That’s the title of yesterday’s opinion piece by Greg Sargent at the Washington Post. He writes:
The bottom line is that it’s not clear how much more conservative the bill can meaningfully be made at this point. The basic story remains that Republicans are going to have to accept the rough outlines of the current compromise — tons more money for border security and very stringent security benchmarks, in exchange for a very long path to citizenship — or reform isn’t going to happen.
Sargent’s right. The amount of negotiation and compromise that occurred between the Democratic and Republican sponsors in crafting the Senate bill means that there is very little room left for further negotiation that would not pull the bill too far one way or the other and thus kill it. The bill’s chances lie largely with the Gang of Eight’s ability to shepherd it through the debate relatively untouched.
