2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders Has Stuck To The Same Message For 40 Years [View all]Armstead
(47,803 posts)That legislation always has to be placed in "packages." The resuklt of that is a lot of crap gets through because people have to take "all or nothing" legislative Big Box packages. That's screwed up our system with a lot of bad policies that get snuck through.
Therefore, if one wants to oppose things that are not good, they may have to vote against it, in efforts to negotiate better deals. It would be a hell of a lot better if issues were sorted into specific proposals, that could be voted on on their own terms. It's cumbersome, but don't blame Sanders for the flaws of that system.
The guest workers things is an example of that. It's a Trojan horse for a new form on internal outsourcing, and opens the door to abuse of immigrants too. There have been groups of "guest workers" who came here as cheap replacements for local workers and then were subjected to all kinds of hidden "fees" and abuses.
Overall Sanders has the same goals regarding immigration as Clinton and O'Malley. But he doesn't want the "cure" to create or exacerbate other problems. Those problems include the human rights of guest workers, as well as the elimination of jobs and opportunities for American workers so corporations can have access to cherap compliant labor.