"Essentially the cheap labor the businesses think they'll get have now been guarenteed union wages. The theory is that it was introduced to effectly kill the bill quietly, once the businesses find out about it. I'd be more impressed if the Reps had the guts to filibuster the bill in the Senate openly."
Actually this makes a bad bill worse worse worse in many ways. You see, the ONE GOOD THING about these provisions was the possibility that it would wean businesses off of cheap illegal labor onto cheap legal labor.
IF they dont get that, and davis bacon keeps those wages high, then they will *still* be using illegal labor ... and that means nothing will be solved, because the special interests will somehow gut enforcement.
This train wreck is going so so wrong .. what SHOULD have happened is that we make the bill conservative enough that it is (a) conservative enough GOP can get unity and/or (b) the Democrats are the ones to filibuster it, thereby enabling the GOP to paint the Dems as obstructing 'reform' of immigration.
If we get a horrid union-backed amnesty-filled monstrosity. The Dems pass it and the GOP splits and has to kill it. Worst case comes true.
Whos to blame? McCain and the RINOs.
And Bush too, for not tacing right on this issue enough to make a sensible strategy work on this. They are selling out to the Democrats and, one way or another, will get their heads handed to them.
The Senate bill must be killed, the sooner the better.
Sure, they'd still use illegals, but the point is that the business community is pushing this on the Rep side. They are the "weight" behind the relunctance of many in the Senate on this. If this amendment is a part of the bill, suddenly that weight is lessoned.
Look, the whole bill is bad and should be killed, 100% agreement And it's quite evident they don't care that the majority of their constituents are in an uproar. What they care about is keeping the business funds flowing to their campaigns. This releases the death hold of the businesses on their throats enough to ease some strongarming tactics being brought down on the House members.
I'm worried about them. We don't have a conservative majority there either, and I know the administration, MSM and folks like McCain have been doing everything in their power to strip RINO's into their pocket.
Of course it would be better if 41 Senate Reps would be brave enough to tell the administration and RINO's they won't sell out our country and stage a filibuster, but most of them are spineless. So instead we get backroom manuveurs. It was the same with Miers. they didn't come out directly, but after a point they quietly related to the admin it wasn't going to happen.