Bush forgets that it was not his Republican elites who put him and kept him in office, but millions of nobodies like us.
His elite buddies were the ones that advised him and mismanaged his campaigns, especially 2004, to the point where he almost gave away a sure landslide over a moron to a near loss.
Bush should not be miffed at Romney over immigration - it is we who should be miffed at Bush for the way he is trying to force illegal immigration down our throats so that his Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street buddies can have cheap labor and huge profits from that labor.
McCain stands up and tells middle class Americans that their lost jobs aren’t coming back and suck it up.
I’m looking forward to telling a defeated McCain that his job ain’t coming back and he should suck it up.
AMNESTY IS FOREVER
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill [S. 2611] that passed in the Senate in 2006 with the support of Presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain contained provisions that would have legalized the status of the overwhelming majority of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country, i.e., amnesty, and provided them with a path to citizenship. The House never voted on the bill and it died.
Undaunted, in 2007 Senators McCain and Kennedy together with a small group of other senators circumvented the normal committee debate process and introduced directly into the Senate for a vote another CIR bill [S. 1348] that actually expanded the number of illegal aliens who would be rewarded with amnesty beyond the 2006 bill. They would be allowed to stay and work here after meeting certain conditions, e.g., pay fines, learn to speak English, understand American civics, etc., that mirrored similar provisions contained in the 1986 amnesty bill. And, as was the case in 1986, the illegal aliens would be offered a path to citizenship. The major difference is that President Reagan called the 1986 bill what it was, a one-time amnesty. The proponents of the proposed 2007 McCain-Kennedy CIR bill denied, and continue to deny, that their bill is amnesty.
The American people were not fooled by the Orwellian use of language to disguise what was being proposed. Despite strong-arm tactics to limit debate and amendments and to force a hurried vote, the 2007 CIR bill was defeated procedurally due to an unprecedented [and huge] public outcry that clearly had an effect on senators’ votes. The American people have spoken, but Presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, and Huckabee still call for legalizing the status of most of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, i.e., amnesty, which would be an unmitigated disaster for this country.
The irrevocable decision to legalize the status of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens would have direct and immediate consequences on the number of additional LEGAL immigrants who will be authorized entry as a result of this change of status. Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation estimated that the 2006 CIR bill would have resulted in an additional 66 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years due to existing chain migration policies that allow legal permanent residents to sponsor family members for entry as part of family reunification. And the figure of 66 million is based on the conservative Census Bureau estimate of 11.9 million illegal aliens, and does not include the current annual intake of over a million legal immigrants. The numbers are staggering.
In analyzing the 2007 CIR bill, Rector stated, “The main fiscal impact of S. 1348 will occur through two mechanisms: (1) the grant of amnesty, with accompanying access to Social Security, Medicare and welfare benefits, to 12 million illegal immigrants who are overwhelmingly low skilled; and (2) a dramatic increase in chain immigration, which will also be predominantly low skilled.”
“The bottom line is that high school dropouts are extremely expensive to U.S. taxpayers. It does not matter whether the dropout comes from Ohio, Tennessee, or Mexico. It does matter that the Senate immigration bill would increase the future flow of poorly educated immigrants into the U.S. and grant amnesty and access to government benefits to millions of poorly educated illegal aliens already here. Such legislation would inevitably impose huge costs on U.S. taxpayers.” Heritage research has concluded that the cost of amnesty alone will be $2.6 trillion once the amnesty recipients reach retirement age.
In 1986 the U.S. Government estimated that one million people would apply for amnesty. The number turned out to be 2.7 million. If the current number of illegal aliens is closer to the 2005 Bear-Stearns report estimate of 20 million, the demographic and economic impact of amnesty will be exponentially greater than that estimated for an illegal alien population of 12 million. Without having reliable data on how many illegal aliens are in the country, it would be totally irresponsible to pass legislation that would grant legal status to untold millions regardless of the numbers. It is not the way to make good public policy.
President Reagan’s Attorney General, Ed Meese, stated, “The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty did not solve the problem. There was extensive document fraud, and the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections. And there was a failure of political will to enforce new laws against employers. After a brief slowdown, illegal immigration returned to high levels and continued unabated, forming the nucleus of today’s large population of illegal aliens. So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate and being offered much the same deal.”
Amnesty has a corrosive effect on the rule of law and is grossly unfair to the millions who have followed the rules and are waiting their turn overseas to enter legally. What kind of message does amnesty send to them and the many millions more who would like to enter the United States? Rewarding those who have entered our country illegally and broken our laws in multiple ways, e.g., ID theft, tax evasion, misuse of social security numbers, etc., will just encourage more people to enter our country illegally so they can take advantage of the next amnesty.
In addition to the huge costs associated with amnesty, there are national security concerns. An amnesty will make it easier for alien terrorists to operate in the United States by allowing them to fraudulently create “secure” IDs with ease. We would be conferring blanket legal status to millions of unknown and unknowable persons, thereby facilitating the movement and access of terrorists who entered the country illegally.
With a stroke of a pen, the legalization of the status of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens— plus the tens of millions more who will join them later legally—will have a profound and negative impact on this country for many generations to come. The efforts of state and local governments to control and limit the costs associated with illegal immigration would be undone overnight. And the burden on the taxpayer will increase. Amnesty is not an action that can be taken lightly or be reversed. Amnesty is forever.
“McCain stands up and tells middle class Americans that their lost jobs aren’t coming back and suck it up.
I’m looking forward to telling a defeated McCain that his job ain’t coming back and he should suck it up.”
You made my day, oldbill.....really did.