Posted on 06/26/2006 10:33:01 AM PDT by SmithL
• Brian Bilbray, a former moderate Republican who lost his congressional seat in San Diego six years ago, rode anger about illegal immigration back to Washington with a victory in the June 6 special election. Republicans from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento took notice.
• The GOP shut down debate on immigration reform legislation backed by President Bush, scheduling another round of hearings and putting passage in doubt.
• In California, Republicans declared they are unwilling to vote for the budget, in part, over money set aside by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would provide health care for children of illegal immigrants.
A dozen years after California Gov. Pete Wilson made the issue the cornerstone of his re-election campaign, unleashing deep emotions on both sides, the politics of illegal immigration is back.
Republicans say Bilbray's victory over Democrat Francine Busby, in a race watched nationally, confirmed that voters in this election year are angry about illegal immigration.
"Most of the pollsters we talk to say that the issue that used be No. 2, 3 or 4 is now No. 1," said Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine, adding it was "certainly" a factor in Bilbray's election.
Assembly Republican leader George Plescia of La Jolla said Bilbray's election was the latest manifestation of the passions stirred by illegal immigration.
"We had those frustrations even before the Bilbray congressional race, but that certainly brought more attention to it," Plescia said. "Most members had been hearing it from constituents."
Those concerns had been falling on deaf ears since 1994, when California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 187, which denied state funding for health care and education services to illegal immigrants.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Those concerns had been falling on deaf ears since 1994, when California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 187,
I'd say they are still falling on deaf ears.
ping
The deep question is how do you make Mexico a first class country. This is something that Vincente Fox has brought up frequently recently.
The trouble is that no one quite sees that the very best thing we could do for Mexico is to send their now well trained citizens home.
Suddenly Mexico would have a skilled workforce who knew something about how a world class country worked.
Think these folk would propel a great leap forward for Mexico?
I do.
Basically the ruling class in Mexico is preditory to its own detriment and will not change of its own volition--even if those changes were in its own interest. But it can be forced to change.
The Mexicans in the USA have had the picture of what a well run country looks like tatooed on the back of their eyeballs. And they'll have an idea of how to get there. Send them back to Mexico and they'll get a revolution in Mexico that'll do that country some good.
The shock troops for that would be the 12 million repatriated Mexican citizens. Having seen what a well run country looks like they would not want to be stuffed back in the old wineskin.
There's something more.
I follow water desalination research pretty closely. While water desalination costs have dropped to about a third of what they were 15 years ago--the rate at which prices will drop over the next seven years will accelerate considerably. imo in even the next five years we will see desalination costs drop to 1/10th of today's costs. Or even faster than the fall the 3/4 fall that the LLNL researchers suggest.
http://www.physorg.com/news67262683.html
Basically, the foundations are being laid today to make it economically feasable to to turn all the world's deserts green. (The proper way to look at this is to recall that cars, tv's and computers were at first rich men's toys but when prices came down they changed the world. Desalinised water is still relatively speaking -- a rich man's toy. But when the price drops sufficiently--desalinised water will change the world--because most deserts are right beside the ocean. Pumping the water 1000 miles inland will require that the scientists collapse the cost cracking out hydrogen from water. I think that this nut will be cracked sooner than desalination.)
imho cheap desalinised water will do for the republicans (if they can get this on their agenda or even the democrats if the pubbies drop the ball) what the great dam building projects & the tva of the 1930's & 40's did for democrats because 1/3 of the US is deserts. We would increase the habitable size of the USA by 1/3.
Dirt cheap desalinised water will also do things like make it possible to double the habitable size of Mexico. Cheap water is no magic bullet but it will give the Mexican Nationalists a way to dream while the Mexican people do the real work.
And desalinated water in tandem with repatriation of now skilled Mexican citizens would propel Mexico into being a world class country.
Oh and one last thing. Mexico will need a stronger dose of of the Peruvian Hernando Desoto ideas. Basically DeSoto asked the question why are some countries poor and some questions rich. His answers are being implimented successfully in countries around the world. http://www.ild.org.pe/home.htm
Hernando de Soto's organization was invited to Mexico and did some work on the question. He says that only 6 percent of Mexican enterprises are legal, the rest are informal. So how do you reverse that so that only 6% of the economy is informal -- as is the case the USA. De Soto would provide the ideas around which the 12 million american trained Mexican returnees could rally.
There is a winner here. The winner is Mexico.
The US profits too by having a prosperous politically stable country with a broad middle class to the south as we do to the north.
It was before "Bilbray"
""• The GOP shut down debate on immigration reform legislation backed by President Bush, scheduling another round of hearings and putting passage in doubt.""
Here we see how the Rove memes has confounded the MSM. The writer wants to paint a negative - shutting down debate, the usual is "delaying" a bill - but the reality is the "GOP" is opening up debate.
I only hope they are serious on this. We've had a lot of sweet talk on a lot of issues from the party elites over the years and a lot of it has been empty.
There is just so much wrong with that phrase. First, he isn't a "former" "moderate". Second, he isn't moderate...he's a board member of the Log Cabin Republicans.
Thanks to a liberal judge that shot it down.
The Wall Street "Throw Open The Borders" Journal editorialized the other day that Bilbray won because A) The district is overwhelmingly Republican, B) Bilbray outspent Busby, and C) Busby was stupid enough to say voting by illegals is ok. They've clearly gone to the dark side on this issue.
I wasn't just talking about 187. In state tuition, drivers licenses for illegals, health insurance, etc.
Most people do NOT agree with benefits for them but the legislature just keeps on giving. On the local/state/federal level.
Having another bout of Cognitive Dissonance. All this tough talk is making my head spin, but is not slowing down illegal immigration.
Hey, GOP, we ain't stupid. Just enforce existing border regulations, then maybe we can talk.
NY Times | 6/7/2005 | EDUARDO PORTER
Gerardo Luviano is looking for somebody to rent his Social Security number. Mr. Luviano, 39, obtained legal residence in the United States almost 20 years ago. But these days, back in Mexico....he is looking for an illegal immigrant in the United States to use it for him - providing a little cash along the way. "My brother in California has a friend who has crops and has people that need one."
Mr. Luviano's pending transaction is merely a blip in a shadowy yet vibrant underground market....undetected by American authorities, operating below the radar in immigrant communities from coast to coast, a secondary trade in identities has emerged straddling both sides of the Mexico-United States border.
Illegal immigrant workers usually earn so little they are owed an income tax refund...........The illegal immigrant "working the number" will usually pay the real owner by sharing the tax refund. Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay outside the country too long, it is useful to have somebody working under their identity north of the border.
"Sometimes the one who is working doesn't mind giving all the refund, he just wants to work," said Fernando Rosales, who runs a shop preparing income taxes in the immigrant-rich enclave of Huntington Park, Calif.
The income tax "refund" is almost certainly generated by Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) fraud, which as a "legal resident" the number renter would qualify to receive, especially if they have have or claim children. The EITC is a "refundable tax credit, which means the IRS will pay it out even if no taxes have been withheld or paid in. So the IRS gives filers who claim the EITC "refunds," even if they have had no taxes withheld.
These number renters can claim up to $4,400 for the 2005 tax year in EITC "refunds," most of the number renters probably claim this maximum refund. The Additional Child Tax Credit is another "refundable" credit which is no doubt routinely claimed by these renters.
For 2005, if the number renter claimed $14,400 in wage income, and three children, between the EITC and the Additional Child Tax Credit the renter would, without having any taxes withheld from wages, receive a tax "refund" of $4,898, plus have $892 credited to Social Security; in addition to the potential of thousands of dollars in California unemployment compensation.
The point is that anti-illegal is a consensus issue that cuts across the political spectrum----that's the thing that's galvanizing the issue and putting it up top as the number one political issue.
Politicians on the left and the right are hearing from their constitutents on the left and the right---and they're all saying the same thing.
I don't give a crap if Bilbray is moderate or not.
The main thing he has a history for several years being tough on the border issues and the illegals also the employers who hire illegals.
This is the main issue and we need Bilbray to be reelected in Nov.
For those pseudo conservatives who are against Bilbray and will vote for others will put Busby in congress and have an open border idiot with more illegals flowing over.
WSJ has always been CENTCOM for the dark side on this issue.
"GOP sees a San Diego message: Be tough on illegal immigration "
And don't believe that BS poll saying we want amnesty. Simpley bull shiite, that's all.
WHAT does it take for BUSH to SEE and ACT on THIS message?
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