Posted on 03/25/2006 11:03:30 PM PST by Icelander
In elections one earns political capital. Once spent, c’est tout. Consumed capital cannot be replenished by a cauterized constituency, and today the Republican base boils.
I recently spoke to someone who volunteered for Bush’s 2004 campaign. I asked whether he would work for the GOP in 2008, and he bemoaned “no.” I asked why, and he replied, “It’s a sad day when Democrats like Dianne Feinstein are tougher on immigration than Republicans like Sam Brownback.”
The avalanche of support that has followed Republicans since 1994 we now see slowly evaporating over the issue of a guest-worker program. Impassioned Republicans four years ago now stand out of steam, feeling betrayed by a party leadership that would support a bill so at odds with conservative principles.
This guest-worker proposal, after all, rewards illegal behavior. Instead of requiring illegal immigrants to return to Mexico (or wherever) to apply for a permit, it grants legal status on the spot, thus acting as a “magnet for continued illegal immigration.” And, as Rep. John Hostettler (R.-Ind.) recently said, any guest-worker plan “puts the interest of foreign, illegal workers above those of our own American citizens.”
Newt Gingrich summed up the matter most succinctly on the O’Reilly Factor (March 15, 2006). He has observed a growing divide between Washington GOP elites and the average voting Republican. Somehow, GOP elites have come to believe that a guest-worker program is necessary (although it is not). Your average GOP voter, however, while praising boosts to border security, deeply dislikes any guest-worker giveaway.
Why GOP leadership supports such a lemon remains unseen. In 1986 Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. It granted green cards to three million illegal immigrants, consequently attracting yet another five million to cross the border to replace their decriminalized comrades. Furthermore, a recent poll taken in Mexico found that at least 46 percent of the population (50 million Mexicans) would cross the border if given the chance. Any guest-worker initiative advertises this avenue.
It is in future forecasts, however, that Republicans really blunder. Illegal immigrants, voting for socialist candidates in Mexico or South America, will become Democrats once gaining full citizenship. Superficial surveys taken in a couple cities show that 9 out of 10 illegal immigrants support Democrats over Republicans. This guest-worker program, on a silver platter, will hand over California, Florida, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to Democrats.
Is the GOP abating its base and fallowing its future in one fell swoop?
Justanobody said: "Don't leave anyone out!"
Actually it sounds more like some republicans, like Grover Norquist, Bush's point man on immigration, who has always been great at "stunts" when it comes to illegal immigration. Read on.
Part III of Series) Illegal-immigration bill weakened by unlikely alliance (HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF!)
By Marcus Stern
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
04-Nov-1997 WASHINGTON - After years of bitter losses, Sen. Alan K. Simpson thought the political tides finally favored his quest to create a way to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs.
The issue had emerged as a hot-button during the 1996 campaign. This time, he would surely defeat the powerful and savvy pro-immigration lobby.
"As I look out on this sea of faces, there are some who have been cutting my bicycle tire for 17 years," the now-retired Wyoming Republican said last year as the Judiciary Committee prepared to debate his proposals. "They're sitting back there, hollow-eyed, twitching like dogs eating peach seeds and wondering if they can do it again. ... Well, I think that game is over."
Simpson was wrong.
Once again, he had sorely underestimated the tenacity and cleverness of special-interest groups determined to preserve the flow of undocumented workers into the United States.
Yes, Congress eventually passed a new immigration law. But it was so weak it would do little to hasten the creation of a system to help employers quickly and reliably verify that the people working for them are in fact eligible to hold jobs in the United States. Such a system is a key to curbing illegal immigration, according to many experts.
The "twitching dogs" who dragged down Simpson's initiative last year are Capitol heavyweights whose coalition on immigration falls into the unlikely bedfellows category. Among them: the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association, the Catholic church, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association and even some labor unions.
As these special interests swarmed all over Capitol Hill, however, no lobbyist represented millions of legal immigrants and other poor people, who, because of welfare reform, soon might need the low-skill jobs now being held by the rising number of undocumented workers.
"There's no National Association of Working Poor," said Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary during President Clinton's first term. "There's no special-interest lobbying group working on behalf of very poor people trying desperately to find and keep jobs.
"If a politician has to decide between the interests of small businesses seeking inexpensive help and the interests of poor Americans either seeking a job or afraid of losing a job or declining earnings, the chances are very good that the small business has far more clout."
Special-interest clout
The clout displayed last year when the immigration lobby defeated Simpson's plan is a textbook demonstration of how special interests have long dominated immigration policy in Washington.
Simpson wasn't asking for anything remotely like a national ID card or national database of workers. He merely wanted the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to authorize pilot projects to test methods for verifying employment eligibility.
One pilot would have required participating employers to check their new employees' Social Security numbers. Because it would apply to all of their new workers, discrimination against "foreign-looking" job applicants would have been minimized.
But the anti-verification coalition painted the proposal as a sinister plot. It portrayed it as a retina-scan ID card, police-state power, the second coming of the Holocaust and even the fulfillment of a dark prophecy in the Bible's Book of Revelation that people would be stamped with the "mark of the beast."
At one meeting of the Judiciary Committee, an irritated and clearly frustrated Simpson indignantly waved a make-believe tattoo that looked like a grocery store bar code. He called it a ploy to kill his verification proposal. He was right.
Grover Norquist, a social conservative and anti-tax Republican lobbyist, reveled unapologetically in the tactics he used to undermine the verification initiative and to mock Simpson personally.
The peel-off bar-code tattoos were supposed to remind people of the way Nazis tattooed Jews during World War II. "It was great," recalled Norquist, who is close to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "We had our guys walking around with tattoos on their arms. It drove Simpson nuts because the implication was he's a Nazi."
The truth, however, is that both the House and the Senate bills specifically barred the implementation of any kind of national ID card. Politicians view such a card as a political kiss of death; nobody expects Congress to seriously consider one.
Toward the end of the debate, Simpson decried the pranks and slurs.
"We have dealt with tattoos and Adolf Hitler," he said. "It is the most offensive thing that I have ever heard. It's disgusting and I'm sick of it."
'Mark of the beast' Although voters tend to see Republicans as tougher than Democrats on illegal immigration, the weakening of the verification provisions was largely the handiwork of conservative Republicans and their behind-the-scenes strategists like Norquist.
Their success underscores how tough it is for Congress to do the one thing experts have said for decades is central to curbing illegal immigration: Establish a reliable, non-discriminatory employment verification system.
Norquist has strong ties to the business community. Mainstream firms like Microsoft paid him to lobby against other provisions of the bill, such as tighter restrictions on the immigration of computer programmers.
But his forte is mobilizing support among social or moral conservatives, including gun owners, the religious right, home-schooling adherents and others he described as "anti-welfare and anti-police state."
"A government powerful enough to find an illegal immigrant is also powerful enough to find your bank accounts," he said.
Conveniently, he ignores the fact that the government long has been able to find bank accounts with ease while it still can't reliably identify undocumented workers.
"Nobody really minds people sneaking across the border and working at 7-Eleven," he added.
At one point during the debate, congressional offices received calls from fundamentalist ministers around the country asking about rumors that the verification provision would fulfill a prophecy in the Book of Revelation. Was it true, they asked congressional staffers, that people would be stamped with the "mark of the beast" under the new law?
"Six-six-six," Norquist explained matter-of-factly during an interview. "That's always been one of the arguments against the ID card. There's something in Revelations about numbering people. The 'beast' could be a big computer."
The National Rifle Association was told the bill would lead to a federal computer registry that the government could use to hunt down its members and seize their guns. "Gun owners quite correctly understand that it would take Bill Clinton all of two weeks to add the question, 'Got any guns? Could we have a list of them? Where do you keep them?' " said Norquist.
Verification opponents also circulated mock national identification cards bearing Simpson's likeness. On the back of the cards was a retina scan diagram suggesting that the legislation called for everyone to carry such a card.
"That was a good one," Norquist chuckled.
Anti-verification coalition Conservatives didn't fight verification alone last year. They were part of a coalition of strange bedfellows involved in civil rights, ethnic and religious advocacy, anti-government politics and free-market ideology. They were also bolstered by powerful business groups.
The coalition was a juggernaut that fought virtually any verification initiative. Because Republicans control Congress, conservative lobbyists were especially influential. The fact that some limited, voluntary verification projects stayed in the bill at all outraged some conservatives.
http://www.cis.org/articles/Katz/katz1998.html
Evidently, he doesn't realize that his duty is to uphold the United States Constitution, and to do his duty to protect Americans, not to placate La Raza, or Maldef, or LULAC, or Naleo, or the virulently racist, anti-Semitic Mechistas, or anyone else from the Reconquista brigades.
The fact that 9-11 happened at all is evidence of government malpractice, as is the colossal negiligence on the border issue, the failure in New Orleans, etc. I fear that what we are seeing here is ongoing evidence of something far more serious than "malpractice". Could it possibly be evidence of a complete breakdown in the proper functioning of the system which has already occurred?
We have legalized bribery in the form of campaign contributions, a completely ossified two party domination of politics, totally disproportionate influence of various "lobbies", certain topics about which no debate is allowed to take place, an increasingly ignorant and apathetic population. If the system is trying to tell us that it is broken, is it any wonder why?
I respect your opinion and your right to degrade the Constitution Party but much like Orwell's Animal Farm, one can no longer tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats on a large scale. Individually there are some members of the GOP who are reputable, sincere, moralistic people but as an entity the GOP has sold its core constituency down the Rio Grande. I've never personally met Mr. Peroutka or Mr. Gilchrist so I don't know if they're cowards but I find it clear that the mainstream GOP has turned tail on this nation - and not by what the MSM says - you know what they are by their actions and deeds. Personally I've come to the conclusion that unless a strong third party is raised up in this nation we will continue to succumb to the Socilaist mentality and lifestyle of moral relativism. Since I can't agree with Libertarians (social liberals) nor the Greens or the Perot-bots, the Constitution Party's platform and stated goals suit me, a born-again Christian conservative, the best. Now, I certainly don't have much money to give them so they can't get what the GOP already takes from me in federal taxes (I live in New Hampshire now, praise God!) but I can devote my time and energy to help make the party live up to its stated platform and goals. We've gotten stale and we need change now!
I'm truly sorry you had a poor experience with the USCP but the GOP is a toothless tiger pandering to votes. I hate "moderates". Moderate is the same as lukewarm, wishy-washy, no guts or principles. This is today's GOP. They won't take a stand for what's right even though they know that grass-roots America will support them if they do.
I wish you well and may God save these United States of America!
"I paid federal income tax, and the local VAT."
Not to distract from your main point, on which we agree, but if you paid American income tax, you either didn't work in Europe for a European company or your accountant is rock dumb. And VATs are usually refundable upon exit if you're not a local and you save your receipts. Sounds to me like you propped up at least one gummint you didn't have to.
I was working for an American sub-contractor. Their "accounting assistance" could very accurately be described as worse than rock dumb. They even withheld state tax from their corporate HQ state, even though the direct deposit was to a Texas bank. I learned a lot about tax treatment of income earned overseas, after the fact. The VAT hit was not that bad (personally), since most was re-imbursed as expenses that the company with the contract had to run down.
I recently spoke to someone who volunteered for Bush’s 2004 campaign. I asked whether he would work for the GOP in 2008, and he bemoaned “no.” I asked why, and he replied, “It’s a sad day when Democrats like Dianne Feinstein are tougher on immigration than Republicans like Sam Brownback.”
My situation 1000000000%
No Hank, I'm saying that I don't want to get screwed, but since I'm going to get screwed, I'd rather be screwed a little than screwed a lot.
If you're still voting for a third party in your thirties, perhaps it's time for a competency hearing.
Sorry to hear about the rock dumb accounting, though I am glad you know different now. However, I do have some good news: you may be able to refile to correct your income tax filing. You might want to look into that. It could be worth the time you spend on the accounting.
I was at one time sympathetic to the CP and was stupid enough to send them money.
When I heard the ads of Philips and Peroutka, I realized they wanted me to belive that Bush was worse than Gore and Kerry. I considered it insulting.
I also realize now that they have never won anything and never will. They're accepting people's money knowing full well they're never going to be called upon to have to stand behind what they say.
Being a CP is very, very easy. You never have to prove anything.
""Screw the status quo...I am going my own way...""
and what way would that be...your own party?
It's almost like the Pubs are trying to get the Dems elected...
Not a dimes worth of difference in the two parties. I'll never vote for either of them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Not a dimes worth of difference in the two parties.
Opps. Meant to say: Not a dimes worth of difference between the two parties.
To each his own. The Republican party can drop dead...
why dont you try to influence it? that is the only way youll get the changes you want...otherwise youll get exactly what you dont want
I hate it when that happens...especially if I have not even had a polite request to bend over.
And for THIS reason, the GOP's former infrastructure of support and organization will dwindle into a drip in time for 2008....and they ain't coming back.
Just talk to the Pat Toomey supporters who felt drained and betrayed when Dubya Bush supported RINO Arlen Spector...
Today's GOP is run by a cabal of kamikaze pilots (as per the NWO agenda.)
There is a lot of emotion flowing around this issue. Between this and our elected representatives trying to muzzle free speech, it's understandable there are some strong feelings about the issue.
I'm planning on going to A Reckoning the first weekend in May. Sometimes our elected representatives need to be reminded who they are supposed to be representing. I just hope the whole thing doesn't turn into a Bush-bash. I am so glad we have someone of his caliber leading the charge in the GWOT, and I still like my tax cuts, although more cutting would be better. But on the immigration & border issues something drastic needs to be done. I support building a wall along our southern border, deporting illegals and fining businesses that hire illegals.
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