It was never about the border.
It was never about Ukraine.
It was never about this nation’s at-risk children.
It was always about power.
Two legislative packages, the result of painstaking and increasingly rare bipartisan work in the halls of Congress, fell apart last week as far-right Republicans, most from the House, rejected any deal out of hand.
Maybe it’s not fair to call the opponents far right. It’s difficult to determine what they stand for, other than returning the former president to the White House.
A little background: Senate leaders and President Joe Biden worked for months on a plan that tied border security with tens of billions in wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza. It was no sweetheart deal: The immigration provisions hewed closely to Republican talking points. Getting asylum would be more difficult, and presidential administrations would be allowed to deny migrants from claiming asylum if their numbers became “unmanageable.”
The deal looked set to pass the Senate before House members declared it dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, a House deal that would expand tax credits for average Americans arrived in the Senate with virtually no hope for success.
It’s not about policy. It’s about presidential politics. The American people and our allies overseas are suffering for it.
“Why would we do anything right now to help (Biden) with that 33%” approval rating, U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, asked a CNN reporter.
It’s no better in the Senate, where Republican Chuck Grassley told a Semafor reporter, “I think passing a tax bill that makes the president look good mailing out checks before the election means he could be reelected.”
We are miles away from the days when President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously put bipartisan cooperation ahead of ideological purity.
To be sure, it can be dangerous to look back on the mid-1980s through rose-colored glasses. But no one can point to today’s fractured Congress and say things are better.
MAGA Republicans clearly would rather the border crisis continue as long as it leads to Trump returning to office. They’re not bothering to hide the fact.
“The politics of this were a big factor,” U.S. Sen John Cornyn, R-Texas, told The Associated Press. “When (House Speaker Mike Johnson) said basically the Senate bill is dead on arrival, and then President Trump weighs in and discourages Republicans from voting for it.”
Others were even more blunt.
“Americans will turn to the upcoming election to end the border crisis,” Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso said.
That means real change wouldn’t come for a year or more, and cities along the border and across the country, including here in Massachusetts, continue to grapple with the influx of migrants and refugees in search of a better life.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling to hold back Vladimir Putin and a new era of Russian aggression, and the country’s efforts to broker a peace in the Middle East have been hamstrung by a lack of funding.
Americans must remember that when, as Barrasso says, they “turn to the upcoming election.”
— The Salem News (Beverly, Mass.)
