700+ page Senate Immigration Bill: The Joke’s On Us
Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
Otto von Bismarck
Despite my initial disappointment upon hearing of the compromise on the immigration bill, I am confident that the more this porker of a bill sees the light of day, the greater its chances of never reaching the House. The negotiations that led to the compromise are a perfect example of Bismarck’s above-quoted dictum writ large.
For starters, let’s look at a few provisions that most likely were the result of Senator Kennedy’s staffers working late into the night. Firstly, the American taxpayer is being asked to foot the bill to pay for illegal immigrants attorney’s fees during deportation hearings. I suspect that this giveaway is going to rankle many people —both Republican and Democratic alike. Secondly, the bill contains sections that would establish federal programs to provide in-state tuition breaks for illegal immigrants. Both of these ludicrous aspects of the bill are not going to sit well with ordinary American citizens.
The Senate bill, as currently drafted, is analogous to a situation where a stranger breaks into my house, sits down at the supper table and when the uninvited guest is asked to leave after partaking of our repast, he gleefully exclaims, “What’s for dessert?”
Winners and losers
McCain is the big loser here. A question arises: what in God’s name was he thinking? As someone who is seeking the nomination of his party, did he expect that the conservative base of his party would embrace this monstrosity, which in effect, turns the United States into a province of Mexico?
As his recent outburst against Senator John Cornyn demonstrates, the visceral and universally negative reaction against the bill caught him off guard. McCain’s posture, both during the negotiations and immediately thereafter, clearly demonstrates that he is an elitist. He is a creature of the Beltway and out of touch with the rank and file of his own party. Whereas these traits are not necessarily fatal to his Senate career, they are anathema to one seeking the Republican nomination. The icing on the cake was his joining in with his Democratic colleagues in the Senate in trying to ram this bill down our throats.
In short, whether he knows it or not, McCain’s presidential aspirations are over.
Romney is the big winner here. He has been handed a massive rubber mallet with which to bludgeon McCain and Romney will use it deftly and effectively. Romney is already surging ahead of McCain in the most recent Iowa polls.
Guiliani is also a loser here. He is a one-issue candidate, and his position on illegal immigration, in many ways, is substantially similar to that of McCain. If Romney forces Guiliani to articulate where he stands on illegal immigration, any exchange is likely to redound to the benefit of Romney.
Although it has received little attention in the mainstream media, the price tag for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform package is simply staggering. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has estimated that the cost over the lifetime of illegal aliens who will immediately become eligible for a panoply of federal welfare benefits is a mind boggling$2.5 trillion dollars! Did anyone hear a peep out of the cadre of Senators who negotiated this bill behind closed doors about this massive liability?
The Social Security System can’t even cope with the enormous cost of dispensing benefits to the massive number of baby boomers who will be retiring shortly but the authors of the Senate bill deemed it prudent nonetheless to add this additional and onerous burden. And why? Because we need to bring these people out from the shadows?
Forgive me if I find this philosophical justification less than compelling.
Beacon Street Journal
Monday, May 21, 2007
By Johnny K
