Posted on 01/20/2014 4:15:21 AM PST by markomalley
Lobbyists, on the march! The coming weeks will see the formal start of the GOP House leadership’s attempt to sneak an immigration amnesty through the Republican caucus and into law. We don’t know the exact details of the proposals, but we know enough:
1) There will be some form of legalization (conditional amnesty) for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. It won’t give them a “special” path to citizenship, but they will likely be able to pursue citizenship through regular old channels. Either way, the message sent to potential future immigrants will be, “If you come here illegally, you’ll get to stay legally.” Plus, once the bill has passed the Democratic campaign to paint the GOP as racist for not granting general citizenship to the whole group will begin.
2) There will be an attempt to describe Speaker Boehner’s “piecemeal” collection of immigration bills as an “enforcement first” arrangement that will prevent another, future illegal wave despite the incentive created by what will be two successive amnesties. Since Democrats and Latino groups would never go for an actual “enforcement first” approach–e.g., enacting universal E-verify, an exit-entry system, building a fence and waiting a few years for legal challenges to peter out**–this claim will necessarily be a fraud, the framing of which will be a key challenge for Boehner & Co.. Presumably just saying “Hey we passed the enforcement part of the bill a week before we passed the amnesty part” won’t do, nor will letting President Obama decide when the enforcement mechanisms are sufficiently “in place.” That means a convoluted debate over “triggers,” the traditional playground for legislative legerdemain.*** Legalizers will try to make the prequisites look tough when they aren’t — certainly nothing that can’t be easily dismantled once the undocumented get their documents. Do not count on the press to correct this misimpression. They’re in the “fool the rubes” camp too.
It takes some chutzpah for Boehner to make his amnesty push now, given the sour jobs news, falling measured support for amnesty, and the need for party unity in the coming midterm elections. You’d think the employment news alone–almost 3 unemployed Americans for every available job–would cause savvy lobbyists to postpone any attempt to push for a massive addition to the unskilled and skilled workforce. (The Senate’s bill would add about 6 million extra immigrant workers by 2023 – in addition to the current illegals who’d be legalized.) Maybe that could fly in a boom. But now?
Democrats used to push for tighter labor markets–they’re the best proven way to lower poverty, boost wages and curb income inequality. Today, the job of pointing that out has fallen to Republican Jeff Sessions, who has been fighting the battle Democras like Byron Dorgan and Barbara Jordan used to fight. Do we want to give less skilled Americans millions of new competitors, inevitably bidding down wages at the bottom? (“Did they repeal the law of supply and demand and not tell me about it?” asks Jim Cramer.) The groups most marginally connected to the labor market–e.g, teenage African Americans–would be the biggest losers. Democrats used to understand this.
It’s a sellout. That’s a term I don’t use lightly. Certainly there are plenty of idealistic, principled advocates of “comprehensive immigration reform” — including true believers in open borders, advocates of immigrants’ rights, and ethnic champions. Even the employers who are providing the financial muscle behind the amnesty push may sincerely think spoiled American workers just aren’t cutting it anymore, that the economy needs better, cheaper, hungrier immigrants — heaven forbid responsible corporatist roundtablers should have to actually train those spoiled Americans.
But why are the politicians abandoning the economic interests of the country’s basic laborers, and the strong anti-amnesty convictions of their own constituents (in the case of most Republicans), and doing it at such an objectively inauspicious time? It’s hard to deny that cash is doing much of the swaying here. “[A]ll the money is on the side of pushing it,” one pro-amnesty Democratic Congressman boasted–money in the form not only of direct campaign contributions, as promised by Mark Zuckerberg ($50 million) and the Chamber of Commerce, but also future consulting contracts and lobbying positions for those who echo the line that Republicans just have to do this to remain viable. In any case, that latter argument–’We’re not doing it for the money. We’re doing it to save our political hides!’–isn’t exactly an appeal to principle either, is it?
The only thing stopping them, at this point, is fervent opposition from the Republican base in a majority of House districts. It would be nice if a few Democrats like Joe Manchin (or independent man-of-the-left Bernie Sanders) had second thoughts, but don’t count on it. Sanders talks a good game, but where is he when the votes are counted?
If strong voter opposition makes itself heard again, as it has in the past, the majority of the GOP caucus that Boehner says he needs probably won’t go along with his pro- amnesty “principles.” If that opposition doesn’t materialize, some form of legalization-before-enforcement becomes an inevitability. The coming weeks will tell.
If you care, get your dialing finger ready.
_____
**– An approach you could call Krauthammer I.
***– I’m also assuming that the trick in the Senate bill–which legalizes immediately but delays citizenship pending various evananescent enforcement triggers–is a non-starter now that legalization is all we’re supposedly talking about. But perhaps I underestimate the cunning of pro-amnesty lobbyists.
>> Mark Zuckerberg ($50 million) and the Chamber of Commerce
Do these folks care about the “pre-existing” labor force?
The push for amnesty isn't driven by a desire to import more cheap labor (otherwise, why would many the same interests pushing for amnesty also be pushing for minimum wage hikes that will only drive employment levels down?). This whole thing -- from the Chamber of Commerce to public-sector labor unions to the elected officials who are firmly in their back pockets -- is driven by the perceived need to get more consumers into the U.S.
This is the inevitable "end-game" for a nation that has run its course in history and is now positioned as a fading empire whose only purpose is to feed a massive consumer/entitlement culture. The U.S. government would even be fully on board with a plan to allow 10 million hardened criminals from other countries to become citizens tomorrow ... because there's always a major interest out there who sees them as a huge business opportunity (the "law enforcement industrial complex," comprised of police officers, lawyers, the prison management sector, etc.).
As long as it is in the interest of individual congressmen to do the wrong thing, well . . .
If the States were represented in the Senate, there isn't a chance amnesty would go anywhere. It is past time recognize that our system rewards good men to do wrong. We must return to the better system of our framers, which prodded less than virtuous men to do the right thing.
all abut the cheapest labor possible
They will do what thy jolly well please. But, I hope they understand if they do this I will never vote for a Republican canidate for anything again. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of special intrest groups instead of “We the People”!
Freegards
LEX
When you grant amnesty to 11 million invading fence jumpers you also ring the bell to at least another 10 million come on up!If I was sitting in a hut in El Salvador I would come up to American, learn the ropes of working under the table,and find my acorn navigator to teach me how to game the system. Who will stop me? I can do whatever I want and take from the stupid gringos,if anyone says anything I’ll cry racism!
One can imagine Dems playing it that way, yet I have yet to hear a single Dem say that he/she would vote for a bill that has no citizenship in it.
Plus if the Dems were to go along with it and vote for it that makes it harder for them to run against it, especially in the short term.
Voting rights is a big issue for Dems, like against voter IDs, and trying to get back those VRA provisions.
Getting illegals the vote is what they are after.
it’s not about cheap labor, we have plenty here who would do anything for a job
it’s not about more consumers
it’s about Democrat votes before the elections
For Democrats, yes. But the people pushing hardest right now are the Chamber of Commerce, and they want cheap labor. If fact, they stated they won't support any Republican nominee who runs against amnesty in the primary.
Change that to read RINO-GOP Party. The party that I was once a member of, the GOP, has died, like most of the country.
I agree with you. We're way past where we should accept that "our guy" voted the correct way, so we should stick by him. It's all a game of musical chairs, and they take turns voting with their constituents so they can get re-elected while still destroying the US.
If this passes, there's no point in having an opposition. Why should any constitutional conservative support a party that only cares about concentrating wealth and power upward, to the elite?
Cruz/RandPaul 2016......our only chance to save the US!
Haley Barbour said yesterday on some news show that Americans won’t work in chicken factories or on farms.
He SAID that those working on farms are ILLEGALS, and hinted that it’s the same in chicken factories.
OF COURSE, they won’t take a job taking $5 an hour under the table. Get rid of the illegal serf wage labor, and force them to pay a market rate, what free people will trade their labor for to do that job, and it’ll be packed with job applicants.
Will our prices go up? Only temporarily. Efficiencies will eventually dominate. I watched a grape picking machine driving down a row of grape vines not too long ago. It needed a driver, but it didn’t need 50 pickers.
Serf wage is the enemy of efficiency.
‘I will never vote for a Republican candidate ever again’.......
ALL due respect, but they don ‘t give a flying fig who you vote for .......or IF you vote ........if they are successful in passing amnesty......and I mean Republicans.
They want amnesty just as much as the Dems......
Our Republic is finished........thrown into the dungheap of history......and our vote is not worth the paper it is printed on
Sellout
**********
The Republicans are good at something. Caving in and selling out is what they do. Its how they roll.
You’re analysis is dead on. And despite the lip service some pay to our position on this, money talks. You can COUNT on us being sold out. As they say, it’s all about the Benjamins.
These people (which is why I LOATHE news entertainment) are in it for the money and not for America.
American won’t have to work; the illegals will work and pay taxes so we can retire. Great campaign commercial in this somewhere.... Even a welfare IDO!T could understand an errors ion of their “entitlement”.
Something that should be pointed out to the Republican leadership, if they have any pattern recognition.
1) Republicans ended slavery, used Reconstruction to elevate former slaves into positions of political power, opposed Jim Crow laws, and forced Civil Rights law on the South. In return, since the Civil Rights era, blacks have almost exclusively voted for Democrats.
2) Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA), 1986: A blanket amnesty for some 2.7 million illegal aliens, under president Ronald Reagan. Hispanics of all ages in the U.S. today are more than twice as likely to identify with or lean to the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party.
Thus, the Republican leadership should stop ignoring patterns like the Democrats do. If they reward citizens of foreign countries at the expense of American citizens, yet get politically punished for doing so by those foreign citizens, obviously they need to rethink their strategy.
“They” don’t care if you never vote for a Republican candidate again; in fact “they” may not do so themselves as well. Many could switch parties after amnesty arrives in hopes of riding to more federal gravy on the winning train. The American people are simply incapable of responding in the crisis at hand.
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