Posted on 09/25/2011 10:37:58 AM PDT by Clairity
In this week's GOP Presidential debate, Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Rick Santorum both repeated untruths about Governor Rick Perry's immigration position. It is time to set the record straight.
First let me say, I've not endorsed a candidate and though I've predicted a Perry win in 2012, it is not based on a personal desire, but rather the assessment of all the data that I believe the general election race will be dependent on. I did the same thing in 2006, predicting a Barack Obama win, but by no means endorsing his candidacy.
Second let me also say, this week's debate performance by Governor Rick Perry was bizarre and seemed to run out of complete steam in the final thirty minutes. In fact I was so curious as to the Governor's performance down the stretch I inquired to the Perry campaign to see if the Governor had taken ill, or had some other medical issue arise in the final half hour.
But on Thursday evening it did become clear that the GOP opponents intend to rhetorically bloody Governor Perry as best they can until they begin to be eliminated from the race.
In the debate, Chris Wallace asked a direct question to Mitt Romney regarding the in-state tuition rates of children who live in the state, but happen to have parents who came here illegally.
Mitt Romney replied, "I don't see how it is that a state like Texas--to go to the University of Texas--if you're an illegal alien--you get an in-state tuition discount. D'you know how much that is? It's twenty-two thousand dollars a year. Four years of college you're almost a hundred thousand dollar discount if you're an illegal alien--if you go to the University of Texas. If you're a United States citizen, from any one of the other forty-nine states, you have to pay a hundred thousand dollars more. That doesn't make sense to me. And that kind of magnet, draws people into this country, to get that education, to get that kind of hundred thousand dollar break, it makes no sense..."
I was disappointed that Chris Wallace didn't stop him and make him answer the question he had actually asked him.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that many children of illegal aliens aren't illegals themselves. And as long as birth-rite citizenship is the law, anchor babies are protected under the law with equal benefits to all other American citizens.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that nearly all of the rest of children of illegals had no choice in whether to live in Texas or not. If they were brought there by parents who were illegal--how is that the child's fault? Is Romney ready to charge those children with crimes? Mass deportations? Even Romney has not pledged to go that far.
Maybe Mitt Romney somehow missed the point that Governor Perry's problem is one that the Federal Government created for him. By refusing to enforce current immigration law, the Obama administration has made life for border states unbelievably difficult. And in some cases the Federal Government is even attempting to choke out state's rights to react to border issues in any way whatsoever.
Maybe Mitt Romney is completely ignorant of what the reality of dealing with the border actually means--in real terms. Gov. Perry had to raise $400 million in state taxes to attempt to shore up the border and do the job that the Feds should be doing.
Or maybe Governor Romney believes he doesn't need any votes from legal Hispanics and legal immigrants who are wrestling with the real issue of being in a position where their family's future is in question.
But to set the record straight, it was the state of Texas, and most specifically its lawfully elected legislature that drafted the legislation and passed it with only 4 votes of 181 possible to vote against it. Yes, Governor Perry signed it into law, but it was a definitively bi-partisan initiative that the people of Texas clearly wanted to see become law.
Additionally, Governor Perry has actual compassion for these children who ended up in his state, outside of their own doing. Educating them gets them working and contributing to the state's treasury faster, and is more meaningful than letting them sit on the sidelines.
And despite what the unusually angry Rick Santorum offered, all the legislation did was allow those children (NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS AT LARGE) to get the same "starting point" in state institutions that all of their classmates got. The stupid argument that Romney and Santorum grew red-faced and spittle-spewing over didn't seem to hold true against Texas where non-Texan students would have to pay $88,000 more than other Texas-raised children. And states discriminate that way against other children from other regions of the country--all the time.
President Obama will need to re-energize the American Hispanic vote in order for him to win re-election. They had left him on the economy, and they were never with him on his values. But Mitt Romney--who vows allegiance to a church that had at its core a racist doctrine until only a couple of decades ago--is verging on alienating other ethnic groups, in part because he is not telling the truth about the Texas legislature's law to allow children (not illegal aliens who crossed the border--the children of) to simply pay the same amount of tuition as the kids they sit next to in class.
In short Perry knows this problem intimately. And it will be a cold day in Hades before he ever signs a federal version of the DREAM Act. He believes in fencing, technology, state's rights, and workplace incentives.
Which more or less means he believes in the same enforcement techniques as all the rest of the GOP field.
And for Santorum and Romney to pretend otherwise is sanctimonious and dishonest.
I thought I was agreeing with you.
It's too hard to keep up with the dynamics these days. It's why I wasn't posting much on threads about the primaries.
I believe I'll resume that stance. :-)
You people are desperate. You'll even smear Brewer to whitewash Perry.
Palin..Brewer...(what about Arpaio?) .all must be thrown under the bus to support Ricky Ricardo....
A “magnet” that draws people to stay put for 3 years, keep their kids out of trouble with the law and make sure that they attend their last 3 years in and graduate from a Texas high school.
If only the Feds allowed us to identify and deport the families when they first enroll their kids in our grades K-12, or before they attend their last 3 years of high school, we wouldn’t have the problem in the first place.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12010798883027065807&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
Is the ONLY way you can defend Perry is to attack someone else? How 5th grade of you.
Yes does strange things to otherwise decent people...sigh...
I'm not in charge of anything and don't have a vote. Of course, on the surface I am not in favor of granting in state tuition to illegals and I don't understand why it's gaining favor in state legislatures, but it is. The bill in TX passed nearly unanimously. Why? I don't know.
I'm asking for all these candidates to be treated equally. While everyone is aiming at Perry, others are not being asked the same tough questions and I dare say that those who are having a fit about Perry signing this have no idea if the others would have done the same thing, or not. I am just asking for the candidates to be treated fairly.
It is clear, we do not have one single candidate who is as pure as we want--not one!!
“She will get in and has an excellent shot on taking the nomination”
I’d be very surprised at that. I love Sarah, too but I think she was waiting to see if a real conservative would move up. She’s got that now in Cain and I think she would work her butt off to get him elected.
“But to set the record straight, it was the state of Texas, and most specifically its lawfully elected legislature that drafted the legislation and passed it with only 4 votes of 181 possible to vote against it. Yes, Governor Perry signed it into law, but it was a definitively bi-partisan initiative that the people of Texas clearly wanted to see become law.”
Horse puckey. The people of Texas were shafted by a gerrymandered legislature and the same RINO crowd that still runs the state in contravention of its conservative population’s wishes. Perry is a member of that RINO crowd, which is why Texans voted for him in far smaller percentages than for other statewide Republican candidates in 2010. The people of Texas are and have been against Perry’s aid to illegals program from the start.
“Additionally, Governor Perry has actual compassion for these children who ended up in his state, outside of their own doing. Educating them gets them working and contributing to the state’s treasury faster, and is more meaningful than letting them sit on the sidelines.”
Even in Texas, where many U.S. citizens aren’t working, these children are getting tax dollars to not work, but take slots from U.S. citizens in competitive admissions processes and limited university aid programs. It’s bad enough that he essentially gave preferential treatment to so many people breaking the law, but no one on the right side of the aisle seems to even want to make the point that Perry unabashedly, eagerly used government to take from Americans and redistribute to these people, when he professes conservatism. It’s just fine to want to help people, but to take money away from others to do it is flat out wrong. No surprise that the Perry camp, so big on ‘conservative principles,’ shies away from any discussion of the philosophical implications of taking taxpayers’ money so any kids, let alone illegals’ kids, can benefit.
So you are now reduced to defending Perry by throwing mud on others? That's it? He's dirty so you have to smear others to make him look clean? Pretty pathetic.
the pig is obozo stupid, Perry is the man, wake up!!!!!
BTW, as an aside...
Apparently Obama has quite the record for deportations.
I seems that he has sent home over 1 million illegal immigrants in 2-1/2 years — on pace to deport more in one term than George W. Bush did in two.
Hows that **** working out for us?
Aunt Tootzie is still here. Uncle Oyango is still here (both on the public dole) but according to Reuters Obama is the man on Illegal immigration
Yeah. Pretty disgusting. Emotion has gotten the better of them.
Donna, the children of people who move here - or the young adults themselves - get in state tuition after only one year of residency, regardless of where they went to high school or their past trouble with the law.
(That’s in contrast to the requirement of finishing the last 3 years of school in a Texas High School, graduating from a Texas High School, and the additional requirement to stay out of trouble with the law.)
You think you can create a path for Palin by destroying Perry and if that would happen, Palin may be in for the same kind of scrutiny. She quit when liberals went after her in AK, what will she do when they come after her here?
When emotion takes over thought and fact go out the window.
I've had enough of the theatrics and tantrums. I'm leaving the thread. They can go down with the ship. Alone.
So he said a dumb thing, one dumb thing. Is that reason enough to throw him under the bus, when we agree with him on 90% of everything else and he can get Obama out of the White House.
Let he/she who never inadvertently or in the heat of a moment insulted a loved one throw the first stone.
He probably also got bad advice, that instead of just being himself, to use emotional words, who knows.
We all agree it was dumb, I am sure he didn’t mean it that way and we need to put things in perspective.
There is a third issue which to my mind is even more important.
Perry favors giving the illegals here today amnesty.
Rick Perry: "I support a guest worker program that takes undocumented workers off the black market and legitimizes their economic contributions without providing them citizenship status."
He's calling it a "guest worker" program but that is doublespeak. A guest worker program would be for workers in Mexico who came here temporarily for work and then returned to Mexico. He wants to legalize the foreign citizens who are already here and snuck in illegally and taking jobs.
Slick Rico thinks he just has to call his amnesty program a "guest worker" program and that we will all be too dumb to understand what he is doing.
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