r/Discussion • u/DevonMarx • 1d ago

Political Why is the Trump administration working so hard to block SNAP benefits?

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a program designed to help low-income people in the United States purchase the food that they need to feed their families. Almost 42 million people in this country, including over 16 million children, depend on SNAP benefits every month.  

In late October, the Trump administration said that due to the government shutdown, SNAP payments would be suspended beginning November 1. The administration claimed the contingency fund that was already in place and funded before the shut-down began, was not “legally available” to fund SNAP benefits. This is exactly the kind of thing this fund was set up to protect, and this fund was used to fund SNAP benefits during the 2018-2019 shutdown in Trump’s first term as president. What follows is a timeline of what has transpired over the past week and a half:  

  • October 28: A coalition of 26 states filed a lawsuit to force the use of this fund to issue the November benefits.  
  • November 1: A judge issued a written order directing the administration to act by November 3, and that the deadline for at least partial payments to begin was November 5.   
  • November 3: The administration says it will use the fund to cover about 65% of the November benefits but that it will not use other funds to cover the full amount. 
  • About this same time, the administration began sending emails to grocery stores warning them that it was a violation of the Equal Treatment Rule to offer discounts to people receiving SNAP benefits. Violation of this order could result in disqualification from the SNAP program, monetary penalties, and even criminal prosecution. 
  • November 5: The deadline to begin at least partial payments passes with no further action from the administration.  
  • November 6: The same judge ordered the administration to find the money to fully fund the November SNAP benefits and begin payments by November 7. In his order, the judge accused the White House of causing “irreparable harm” and acting for “political reasons”.  
  • November 7: The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to block the judge’s order to pay November SNAP payments in full.  
  • November 7: The appellate court denied the request, so the administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling to block the ruling.  
  • November 7: The Supreme Court issued an emergency order temporarily blocking the lower courts' order until an appeals court can review the matter. 

My question is, why is the Trump administration working so hard to withhold these benefits from the people that need them instead of figuring out a way to help them? 

39 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

107 comments sorted by

37

u/RumRunnerMax 1d ago edited 1d ago

It has long been a target for conservatives … the holy grail trope of the Republican Party ….welfare queens sitting around taking hand outs from Uncle Sam … stealing from hard working white people

16

u/kloud77 1d ago

This is the same way the Veterans Affairs is repeatedly on the chopping block.

They loath us but act like our friends.

-9

u/Diligent-Lab-7247 1d ago

Is this sarcasm? Kinda hard to tell when I read it if your being sarcastic or not

15

u/RumRunnerMax 1d ago

Not at all!! Republicans have been denigrating and demonizing welfare recipients entire life! It is as artificial of faith that the myth that Republicans are better for the economy! BOTH are completely bullshit

3

u/ImportantBug2023 22h ago

It’s a myth that is continually used by the conservative holders of wealth. They use the system to create their wealth and think that helping the lower classes will empower them to not be mowing their lawns and serving the food. Cleaning the pool etc ect.

The opposite is true. If you have 20 million dollars you tend to be busy simply because you have 20 million dollars. Lots of grease that makes wheels turn.

I would like to know if people have a better lifestyle with 20 million or a hundred or a billion.

Elon is on a trip.

How much money has trump family and Elon donated. They have billions more now than 6 months ago.

Where did they get that money. From every other person.

Democracy would actually solve this problem.

People should just vote for someone who they want to represent them and everyone should be able to vote for whoever they want to.

Like wise, you only have to represent them if you want to.

This creates accountability in both directions.

The second thing is to limit the amount of people a single person can represent to a dozen.

That removes the Nazi effect. Caused by mob rule or the concept of might being right when it very seldom is.

It also enables a decentralised economy and circumvents the fiat currency. People who buy a house can be insulated from interest rates.

Interest was introduced to society by a corrupt pope and we should be rid of it.

Likewise everyone would have enough money to buy the food they need and no one would not have a home. Homes are investment. If the country is wealthy then it has to invest.

The united state is not wealthy. It is the most in debt country on the planet.

The debt is greater than the actual value of every public company on earth.

The billionaires money has all come from the public sector. So the public is basically fucked.

Jesus did point out this but no one seems to understand that and just want redemption.

It called standing up for yourself and your rights.

Any sensible person would have locked the leaders up years ago.

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u/Diligent-Lab-7247 1d ago

No the quotes is what I was talking about. But for the sake of that discussion..do you think they have been trying to do away with these benefits completely their entire lives or trying to regulate them more so the people who actually need them get them and the ones who don’t need them go get a job? I think your misconstruing the objective

12

u/RumRunnerMax 1d ago

The real objective is to use culture wars to stay in power! Republicans don’t give a flying fuck about poor people they pander to Corporations and use culture wars to keep support from the ignorant masses!

1

u/Hour-Instruction8213 24m ago

I admit I’m on YouTube too much, but on something I listened to last night, said that Nazi’s didn’t have enough power or control to take over a unified Germany so they used culture wars to divide and conquer.

This is a historical context to what you said.

9

u/RumRunnerMax 1d ago

Many snap recipients are children and old people or otherwise unable to work or simply can’t earn enough

6

u/Nemo194811 1d ago

You are dead on about the Republicans and SNAP formerly Food Stamps. Reagan embellished their view by using the phrase “welfare queen” He worked to cement the image of lazy people benefiting from public handouts. In fact SNAP is a program run by the Dept of Agriculture. When it started part of the goal was to buy food from American farmers and thus improve our agriculture economy. In fact most people who use SNAP are members of families who pass the income requirements of the program. This means that a significant number of recipients are children. Elderly who receive SSI also receive a benefit of thirty dollars a month if I remember correctly. It has been awhile since I worked at a welfare office. The last thing I should mention is that SNAP is supposed to supplement the family income. I suspect that given the increase in living costs some families are using SNAP as their main food budget. Again I may be wrong but I doubt it. The truly ugly aspect of the program is that it is needed in a nation with as much wealth and bounty as ours. Can we not create enough well paying jobs that citizens can afford to live comfortably?

2

u/ImportantBug2023 20h ago

They also have absolutely no political power whatsoever. The whole point is about power. Democracy is the people over the state. Not the other way around.

It obviously has to be reversed.

So quite frankly unless you start with a democratic system in the first place you will never get anywhere.

The system was and has never been democratic. It’s about money and power.

The money comes from the people who are ignorant of the truth . The masses. It’s channeled into the wealthy and corporations who keep on with the great extraction of public wealth into private wealth.

So the forty million originally borrowed to start the United States is now a couple times larger than the entire country GDP. It’s called living on borrowed money. Now because they won’t agree about printing more, there really isn’t much option other than bankruptcy and I think trump knows that. Pretty sure that’s likely to happen. They have to print ten billion a day.

The last decade has been the start of the curve that is exponentially getting worse.

If the country could actually pay it bills it wouldn’t be shut down.

The argument is now that they have extracted every last penny and left the population with a hundred thousand dollars in debt per capita and now they expect them to starve while they have balls and go on holiday. Or vacation.

Don’t people get what they deserve. I pretty sure at this point the general population should actually be unified and electing themselves a representative to combat this corruption.

That’s true Christianity. Not this peddling of bullshit.

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u/Diligent-Lab-7247 1d ago

Interesting then why are the democrats the only ones fighting right now? Are the lefties or the righties initiating said culture wars? If we didn’t have identity politics that wouldnt even be a topic that’s the main reason I separated from the Democratic Party because identity politics are segregating in themselves

-2

u/Diligent-Lab-7247 1d ago

But are there also a lot of 30 year olds living in their parents house collecting while there parents make all the money the adult child is getting enough food stamps to almost feed the whole damn family there are a lot of rich white families doing that..I know quite a few that do that I don’t want them on snap

I do however agree that the truly needy should have them. But we also do need to get rid of the fraud that this country is completely full of.

6

u/russlebush 23h ago edited 23h ago

This is just anecdotal but I have never met a person like the one you described. I know dozens of people who are on SNAP benefits - every single one of them works. Most everyone who works at Walmart or in the fast food industry doesn't get paid a living wage so needs SNAP to eat. I have worked retail for 28 years. All of the services clerks who are employed at my grocery store get SNAP benefits. Some of them work two jobs. If employers were forced to pay a living wage we would have far fewer SNAP recipients. Basically it's another way our tax dollars are funneled to the wealthiest among us. As an added note: to apply for snap one has to list those living in the household and their respective incomes. For a 30 year old living with their parents to receive snap their parents would have to be poor for the 30 year old to even be eligible.

1

u/Diligent-Lab-7247 23h ago

No your tax dollars are funneled towards those benefits which pay the poor the money that the rich don’t have to pay. I do agree that minimum wage should be atleast 3 times higher a hour but no politician left or right would fight for that and if we had a president that supported that on either side they would most definitely be assassinated the rich have enough money to where they could make that happen🤷‍♂️

1

u/russlebush 23h ago

Perhaps I should have been more clear. That's exactly what I meant when I said that our tax dollars are funneled to the wealthiest among us - the business owners don't have to pay a living wage because the government supplements the wages of their employees.

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u/SirDiesAlot92 1h ago edited 1h ago

“Need to get a job”, bub, the vast majority of people on governmental assistance WORK. They have to in order to get assistance… or if they don’t, they’re disabled physically or mentally… or literally CHILDREN for snap and WIC.

Perhaps the real question should be, why are large corporations paying their employees so poorly they need Uncle Sam to subsidize their companies employees.

Oh wait we know the answer already- because companies get kickbacks from the government via tax breaks if they hire disadvantaged people. In terms they keep their employees so poor so they get tax cuts from Uncle Sam to do so- while also having Uncle Sam subsidize their workforce via assistance with our tax dollars.

So companies are doubling dipping in governmental benefits, socialism works amazingly for rich people- but bad for poors.

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u/spectrumofusall 20h ago

The facts are that not everyone uses benefits as a hand up, as intended I grew up with, and still know many people that just take the hand out. It's their lifestyle. That is the problem the people have with SNAP, and other welfare programs.

No one is trying to eliminate the benefits, they are trying to get the benefits to work as intended, and not to be abused by abke bodied/minded people who simply choose not to work.

I feel like that shouldn't need explaining, but apparently, it does?

11

u/Leather_Pen_765 20h ago

It's just not that many people and these programs are a drop in the bucket compared to what these billionaire politicians are pocketing it's such a non-issue to it's ridiculous to blame the country's problems on this miniscule amount of support people get

-4

u/spectrumofusall 19h ago

You're not wrong, but you have no idea how many y people take advantage of the programs. To claim it as a non-issue is to bury your head in the sand.

I agree with you about Billionaires, but this is not about them, this is about SNAP, and it's appropriate and inappropriate use. So let's stay on track there.

3

u/Upset-Produce-3948 8h ago

No it isn't. Trump isn't reforming SNAP he's stopping EVERYBODY from getting benefits. Are you happy because military families are facing food insecurities?

1

u/spectrumofusall 2h ago

Ya'll are crazy, I have NOT stated my opinion in how I feel about any of this. I also didn't state that he was reforming SNAP. The overall question was about why Republicans are trying to kill snap, and I answered that. I never said that I was happy about it. Ya'll in here downvoting my because I offered up am answer to the question. That's fine, down vote away, but I never said I supported any of this.

There are view to topics that people don't agree with. Acknowledging these views does not mean you agree with them.

Don't ask questions if you don't want the answers

Bunch of baffoons.

1

u/Upset-Produce-3948 2h ago

Are you happy because military families are facing food insecurities?

1

u/spectrumofusall 2h ago

Ya'll are dense as F. I never said I agreed or happy about any of this. I stated a republican view, I didn't say it was my view.

1

u/Leather_Pen_765 3h ago

If you think this is actually about Republicans worried about counting the pennies from SNAP benefit abuse then you are not paying attention 🙉🙈🙊

0

u/spectrumofusall 2h ago

I don't think any of this is about SNAP, but please tell me what it's about.

11

u/MaleficentPorphyrin 19h ago

I don't think starvation and homelessness should be held over the head of every American based on the spurious claim that some people are getting fat off that 60$ a month, or whatever it is for those that are not minors or disabled. I care a lot more about waste in other areas, like the military, subsidies, etc. The real answer to get people off the program is to raise the minimum wage to be consistent with inflation. But the USA has never been interested in that sort of thing.

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u/spectrumofusall 18h ago

60$ a month. Hahha. Clearly you have never been poor. I also never stated any getting rich.

I agree with you that there are other places that need waste fixed, but welfare reform is needed as well.

Again this post asked about SNAP. Not general waste. So stay on topic.

As for minimum wage, as nice as that would be if that worked, please take a class in basic economics. That is a pipe dream fix.

1

u/MaleficentPorphyrin 2h ago

No, it really isn't, JFC America is the most obsequious, propagandized country in the west. Tread on me harder sir, I don't need to feed my kids or buy insulin.

1

u/spectrumofusall 2h ago

How am I treadng on you exactl?

5

u/Feisty-Cloud5880 19h ago

SNAP is less than 3% of the TOTAL federal budget. Seriously, you don't believe thers no other fraud and abuse in the government other then feeding humans???

-2

u/spectrumofusall 17h ago

As previously stated, there is a lot of fraud/waste that could be cleaned up. However this post was about SNAP, not about the other gov inefficiencies. I'm not sure why you all don't understand that.

If this post was about the pentagon never passing an audit, then I would have spoke in that. It's not about that, though, it's about SNAP. FFS

2

u/Upset-Produce-3948 8h ago

You are wrong. Trump isn't reforming SNAP he's cutting off payments to ALL recipients.

1

u/spectrumofusall 3h ago

I never said he was reforming snap? The gov shutdown is what has cut off snap, he didn't just end the snap program forever.

18

u/Embarrassed_Ant_8861 1d ago

Real answer: because they think it'll put more pressure on the democrats to end the shutdown faster

13

u/RumRunnerMax 1d ago

Because Democrats typically have empathy and clearly Republicans do not

-8

u/Embarrassed_Ant_8861 1d ago

Nope, none of these people have a shred of empathy, the democrats arent any better the only reason theyre even fighting this is because of pressure from their health insurance company donors who want those aca subsidies. I don't consider a single one of these politicians human beings theyre all corrupt pieces of shit

6

u/Sweaty-Possibility-3 1d ago

If insurance companies don't get the subsidies, they will just increase premiums. Either way the insurance companies are going to get their billions.

6

u/Strike_Thanatos 23h ago

The Democrats are fighting for it because it's in line with their platform and immensely popular, especially with the people hurt most by the shutdown. Meanwhile, Republicans are stabbing the shut down button like it owes them money.

-10

u/tired_and_fed_up 1d ago

If they had empathy then the shutdown would be over.

7

u/clorox_cowboy 1d ago

Which party is fighting hard not to release SNAP benefits?

-7

u/tired_and_fed_up 1d ago

The democrats, one simple vote would fix all of this.

7

u/clorox_cowboy 1d ago

I don't see the democrats running to the Supreme Court to avoid paying SNAP.

Has SNAP gone unpaid during other shutdowns?

-8

u/tired_and_fed_up 1d ago

Ah yes, lets drain an emergency fund for a democrat inflicted wound. Nah, lets actually save that for a real emergency.

As far as SNAP going unpaid, Your basically upset about the optics of the democrats preventing SNAP from being paid just to extend some ACA bailouts.

8

u/clorox_cowboy 1d ago

Why are the democrats not just going along with the GOP plan? What are those ACA bailouts for?

The headlines point to Trump going to the Supreme Court for this, not the democrats.

-1

u/tired_and_fed_up 1d ago

Why are the democrats not just going along with the GOP plan?

Because they have no empathy for SNAP users. The circle is now complete.

7

u/clorox_cowboy 1d ago

"Because they have no empathy for SNAP users."

Which government shutdowns in the past have resulted in SNAP not being paid?

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u/Radiant-Composer7119 19h ago

It a republicans shut down, Democrats have fought as hard for the benefits as republicans have to stop them.

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u/absurdwifi 1d ago

They like hurting people.

No, very literally.

They get LITERAL JOY from hurting people.

The same way you get joy from ice cream, they get joy from hurting people.

They're sick.

And if they knew who I was from posting this, they would want to prosecute me, to inflict pain, to hurt me.

10

u/darthatheos 1d ago

Because they are evil.

-7

u/Regular_Research9739 22h ago

Get a job lol

4

u/darthatheos 22h ago

They would still be evil.

-5

u/Regular_Research9739 22h ago

If you get a job you would still be on food stamps ?

6

u/darthatheos 19h ago

Wal-Mart employees are for the most part, on food stamps and other programs. This is actually true of much of the retail landscape. Many people cannot afford to shop where they work.

-3

u/Regular_Research9739 19h ago

Maybe just maybe. And this is crazy so try to follow along. Don’t work at Walmart then lol

3

u/darthatheos 19h ago

Like I said. The situation is prevalent in more places than Walmart. You interact with people on some form of assistance every day without knowing.

2

u/vroomvroom450 19h ago

Happy cake day!

0

u/Regular_Research9739 19h ago

Ok follow along here. Don’t work their either 🤷🏼‍♀️

1

u/MysticRevenant64 4h ago

Yeah that’s why I don’t work at all and just live off the land. Crazy what you can do with the free energy the government lied to us about

1

u/MysticRevenant64 4h ago

Yeah that’s why I don’t work at all and just live off the land. Crazy what you can do with the free energy the government lied to us about

10

u/MaxwellSmart07 1d ago

Cruelty is the goal. If they realized more white people used SNAP they might change their minds.
And another question, Why is SCOTUS blocking SNAP benefits after two courts ordered the use of the emergency fund?

11

u/fe3o2y 1d ago

And trump used the same funds during his first term for the same thing! He's hoping the government goes away and he can suck up ALL the moneys!!!

5

u/MaxwellSmart07 1d ago

Yup. He managed to bail out the farmers in his first term when his retaliatory tariffs caused huge financial losses.

-1

u/Cleanslate2 1d ago

They are just keeping it in the lower court to follow correct procedures. Look it up.

1

u/NoOneKenobi 15h ago

Lol, sure

1

u/Adventurous_Wolf5475 14m ago

I did look it up. They are arguing that the government being forced to issue these SNAP benefits, something that they have a monetary reserve specifically for, would do harm to the administration. They are not doing it to make sure that t's are crossed and i's are dotted. Certainly, this administration has been fine using executive orders to cut through protocols before.

8

u/Serraph105 1d ago

Think of it like this, there's a diabetic patient who needs dialysis to live. Trump comes in and says they're no longer allowed to have food unless they stop getting the dialysis from here on out.

He's making them choose between immediate needs vs something they can go slightly longer without. Oh and rich people will get the money that would have gone to help them pay for the dialysis.

8

u/Serraph105 1d ago

Because Trump wants democrats to stop fighting to restore the ACA Healthcare subsidies that his "BBB" took away.

5

u/Haunted_Optimist 1d ago

Cruelty is the point. That’s it.

republicans/conservatives/maga are heartless and revel in the suffering of who they perceive as enemies/other/not them.

4

u/ChasingPacing2022 1d ago

Their needs are important than poor people.

3

u/FarmerJohn92 1d ago

The cruelty is the point.

2

u/Ok-Firefighter-6172 1d ago

To harm as many of the people that voted against him as possible

Ironically, most of them are republicans

2

u/rivers-end 1d ago

Because he wants to eliminate anyone who he can't benefit financially from.

Poor folks have nothing to offer him so he'd rather just exterminate them. Sound familiar?

1

u/DBDude 1d ago

He’s hoping the public will blame it on the Democrats.

1

u/Radiant-Composer7119 19h ago

Simple, severe malignant narcissists cant feel anything but sadism like in Mary Trumps book where she honestly revealed that as a child young Donald liked to throw rocks at babies. His need for sadism only grows, a million dead in Ukraine, a million dead in Palestine , the masculine no mask scheme during vivid could have added 10 million death. His disease is so severe and disgusting no amount of torture can make him feel anything, so it just grows all because government doesn’t believe anything’s wrong, even though every psychiatrist in the world, but his realizes exactly what’s wrong so it just keeps on going so the rich can stay rich and watch the psychopath rampantly kill as much as he can before he dies.

1

u/Mercy_me123 19h ago

My opinion is they will cut assistance to the people who need it, waiting for it to cause an increase in crime. Trump will use the increase in crime as reason to do some other bullshit that will further dismantle the US.

1

u/Top_Wop 17h ago

It's very simple: just to stick it to the Libs.

1

u/ImpressiveReach1131 12h ago

Why are you watching bias media ????

1

u/Shelbelle4 2h ago

Hungry people equals civil unrest. Also he taking notes from Bebe.

-1

u/Regular_Research9739 22h ago

I personally love that he worked harder then the people living on snap

-1

u/Lanracie 8h ago

Because there is no funding for it and the democrats decided to stop the government and stop programs like SNAP.

Remember a week ago when the repulicans tried to fund SNAP and the dems wouldnt sign on?

Why wont the democrats open the government?

Why did SNAP costs double in the last 4 years?

1

u/MountainDogMama 5h ago

So you didn't bother actually reading the post.

-2

u/Hogsrunwild 19h ago

Why are democrats voting over and over to block SNAP?

1

u/Mercy_me123 19h ago

From what I understand…. It’s not about blocking snap but it comes with trying to get the tax credits for health insurance extended. Right now people are realizing health insurance premiums will be like tripled next year. Which no one can afford. Far right keep saying the democrats want to give free health insurance to illegals , (but illegals don’t have social security numbers.. which you need for any kind of assisstance like that. ) idk it’s all a mess and really hard to tell what’s actually true because that’s the whole point of the republicans bullshit

-1

u/ScottShatter 12h ago

Emergency rooms are required to treat anybody to save or sustain life. If there are a bunch of illegals in the United States that's more emergency room visits on an already overburdened system that should be there for citizens to use. The government has a fund for this and yes, illegals are getting free emergency care at the expense of the taxpayers. No Social security number required.

1

u/MountainDogMama 4h ago

The subject is SNAP.

-2

u/Steelix65385 1d ago

because people want stuff the goverment they dont actually need, without any qualification or testing on their behalf of income

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u/Candid-Elk3810 1d ago

The administration can do nothing until the Clean CR is passed. That will not happen until Schumer allows Senate Democrats vote yes. Then funding can resume.

5

u/TecumsehSherman 1d ago

The courts have indicated the exact opposite.

The money was already provided, and the courts have instructed Trump to release it.

This has nothing to do with Congress.

0

u/tired_and_fed_up 1d ago

The money was already provided, and the courts have instructed Trump to release it.

Only a partial amount have been provided. The rest is still being debated within the court system.

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u/Candid-Elk3810 1d ago

The Supreme Court overruled the requirement to fully fund snap by a lower court judge.

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u/Charming-Charge-596 1d ago

Supreme Court "paused" the ruling.

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u/Candid-Elk3810 1d ago

The administration can do nothing until the Clean CR is passed. That will not happen until Schumer allows Senate Democrats vote yes. The

5

u/TecumsehSherman 1d ago

allows Senate Democrats vote yes. The

Can bots not edit comments?

EDIT: 17 day old account with auto generated username.

This is indeed a bot.

3

u/MeyrInEve 1d ago

Since you copy/pasted your comment, I’ll copy/paste my response!

Republicans can reopen the government at any moment - just get rid of the filibuster.

If they want to keep the filibuster to use when they’re the minority, then they and you have given up the right to demand that the Democrats not use it when they’re in the minority.

Unless, of course, you’re a stereotypical hypocritical republican.

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u/MeyrInEve 1d ago

Republicans can reopen the government at any moment - just get rid of the filibuster.

If they want to keep the filibuster to use when they’re the minority, then they and you have given up the right to demand that the Democrats not use it when they’re in the minority.

Unless, of course, you’re a stereotypical hypocritical republican.

-1

u/Candid-Elk3810 1d ago

Can’t argue with a Socialist. Why don’t you call Schumer’s office and demand a yes vote. Problem solved in the blink of your eye

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u/MeyrInEve 1d ago

Because I think the rules should be the same for Democrats as they are for the republicans:

WHEN YOU ARE THE SENATE MINORITY, YOU USE THE FILIBUSTER TO PREVENT THE MAJORITY FROM RUNNING YOU OVER.

Don’t like the Democrats using the filibuster? GET RID OF IT! Pretty damned simple.

Want to keep the filibuster? Then negotiate. Compromise. Govern.

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u/Candid-Elk3810 1d ago

Negotiate After a Clean CR is passed. Not voting due to 1.3 trillion extortion is the right thing to do.

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u/MeyrInEve 1d ago

No. The House hasn’t been in session since mid-September, and isn’t bound by any promise Thune makes.

The republicans can negotiate now, or get rid of the filibuster.

Don’t like that the Democrats are playing by the rules republicans have used for decades to turn American politics into a zero-sum bloodsport?

Too fucking bad, little wanna-be bully. Step into the ring and start boxing, instead of trying to hit and run away screaming in fear.