Border is a crisis but can wait until after election? This is why Congress is broken Opinion
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board
It’s clear now that Senate negotiators badly miscalculated in their attempt to craft a bipartisan border-security and immigration bill. Republicans misread what their Senate brethren would accept, and they clearly had no idea about sentiment in the House.
But the vitriolic response to the bill that failed Wednesday, not just to the substance but also to the mere attempt at reaching compromise, was disappointing. Republicans, including some leading Texans, have spent years telling us — correctly — that the border is a crisis in need of immediate action. In a matter of days, they changed their tune to: It can wait until next year.
The Senate deal would have allowed far too much illegal immigration to continue mostly unchecked. It contained some useful asylum reform, but not nearly enough. It fell short of what’s needed to deal with the millions who have been released into the country in recent years, let alone stop future waves of migration.
Rather than negotiate a better bill, Republicans, joined by some progressive Democrats, walked away. The fate of this bill demonstrates the impulses that plague politics. The desire to have all or nothing, despite narrow majorities. The push to force through sweeping bills rather than tackle distinct problem-solving. The top-level negotiating that blunts the input of the rank and file. And most of all, the disdain for compromise.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/border-crisis-wait-until-election-112500395.html