Migrant Surge at the Border

In a St. Patrick’s Day edition of The Dispatch Podcast, Sarah, Steve, Scott, and Declan start ...

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In a St. Patrick’s Day edition of The Dispatch Podcast, Sarah, Steve, Scott, and Declan start off today’s discussion with the ongoing migrant crisis at the border. Plus, the gang explains how while most of the conservative world was talking about Dr. Seuss and Pepe le Pew, Democrats jammed through the biggest advancement of the welfare state since LBJ’s administration. Scott points out, “When you really dig into the details you see Democrats laying the groundwork for a very substantial increase in the welfare state, and in ways that Democrats have long wanted.” And, what’s the fallout after a Biden administration official actually spoke strongly against the North Korean regime?

Show Notes:

–The latest GOP attack on Biden has a huge hole in it – Greg Sargent/Washington Post 

–Four people matching terror watchlist arrested at border – Axios

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  1. anonvet

    The filibuster is not, per Scott, a "check on legislative populism." I'm hearing this a lot now, this argument that equates getting rid of the filibuster with direct democracy. I'm absolutely stunned to hear this from conservatives, who are supposed to be the ones obsessed with how the founders intended our government to function.

    Do people not understand the Constitutional function of the Senate? Or have they forgotten what they learned in middle school civics class? It was set up the way it was precisely to balance against the House, elected based on population. The Senate itself, *without* the supermajority requirement, is the founders' check on legislative populism.

    They'd just experienced the Articles of Confederation and saw what a disaster requiring a supermajority was. It doesn't just created gridlock. A creates a government that virtually ceases to function. They knew the threat of legislative populism and if they felt a supermajority requirement was necessary in the Senate to offset it, they would have included it in the first place.
    But they didn't and everything worked basically as envisioned up until about 15 years ago when the use of the filibuster exploded and created a de facto supermajority requirement. It created the Legislation By Executive Order that we have now. If the concept of budget reconciliation hadn't been created in the 1970s, our government would literally cease to function.

    Scott might like gridlock, but what we have now isn't gridlock. It's just...broke.

    Do you like the rise of executive power and Legislation By Executive Order? If you like consistency, do you like Biden reversing Trump who reversed Obama who reversed Bush?

    Conservatives are supposed to believe that the founders created something pretty good and we shouldn't mess with it. I agree.

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    E7a56c3893

    I think this podcast would benefit from having Ezra Klein make the best case for abolishing the filibuster. He offers some important historical context into the myths of the filibusters that I'd like to see Steve and Jonah challenged on this.

    The filibuster was historically not used for very much, save for very specific non-starters for specific constituencies (national bank in the 1800s, Civil Rights, etc.). "Convincing" the other side was not really the name of the game because the parties were not as polarized as they are now. You could appeal to an urban wing of the party to get your votes, or a southern wing, but such things are hard to come by nowadays since our collective political identities are so nationalized.

    The filibuster was not part of the original constitution, nor was it used during the first few decades of the country's founding. It was effectively a loophole that emerged with the modification of Senate rules. The idea that the filibuster is in line with our country's tendency towards limited government is just ahistorical. Senators voted. They received legislation, crafted it and then voted.

    I am a little sour on the "limited government" principle because it is not a fair way of doing things. Our representatives are tasked with governing and making decisions. If they support an idea, they should explicitly vote in favor of doing so; if not, then they should vote against. A limited government should be one that is created by the *affirmative* choice of the people to limit their government, not from a bizarre procedural rule that Senators use to evade responsibility for their failed agenda.

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  3. Curtis C

    To respond to the most important part of the podcast, Gonzaga is taking it all this year! Although I'm picking Illinois to lose to them in the championship game, so I think they will almost win it all, Declan.

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    1. Curtis C

      I am here to report that, aside from Gonzaga, my bracket is absolute garbage, so everything I say about the tournament should be disregarded....

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      Tiffany W

      Yes!

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    Adicesa14

    If Scott’s comment regarding effects of large scale ‘low-skilled’ immigrants is correct, then low-skilled Americans experience wage stagnation because of competition, but high-skilled workers gain because of increased supply of products and services. This implies that economic activity increases would positively effect growth at the expense of productivity. So, it seems that sympathy for uncontrolled immigrants produces lack of sympathy for low-skilled Americans, and productivity inertia, which obscure the value of economic growth metrics.

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  5. Mads Lindstrøm

    Despite the claim in the podcast, in a market economy there really is no such thing as jobs going unfulfilled. There is, however, cases where employers are unwilling or unable to pay the market rate for labor.

    This all suggest that hourly wages for low skilled labor is going up. I thought that was a good thing.

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      Octávio Lima

      They can only go up if there are margins that can be realized at the point of delivery of the good or service. Jobs can go unfilfilled if the market sets a cap on the cost of labor versus the total cost of production of the good or service. What this may cause is an increase in automation in some areas so the cost of labor is minimized.

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      1. Mads Lindstrøm

        Which means that it do not make sense for employers to pay the market rate.

        Look, the reason there is not a Porche 911 in my driveway is not that my order went unfulfilled, even though I would like a Porche 911. The reason is that I am not willing to pay the price that a Porche 911 cost.

        When the cost of unskilled labor rises, then obviously some jobs do not make sense at the higher pay rate. This is a good thing, because it means that those who have the least will get more. Referring to this as "unfulfilled" is just a spin to make good news sound bad.

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          Octávio Lima

          It is a good thing when the productivity increases to cover that slack in production. Otherwise, the jobs that would be required to make or deliver the service will go unfilled until automation takes over or the job is permanently eliminated because the good or service is no longer needed.

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  6. Fudrock

    Love the pod, but occasionally, I crave some respectful repartee with some folks that don't basically agree with you on some of these issues (maybe on the Friday podcast?), though Scott played this role admirably at times. I realize it's a bit off-brand, but it produces such great results on The Remnant and AO. Granted, I come here for sober, sane conservative commentary, but it's always interesting consider how different groups, e.g. the Dispatch Pod vs. The Rational Security Pod, operate from differing sets of "givens" and how it'd be nice to hear you guys challenge each other on basic premises.

    In this episode, the discussion of the JPCOA comes to mind. While it was ostensibly a question about Biden's foreign policy leanings, it stood firmly on long-adjudicated contempt for Obama's foreign policy, specifically that the JPCOA was a narrow, horrible deal, and it was folly to even begin negotiations, much less, sign it. This could well be true; Iran is the ultimate bad actor (although it was us who blew it up), and it might never have worked anyway. We can't truly know, as it only existed for two and a half of its ten years with the U.S. as a party. I don't know if they could have secured a better and broader deal at the time, though given the multilateral partners (including China and Russia) in the negotiation, I have my doubts. Nevertheless, I don't feel like it was folly to negotiate, despite our +30 years as avowed adversaries. At the time, sanctions were wearing on Iran and discontent among the population was high on the heels of the Green Movement. The famously bellicose Ahmadinejad was out, and Rouhani was in, elected on a reform platform prioritizing improving the economy and repairing relations with the West. Meanwhile, we had been on an escalatory track towards armed conflict (or continued stalemate) with Iran, as we were mired in two existing, adjacent conflicts. If there was an opportunity to see a thaw through diplomacy, this was it. I don't begrudge the Obama Administration for giving it a shot.

    The world is different now, of course. We have since started shooting at each other, however rarely. Our regional posture is to partner, often with dubious strings attached, with every other nation in the region with a strategic interest against Iran to box them in further. Iran has breached the agreement, and we have proven ourselves as unreliable partners before heading into any future negotiations. I don't envy Biden's challenge.

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  7. Andrew L

    To address some of Scott's points on the filibuster as a fellow fan of gridlock: legislative changes already needs House/Senate/Presidency to happen. As we have seen recently, and Declan noted when he said comprehensive immigration reform was impossible to imagine with the current filibuster, the current setup moves the bar from "needing a difficult trifecta to pass legislation" to "it is impossible for Congress to operate as the supreme branch of government." This doesn't mean nothing changes, however, it just means that change happens through EOs and SCOTUS rulings. Our constitutional order was not designed for the non-legislative branches to be the ones doing most of the legislating but they have been in recent times and will continue to be until comprehensive legislative solutions come back into the realm of the possible.

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    1. Brett C

      Don't forget administrative law. The executive branch actually passes more laws than congress. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rise-of-the-fourth-branch-of-government/2013/05/24/c7faaad0-c2ed-11e2-9fe2-6ee52d0eb7c1_story.html)

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    2. Daniel

      They just passed a 1.9 trillion dollar bill. Name me a supreme court case since Brown that carried more weight.

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      1. Andrew L

        They passed in in a process that specifically bypasses the filibuster so that doesn't really prove anything. The obvious answer is Obergefell, where Clarence Thomas correctly noted that had it been done through legislation instead of SCOTUS, there would political accountability as well as the opportunity to create religious exemptions. You know, actually writing law instead of litigating it into existence.

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  8. G Maxwell

    I am a business immigration lawyer. I was happy to see you focused on the the economic benefits. I do think Sarah’s off hand comment on credible fear showed a failure to appreciate the real problem there. I was actually a little disappointed by that because it seemed a failure to appreciate the nuance of the problem which is whether it’s appropriate to expect someone fleeing for their life to know which protected asylum bucket their case falls into. The legal balance in the past has been to offer some short term protection to people who showed that the reasonably feared for their life if forced to return so that people with a credible fear can try to prove their case in asylum. Yes you could change that calculation to make it harder at the front end but that means you are going to run a higher risk of turning a lot of people back who end up dead. However the thing that you all missed in discussing this is most of the unaccompanied minors are usually coming to join family already here in the US which is a different problem all together. I am happy to discuss these nuances off line. I do agree that a more efficient and speedier system is needed.

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