without controlling the number of people coming in, the benefits people get will be weakened, not enhanced.

And some states that have rolled the dice on the approach have had it backfire.
Illinois tried it, by both having cities offer themselves up as sanctuary cities, while simultaneously trying to fast track the process of expanding certain social benefits.

Per Politico:
Illinois offers a cautionary tale for those concerned about costs. The number of undocumented adults who have signed up for Medicaid under the state’s coverage expansions exceeded the actuarial firm Milliman’s projections, according to the Department of Healthcare and Family Services. And, according to the state’s most recent public data, between March 2022 and February 2023, the program paid nearly twice in claims for covered adults than what Milliman projected, the department said.

“There’s historically been an assumption that takeup would be slow and low” Whitener said. “But it is not playing out that way”


Point of reference, Milliman is one of the world's top actuarial firms, it's the one that the United Nations partners with (for what that's worth)...it's their job to be able to predict expenses and costs, risk management, and evaluate statistics with a somewhat high degree of confidence. Despite their best efforts, they missed the mark, by quite a bit actually, as the programs ended up paying out double what their original projections were.

That would indicate that my stance has some validity, as if you're not controlling the head count (at least to some degree), it could be nearly impossible to make accurate projections for what things are going to end up costing.

 

[Hans Blaster]

To clarify, political parties don't need a favorable vote on the issues themselves, they just need people to vote for their party (or dislike the other party a little more)

For instance, if you look at the individual attitudes on gun control among republicans. The majority favor universal background checks, waiting periods, and mental health screening as part of the gun buying requirement. And just over half support the concept of gun registration.

That's obviously pretty far away from where the official "party position" on guns is at. However, they vote for republicans for reasons of "gun rights", despite their own position not being all that in-line with the party position.

If you get to select between Bill and Tom, as long as you vote for Tom, Tom doesn't necessarily care if you agree with him on each individual policy or not, because in a republic (indirect democracy), once Tom gets your vote, he can work on advancing whatever policies he wants, you (as an individual voter) won't be having a say on the minutia of federal level policy anyway, that's something he'll be hashing out with his colleagues.

Obviously everyone hopes that a legislator or president will see things their way on as many details of policy as possible, but in a nation with only 2 choices and 300,000,000 people, the odds of most people fitting neatly into one of two buckets is vanishingly rare.

Rob you are way overthinking this and it is making you look like you have some sympathy for the bigoted "replacement theory". I don't think you do.

Some version of that has been around for about 200 years in this country. It has always been about group X with their alien ways coming in to displace/replace regular/proper Americans (or more recently when the immigrants have become non-white, replace white people). If we dig hard enough I'm sure we can find some specific conspiracy theories about who was doing it and why. (There is probably at least one mid 19th century version that puts it down as a "Papist plot".) There was even an anti-immigrant political party that had enough power in the 1850s to elect a Speaker of the House.

This current iteration is quite racial in nature. (Like earlier versions of "replacement theory", they fear the displacement of "real Americans", but they also think only white people and perhaps narrower are "real Americans" anyway.) I have heard various "nefarious actors" behind the "replacement of white people" (Jews, Democrats, foreigners, etc.) from different promoters of the notion. Its all driven fear of the projections of demographic shift to "whites" from the majority.

Just leave the "replacement theory" stuff to the bigots.

The "Democratic strategy" doesn't really hold water. Who really believes that any political party thinks far enough ahead to promote the in-migration of people that might marginally help their voting total is a decade or more after they finally get citizenship. If I were a Democratic strategist that wanted to boost voting from immigrants, I would push through legislation that speeds up the citizenship process of people who are already here.

As far as what you mentioned regarding the motivation of the democrats? Obviously the "pack the electorate" is just a theory, but I've yet to hear any alternative theories that are as compelling as that for what reason US-Democrats have for trying to advance immigration policies that are actually to the left of Western European nations (that are often times more progressive as a whole on just about everything compared to us)

The nations that many progressives often claim they want to seek to emulate on a myriad of other policies, have immigration restrictions of their own that US progressives would label "draconian" if pitched by a republican.

The US has a long history of immigration of large scale in-migration of groups that are uncommon in the existing population. Europe doesn't

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The "Democratic strategy" doesn't really hold water. Who really believes that any political party thinks far enough ahead to promote the in-migration of people that might marginally help their voting total is a decade or more after they finally get citizenship. If I were a Democratic strategist that wanted to boost voting from immigrants, I would push through legislation that speeds up the citizenship process of people who are already here.

We're not talking about just "marginal" help though.

Quick question, if Texas flipped to blue for presidential elections, would the GOP ever win the presidency again?

Here's a recap of how 2020 went in that state:

A lax border policy in conjunction with a fast-track to citizenship (among a group that votes 2:1 democrat) could rack up more than a 600K net increase for Democratic votes, could it not?

The US has a long history of immigration of large scale in-migration of groups that are uncommon in the existing population. Europe doesn't

So wouldn't that be also taken into consideration when looking at the other end of the equation (the social benefits)

Like I noted, we often hear "we should do healthcare like Demark" or "we should do college like Finland"

You can offer the ability for large scale in-migration, or you can have robust social spending programs and safety nets, but there's no clean way to do both that doesn't involve either insane spending or insane borrowing in order to do the spending.

 

[wing2000]

A lax border policy in conjunction with a fast-track to citizenship (among a group that votes 2:1 democrat) could rack up more than a 600K net increase for Democratic votes, could it not?

No. You're assuming Latino voters (existing and new) would continue to support Democrats as they have in the past.

That's not a good assumption based on trends from 2016-2020:

"....there was about an 8 percentage-point swing toward Trump, based on data on votes cast for either the Democratic or Republican nominees in 2016 and 2020.

The data shows that many Latino voters, who represent the fastest-growing share of the electorate, are not firmly part of the Democratic base. Instead, they seem to be persuadable voters, presenting a potential opportunity for both Democrats and Republicans. This is especially true for voters who aren’t hyperpartisan: new and infrequent voters, as well as people who flipped their votes in 2020 or who decided to sit the election out entirely."

New data helps explain Trump’s gains among Latino voters in 2020

Democrats can’t afford to take Latino voters for granted.

www.vox.com

I understand Trump made similar gains in Florida.

 

[BCP1928]

We're not talking about just "marginal" help though.

Quick question, if Texas flipped to blue for presidential elections, would the GOP ever win the presidency again?

Here's a recap of how 2020 went in that state:
View attachment 353153

A lax border policy in conjunction with a fast-track to citizenship (among a group that votes 2:1 democrat) could rack up more than a 600K net increase for Democratic votes, could it not?


So wouldn't that be also taken into consideration when looking at the other end of the equation (the social benefits)

Like I noted, we often hear "we should do healthcare like Demark" or "we should do college like Finland"

You can offer the ability for large scale in-migration, or you can have robust social spending programs and safety nets, but there's no clean way to do both that doesn't involve either insane spending or insane borrowing in order to do the spending.

No, you can do it if you let in predictable numbers of people. You seem to be assuming that the number of admissions will remain unpredictable, and that immigrants are more likely to use safety net programs than "real" Americans. The amount of money required and available for safety net programs is proportional to the number of people working in the economy.

 

[civilwarbuff]

The amount of money required and available for safety net programs is proportional to the number of people working in the economy.

That would be incorrect.
The amount of money required is determined by the estimated number of people assumed to be in 'need' of "safety net programs" and the amount of money available for safety net programs is directly related to the number of people taxed and the rate at which they are taxed.
We are not taxed by 'proportion'. The last time that was used was in the Articles of Confederation where states were taxed in proportion of their population. Where did you get that idea from?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

No, you can do it if you let in predictable numbers of people. You seem to be assuming that the number of admissions will remain unpredictable, and that immigrants are more likely to use safety net programs than "real" Americans. The amount of money required and available for safety net programs is proportional to the number of people working in the economy.

But letting in predictable numbers of people would constitute "controlling the headcount" like mentioned earlier, is it not?

When I said "controlling the head count", I wasn't making a case for 0 immigration.


With regards to the second point: No, money required for safety net and benefits programs isn't proportional to the number of people working.

We have a progressive taxation system (not "progressive" as in ideology, progressive as in the rates go up as the incomes go up). So unless all parts of the income spectrum are being padded evenly by new arrivals, a large influx of people doesn't equate to a proportional increase in federal/state coffers for programs.

So for instance, if a government/country has a program that pays for healthcare or public college education with tax money.

Despite the cost per person that the government has to be being the same regardless of their income, people making $120k chipping in a higher percentage per usage for it than people making making $40k.

Or a different way of framing it.

The government stands to get more tax revenue from one $120k income than they do from four $30k incomes despite the gross totally up to the same amount.

$120k

$30k

(multiplied by 4 = $16,308)


So merely adding more people to the mix doesn't necessarily increase the revenues in proportion to the cost of providing the services.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

No. You're assuming Latino voters (existing and new) would continue to support Democrats as they have in the past.

That's not a good assumption based on trends from 2016-2020:

"....there was about an 8 percentage-point swing toward Trump, based on data on votes cast for either the Democratic or Republican nominees in 2016 and 2020.

The data shows that many Latino voters, who represent the fastest-growing share of the electorate, are not firmly part of the Democratic base. Instead, they seem to be persuadable voters, presenting a potential opportunity for both Democrats and Republicans. This is especially true for voters who aren’t hyperpartisan: new and infrequent voters, as well as people who flipped their votes in 2020 or who decided to sit the election out entirely."

New data helps explain Trump’s gains among Latino voters in 2020

Democrats can’t afford to take Latino voters for granted.

www.vox.com

I understand Trump made similar gains in Florida.

Florida's going to be a different story due to the Cuban population (which does lean right at a much higher rate than other Latino groups)

And the article from Vox was one that was perhaps overstating the swing...

The gains trump made (overall among that group) ended up only being a 3% upswing from where he was in 2016. He went from doing "just barely worse than McCain" to "just barely better than McCain"

The strategist from the Vox article saying "The Latino vote for Democrats was a borrowed vote and not one that's not yet solidified" seems odd. Once a voting pattern has been consistent for 35 years, I think we can agree it's something more than just a temporary phase that's easily malleable.

Latino's in the US (specifically ones from Mexican and Central American heritage) have been reliably voting Democratic for nearly as long as the "Moral Majority" politically captured the religious right (in the 80's during all the Jerry Falwell stuff).

If someone were to say that rural evangelical whites were "getable" votes for the Democrats "if the Democrats just made these couple of tweaks", it'd get laughed out of the room.

 

[BCP1928]

That would be incorrect.
The amount of money required is determined by the estimated number of people assumed to be in 'need' of "safety net programs" and the amount of money available for safety net programs is directly related to the number of people taxed and the rate at which they are taxed.

If that is true, then it is as I said, that the amount of money available will be proportional to the number of people taxed, that is, the number of people working in the economy.

We are not taxed by 'proportion'. The last time that was used was in the Articles of Confederation where states were taxed in proportion of their population. Where did you get that idea from?

Statistically speaking, if you are working you are taxed.

 

[BCP1928]

Latino's in the US (specifically ones from Mexican and Central American heritage) have been reliably voting Democratic for nearly as long as the "Moral Majority" politically captured the religious right (in the 80's during all the Jerry Falwell stuff).

It may be that you have struck a clue to this business right there.

 

[civilwarbuff]

If that is true, then it is as I said, that the amount of money available will be proportional to the number of people taxed, that is, the number of people working in the economy.

Did you delete part/all of your post that I quoted because it is no longer there.....? If not pls provide the post# so I can respond appropriately.

 

[civilwarbuff]

If that is true, then it is as I said, that the amount of money available will be proportional to the number of people taxed, that is, the number of people working in the economy.

No, the amount of money available is based on the tax rate/bracket that a person is in......it is not proportional unless you believe the taxes paid in NYS is proportional to what is paid in Iowa? 30% in NYS is the same as 30% in IA. The only difference is NYS people, on average, make higher wages than people in IA.....but that does not make it 'proportional'.

Statistically speaking, if you are working you are taxed.

That doesn't mean that it is proportional....

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It may be that you have struck a clue to this business right there.

I don't think the two are connected if that's what you're suggesting.

I was just drawing a parallel to how certain demographic groups can get "captured" by a political party, and those old habits don't break easily (even if the party itself strays far away from what those original values were)

For instance, many evangelical voters thought it was their Christian duty to for a GOP candidate (as they've been doing since the 80's) despite the candidate being someone who was a known adulterer, married 3 times, owned a vodka brand, owned a casino, and ran swimsuit pageants.

That never would've passed as an "acceptable Falwell-approved candidate" back in the 80's.


Now, I think one could make a case for the GOP's link to Christian Fundamentalism being the reason why they don't get a bigger portion of the Muslim vote. For the social issues (on paper), Muslims are actually to the right of Fundamentalist Christians in that regard, but will often vote for Democrats (who are on the other end of the spectrum on those issues).

 

[Hans Blaster]

We're not talking about just "marginal" help though.

Quick question, if Texas flipped to blue for presidential elections, would the GOP ever win the presidency again?

Here's a recap of how 2020 went in that state:
View attachment 353153

A lax border policy in conjunction with a fast-track to citizenship (among a group that votes 2:1 democrat) could rack up more than a 600K net increase for Democratic votes, could it not?


So wouldn't that be also taken into consideration when looking at the other end of the equation (the social benefits)

Like I noted, we often hear "we should do healthcare like Demark" or "we should do college like Finland"

You can offer the ability for large scale in-migration, or you can have robust social spending programs and safety nets, but there's no clean way to do both that doesn't involve either insane spending or insane borrowing in order to do the spending.

If any party wants to use ethnic demographics to change the outcome of elections, what they need to do is identify some immigrant group and convince them that your party will do good things for them. I agree that one way to convince immigrant groups that your party is looking out for them is to speed up the glacially slow naturalization process. It might leave the party with some good will.

Projecting forward a generation or so would be really difficult. Groups have changed their party orientation in the past and will in the future, etc.

 

[wing2000]

Florida's going to be a different story due to the Cuban population (which does lean right at a much higher rate than other Latino groups)

Agreed.

And the article from Vox was one that was perhaps overstating the swing...

View attachment 353169

The gains trump made (overall among that group) ended up only being a 3% upswing from where he was in 2016. He went from doing "just barely worse than McCain" to "just barely better than McCain"

The chart data reflects all states?

The strategist from the Vox article saying "The Latino vote for Democrats was a borrowed vote and not one that's not yet solidified" seems odd. Once a voting pattern has been consistent for 35 years, I think we can agree it's something more than just a temporary phase that's easily malleable.

Latino's in the US (specifically ones from Mexican and Central American heritage) have been reliably voting Democratic for nearly as long as the "Moral Majority" politically captured the religious right (in the 80's during all the Jerry Falwell stuff).

If someone were to say that rural evangelical whites were "getable" votes for the Democrats "if the Democrats just made these couple of tweaks", it'd get laughed out of the room.

....noting that an increasing amount of Latinos are evangelicals.

NYT Profiling a latino pastor in Las Vegas:
It is a path traversed by a growing number of Latino evangelicals, a group that is helping reshape and re-energize the Republican coalition. Long the party of white, conservative Christian voters, the G.O.P. has for years quietly courted Latino religious leaders like Mr. Perez, finding common ground on abortion, schools and traditional views about gender roles and family.

Donald J. Trump is now reaping the rewards of that work. Polls show his support among Hispanic voters hitting levels not seen for a Republican president in 20 years. If he wins the White House, he will have people like Mr. Perez — little-known figures with underappreciated power — to thank.

How One Latino Pastor Became a Foot Soldier for Trump

Republicans have spent years drawing Latino evangelicals into their fold. At one growing church in the Las Vegas suburbs, Donald J. Trump is reaping the benefits.

www.nytimes.com

And from March of this year:

Polls show that Mr. Trump’s standing with Latino voters has grown since his defeat in 2020, with some surveys finding him winning more than 40 percent of those voters — a level not seen for a Republican in two decades. That strength has Democrats playing defense to maintain the large majority of Latino voters whom they have relied on to win in recent years.

Latinos, Shifting Toward Trump, Land at the Center of the 2024 Campaign

Donald Trump’s rising support has turned many Latino voters into swing voters.

www.nytimes.com

Yes, Latinos overall still heavily lean to the Democratic party, but that appears to be changing for Latinos who identify as "Evangelicals".

 

[BCP1928]

I don't think the two are connected if that's what you're suggesting.

I was just drawing a parallel to how certain demographic groups can get "captured" by a political party, and those old habits don't break easily (even if the party itself strays far away from what those original values were)

For instance, many evangelical voters thought it was their Christian duty to for a GOP candidate (as they've been doing since the 80's) despite the candidate being someone who was a known adulterer, married 3 times, owned a vodka brand, owned a casino, and ran swimsuit pageants.

That never would've passed as an "acceptable Falwell-approved candidate" back in the 80's.


Now, I think one could make a case for the GOP's link to Christian Fundamentalism being the reason why they don't get a bigger portion of the Muslim vote. For the social issues (on paper), Muslims are actually to the right of Fundamentalist Christians in that regard, but will often vote for Democrats (who are on the other end of the spectrum on those issues).

I know, correlation does not equal causation, but I find the coincidence intriguing because that is about the time I left the Republican Party, at least partly due to ideas acquired during an RC education.

 

[BCP1928]

Yes, Latinos overall still heavily lean to the Democratic party, but that appears to be changing for Latinos who identify as "Evangelicals".

And a 3rd Great Awakening might turn most of the rest, and there goes that plan that you think that the Democrats have.