Rhaedas@fedia.io 1 day ago
Laws are as good as they are enforced. Look at speeding in a car. If you don't get caught, if everyone else is doing it and the few cops around aren't bothering to pull anyone over, it's still illegal. Yet it doesn't matter.
Or more comparable, someone of high importance is caught speeding, but when the cop sees who it is they let them go with a "warning", i.e. do nothing. Still illegal, but okay for them to do apparently.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
This isn’t an enforcement problem. What Trump is doing isn’t illegal and it shouldn’t be illegal. There’s nothing wrong with running for office promising to pass legislation establishing a government program if your side wins. You’re arguing for a standard that would have made it impossible to create Medicare, Social Security, or any other government program. Those all started as promises of, “if my side wins, we’ll pass a law giving people money.”
Rhaedas@fedia.io 6 hours ago
I see your point. If he was arguing for a law or program. Saying everyone get a check without anything more isn't the same. For one, it isn't going to happen because it would need legislation, which means a bill and a plan to fund it. And it's Trump, so it's not going to happen because he just says things.
Now if he said he's going to propose and make Congress pass a law that gives every adult $1000 each month that is funded through tax increases on higher brackets... suddenly he's pushing for UBI, and that's a great idea. (or the start of one, I think it needs to be more complex than that for cost of living variations)
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 hours ago
Reading news requires some reasonable extrapolation and reading between the lines. When a president says, “I’ll give everyone $5000,” you would have to be pretty dense to not realize that they’re just using that as a shorthand for, “I’ll use all my power and influence to help pass a law through Congress to give everyone $5000 stimulus checks, or I’ll find a way to direct existing appropriations for it.” If Trump just says, “I’ll give everyone $5,000,” what reasonable conclusion can you possibly reach other than it’s him proposing an act of Congress? He’s certainly not going to pay for it out of his pocket.
They don’t say that entire thing because that would be insane. Real people don’t talk that way; you can summarize and speak in shorthand. You don’t need to spell everything out in excruciating detail.
Presidents always run for office promising this or that. They rarely take the time to spell out the entire legislative process.
For example, consider this article from 2008 and the following Obama quote:
By your logic, this was a felony. He wants to establish universal healthcare, a benefit to every American. And he just said he would like to do it. He made no mention of specific laws. So by your logic, this was a bribe.