Put the Wall in the Platform

The promise to build a wall along America's southern border with Mexico has carried Donald Trump to his remarkable victory in the Republican primaries for president. Now it's time to put that promise into the official Republican Party Platform.

Many would be surprised to learn that a border security fence or wall was not already in the Republican platform. After all, President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act, which Congress passed in 2006 with the support of many Democrats, including then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In the 10 years since Bush signed that law in a staged photo-op, the government has actually built only 36 miles of secure double fencing instead of the 700 miles authorized by that bipartisan, high-profile law. As a result, our southern border is penetrated daily by wave after wave of drug smuggling, human trafficking, people with incurable or infectious diseases such as the Zika virus, and even Muslims and Chinese people who somehow made their way to Mexico.

Business lobbyists and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who hold too much influence in the Republican Party, oppose a wall because it would interfere with their continued exploitation of cheap foreign labor at the expense of American workers. In addition to tolerating the flow of illegal labor, the Chamber wants to expand every category of visas for foreign workers, both skilled and unskilled.

According to Politico, Republican power brokers have convened "as many as 10 closed-door huddles with business lobbyists to discuss the party's platform." Attendees were warned not to discuss details with the press, but you can bet that building a wall was not on their agenda.

The big-business lobbyists also expressed alarm at Trump's promise to "discourage companies from moving jobs outside the United States." One participant said his colleagues are "pretty much aghast" at Trump's proposals to protect Americans against rampant cheating by our so-called "trading partners."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, meanwhile, has been developing his own agenda for Republicans in an effort to compete with Trump's. Under the slogan "A Better Way," Ryan's proposals include old chestnuts like cutting taxes, entitlements and regulations, but nothing about limiting immigration or the hemorrhage of jobs to foreign countries.

The Ryan agenda is basically the same as what Jeb Bush and 15 other failed presidential candidates campaigned on, but those ideas obviously didn't sell to the Republican electorate. The voters have spoken, and the future of the Republican Party starts with a wall along our southern border.

Even some members of the Republican National Committee are resisting the wall as a political statement that belongs in the party platform. One RNC member called the wall "a symbolic thing" rather than "a physical thing," while another member said the border wall is not to be taken "literally" because "it is a metaphor."

The two RNC members are right that the border wall would be a powerful symbol, but only if and when it is actually built. Once completed, the wall on our southern border would stand as a "metaphor" for the fact that coming to America requires the invitation and permission of the American citizens who are already here.

The 2012 platform has many good provisions, including opposition to "any form of amnesty" and support for states using their authority to enforce federal immigration laws. But building a wall is now the foundation of Republican immigration policy -- and yes, Mexico will pay for the wall.

Yet the Chamber of Commerce calls it a "myth" that "building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and deporting all undocumented immigrants from the United States, would enhance national security." The Chamber's analysis asserts that a border security wall would cost between $15 and $25 billion to build, and not even $1 billion to maintain, but those are small sums compared to the real costs of illegal immigration.

The federal, state, and local costs of criminal justice to process and incarcerate criminal aliens is at least $15 billion a year, not to mention the harm caused by those crimes, such as horrific crashes that have occurred when smugglers drive the wrong way on freeways at night with their headlights turned off. Even deportation is not as expensive as opponents of border security pretend.

A wall along the border would reduce illegal immigration and cause real wages to increase for average American workers for the first time in more than a decade. That may not be something the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants for big business, but it's something that would attract American workers to vote Republican.

I’m prepared to alter the Constitution to permit just one more “amnesty” and to legalize the 1986 “amnesty” provided in return that:
1. the citizenship by birth in USA clause of Amendment XIV is voided and every child born in the USA after today shall have the citizenship of their mother. Any Congress may authorize for its term and for one year thereafter that each child covered by its law to be treated as if it has the citizenship of its father, except for voting purposes, provided its mother had paid-up health insurance coverage meeting all then current US resident federal law requirements throughout the pregnancy and its father has:
A. fathered no more than three children and
B. verifiably lived in the same United States housing unit(s) with the mother for all twelve months prior to birth
2. federal court/judicial jurisdiction shall be purely limited to cases in which the federal government or a US accredited foreign diplomat is the plaintiff or the defendant
3. no tax credit shall be refundable
4. a Constitutional amendment imposes permanent protective tax, fee, penalty and benefit caps
....
For any federal income tax period:

Federal income tax [FICA + Medicare + general] of up to 12% total on any person or entity to be the sole sources for and to be useable under federal statutory law for:
1. old age pensions[Social Security, etc.]
2. disability help (limited to no more than 12 million people/$60 billion in a fiscal year) for US citizens over age 18 due to severe physical/mental disability not resulting from federal service
3. medical (and dental) care/products that are truly necessary/appropriate in the eyes of the vast majority of knowledgeable doctors and reasonably priced
4. health insurance subsidies (up to $100 billion/fiscal year) of all types under federal law
5. housing aid for US housing of low/moderate cost (for no more than twelve million units in a month/$60 billion in a fiscal year) for American citizen adults [max $400/month/each]
6. food aid (limited to no more than $50 billion in a fiscal year) for low-income American citizens [max $150/month/person]

Federal income tax from 12% to 30% on any person or entity to be solely useable per federal statutory law to pay for the military, defense, maritime rescue, law enforcement (including border security and deportation), courts and other judicial bodies and related personnel, federal prisons, federal administration, executive branch, compensation for and care of federal personnel injuries in the line of duty, “post” roads/bridges/tunnels, but not for any form of welfare, unearned benefit or purchase subsidy

Federal income tax above 30% on any person or entity to be solely useable to pay off now existing federal debt or that refinanced, or the excess above 30% shall be refunded to the taxpayer if not so used within one year of receipt.

Total federal income tax shall not exceed 12% on any personal annual income of less than $25,000/year.

Total federal income tax shall not exceed 20% on any personal annual income of less than $50,000/year.

Dollar amounts above $100 may be uniformly adjusted by Congress, but no more than the lesser of 3% or 8/10ths of the lowest annual rate of any five-year or longer federal bond issued in the prior four years, for inflation in a prior calendar year.

We need to insist on permanently reining in the tax, fee, penalty and welfare systems of the US by Constitutional amendment before ensuring a permanent Democratic voting majority, probably Obama’s dearest dream.

A 90% tax rate on high incomes and large estates is only a few million Democratic votes away. Cheap labor can be very expensive.

As for building a wall, we’ve probably already got 10 million illegal Mexicans in the USA already, at least three million of which have more than one year of US construction expertise.

I, Senor Illegal, number MMMNNNN, hereby agree that I will remain within one mile of the US border and milepost MMM until the US border wall with Mexico is completed within one mile of said milepost.

Furthermore, I agree to help build that wall using my reasonable good faith efforts. I agree to give up any right to remain in the USA unless I cooperate to the best of my ability to build said wall.

Furthermore, I understand that no federal “green” residential or commercial construction work permit will be issued to me unless there is a completed wall at least 11-feet high running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean along the US-Mexican border.

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