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Earth to Gov. Perry: True "Heart" Means No Benefits to Illegals
Townhall.com ^ | September 26, 2011 | Heidi Harris

Posted on 09/26/2011 8:49:12 AM PDT by Kaslin

It goes without saying that Rick Perry alienated the base he needs to win last week with his “no heart” on lllegal immigrants comment at the Fox News/Google debate.

Either he’s completely deaf to the concerns of real conservatives, or he’s taking our vote for granted.

Either way, he’s headed in the wrong direction, as his poor showing in the Florida straw poll demonstrates.

I honestly don’t have a simple solution for teens who are brought here illegally as children, but then again, I’m not running for President. Send them home? Home where? Let them stay? You’re rewarding their parents’ lawbreaking, and encouraging the next wave of parents to do the same.

It’s a conundrum, to be sure. But offering in-state tuition, or any other type of special benefits That’s an easy one: NO.

Why hasn’t anyone asked the most obvious question of all? If the kids are “in limbo”, without legal status, why bother subsidizing an education for them, when they can’t legally work in the U.S. and won’t be able to repay? And with unemployment so high among native born teens, why should we add millions more to the pool of job applicants?

Governor Perry doesn’t seem to understand principle. When cornered about the HPV vaccine, his response was akin to “if it will save one life”...oh brother.

Our worst legislation comes from that perspective. Tell me, Governor, is it okay to have mandates about anything, whether legislative or executive, just because someone might die? Since when is that a conservative value? Don’t we have enough bad laws?

No one wants illegal teens left in limbo, but what does that have to do with government subsidization of their education? Come to think of it, why should I subsidize anyone’s college education, native born or otherwise?

Whatever happened to investing in yourself?

Governor Perry had the chance to say- since his heart is apparently as big as the Texas taxpayers’ checkbook- that although he doesn’t want to punish those kids, they should not be subsidized by taxpayers. But instead he took a swipe at those of us who do see the principle at stake.

Big mistake, Mr. Perry.

We have a heart, we’re just tapped out.

“The path to citizenship” is an entirely different issue from taxpayer funded benefits, which in my opinion is the ONLY way to solve the illegal immigration problem.

You’ll have far fewer ants coming into your house if you don’t leave sweets lying around. Sure, the worker ants will fan out to do recon, but if they don’t find any “handouts”, they’ll go elsewhere; and they certainly won’t come back with reinforcements.

I’m not comparing illegal immigrants to ants, but the principle is the same.

Eliminating government handouts in any form; WIC, SNAP, housing, education, etc., will, by attrition, greatly reduce our illegal immigration problem. Politicians on both sides have looked me in the eye many times and sworn that “illegals don’t qualify for benefits.”

But they do, as soon as they have a child born in the U.S.

The guy coming in to pick fruit in the Imperial Valley doesn’t really worry me. We’ve always had agricultural, seasonal migration. What’s changed in the last 100 years are the additional incentives for them to stay and bring their families here, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

Subsidized education, medical care and housing for the entire family of a migrant, including “anchor babies” is what’s killing us, and it’s our fault if we continue those policies.

Americans have passed these laws and allowed these programs to get completely out of control. This should be addressed honestly by our next President.

Although the entire problem can’t be solved by cutting these programs, if the only illegals we had left were at least pulling their own weight, Americans would be far less concerned.

Governor Perry and the other candidates need to stop talking about “controlling the border” or “building a wall” and get serious about what WILL solve many of the problems uncontrolled immigration causes.

Cutting programs is cheaper than building the Great Wall of Texas.

So let’s review: true conservatives don’t erode everyone’s rights to “save lives”, nor do they allow misguided compassion to subsidize lawbreakers.

Governor Perry, don’t take conservative voters for granted. We have other choices.

Besides I’m an unabashed Cain-iac anyway.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: aliens; heartless
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To: sickoflibs; Impy; Liz; B4Ranch; Clintonfatigued; BillyBoy; Dengar01; mkjessup

” These increasing frantic stories about begging Christie to get in are a sign that Republicans are in bad shape, “

Way, way beyond bad shape.....suicidal comes to mind.


61 posted on 09/27/2011 7:35:44 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker (God, family, country, mom, apple pie, the girl next door and a Ford F250 to pull my boat.)
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To: stephenjohnbanker; Impy; Liz; B4Ranch; Clintonfatigued; BillyBoy; Dengar01; mkjessup; ...
RE :”” These increasing frantic stories about begging Christie to get in are a sign that Republicans are in bad shape, “.....
Way, way beyond bad shape.....suicidal comes to mind.

Christie is an incredibly successful Republican governor but he has a number of positions he takes that sell in liberal NJ as a governor are not what we need at the national level and certainly not as POTUS.

I have posted ~ 30 times here “HE IS NOT RUNNING” and I dont wish that on him. He would be crucified if he did. I wish better than that on him. NEXT...

62 posted on 09/28/2011 5:14:34 AM PDT by sickoflibs (Over-taxed means 'paying too much in taxes', not zero taxes)
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To: laweeks
It was a veto proof bill. Texas took control of illegals going to college in Texas by legislation. The Texas Dream Act is one of the toughest in the country. 38 states have not legislated on the matter at all. What is not prohibited is allowed. Therefore, you have illegals with the same advantage as legal American kids and in state tuition in 38 states.

The only other chink in his armor is his support for a law he signed which allowed for non-citizen children domiciled in Texas without immigration documentation to be considered Texas residents for the purposes of paying college tuition. From the boos in the crowds it was apparent that most Republicans nation-wide do not support this. Nonetheless, Perry explains very clearly and carefully why he signed what was a veto proof bill passed with four “no” votes out of 183 Texas legislators, with Republicans in firm control of both chambers.

But here’s what Yankees like Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum don’t get. Texas is not the only state that has done this. New Mexico and California have as well. Not surprisingly, Arizona is the only state with an actual border with Mexico that hasn’t. In addition to Arizona, only three other states prohibit in-state tuition for children with undocumented immigration status. However, in addition to Texas, New Mexico, and California, eight other states specifically allow it. These include Kansas (passed with a Republican supermajority in both houses), Nebraska (non-partisan, but with a supermajority of members who were otherwise Republicans), and Utah (again, with a dual supermajority of Republicans), New York (split control), Oklahoma (Republican House and even split in the Senate), as well as Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin (Democratic simple majority in both houses).

Now you may be thinking to yourself, if only four states have prohibited state universities from considering undocumented students as residents, and eight have specifically permitted it, what about the other thirty-eight? They have not legislated on the matter at all. What is not prohibited is allowed.

One Statesman in the Field

63 posted on 09/28/2011 5:22:37 AM PDT by shield (Rev 2:9 Woe unto those who say they are Judahites and are not, but are of the syna GOG ue of Satan.)
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To: sickoflibs; All

He was just on the radio 5:30 AM WSJ report, saying he has no interest at all in running : )


64 posted on 09/28/2011 5:52:11 AM PDT by stephenjohnbanker (God, family, country, mom, apple pie, the girl next door and a Ford F250 to pull my boat.)
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To: stephenjohnbanker
RE :"He was just on the radio 5:30 AM WSJ report, saying he has no interest at all in running : )"

How about that other 'potential' candidate? Sounds like she may be letting some down.

65 posted on 09/28/2011 6:02:35 AM PDT by sickoflibs (Over-taxed means 'paying too much in taxes', not zero taxes)
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