I’m going by the track record of Congress on things like the “balanced budget act” of the 1980s—Gramm-Rudman, right? They cut taxes, yes, thanks to President Reagan. But oddly enough, when it came time to cut spending to match, somehow, they always managed to somehow defer it, weasel around it, change the meaning of a few things...and voila, spending never got cut and we got saddled with deficits.
We don’t even have to go back that far. Look at the “800” miles of border fence that was authorized last year. We’ve gotten, what, three miles so far? What they pass and what they do can be two very different things.
That’s one reason I think that enforcement and guest-worker or pseudo-amnesty issues should be handled separately. There’s a lot more opportunity for mischief in a “comprehensive” bill.
One other issue—there’s more to conservative anger about this bill than just immigration. There’s the way in which this whole thing was cobbled together in secret, then suddenly dumped on a surprised public, and almost rammed through the Senate with no debate and hardly any public scrutiny. The contents of the bill are bad enough to a lot of us, but the high-handed, arrogant way in which this whole “compromise” was almost snuck through the Senate is really just the toppings on the crap sandwich. And then pile on top of all THAT how anti-illegal-immigration folks have been referenced by some of our own allegedly-conservative people in the GOP.
}:-)4
re: One other issue—there’s more to conservative anger about this bill than just immigration. There’s the way in which this whole thing was cobbled together in secret, then suddenly dumped on a surprised public, and almost rammed through the Senate with no debate and hardly any public scrutiny. The contents of the bill are bad enough to a lot of us, but the high-handed, arrogant way in which this whole “compromise” was almost snuck through the Senate is really just the toppings on the crap sandwich. And then pile on top of all THAT how anti-illegal-immigration folks have been referenced by some of our own allegedly-conservative people in the GOP.
Not only that, the gall to march in our streets (when a march on Mexico City would have been more appropriate), the right to go to our courts, catch and release, the hands out from states to the fed for monies (closing hospitals, law enforcement help, etc.) ,or other states to take their prisoners re: overcrowding, while extolling loudly to support this.
The secrecy was a bad idea. The point I was making was that this has been handled badly all round.