11/03/2010
The Republicans now control the US House of Representatives and have increased power in the US Senate. What better time to fix our broken immigration laws with a real debate that serves American citizens — and not the powerful cabal of corporate, ethnic and religious advocates for open borders who have been scandalously demanding passage of another 1986-style amnesty disaster ( Comprehensive Immigration Reform or CIR)?
Yes, I realize that the upcoming lame duck session is fraught with danger. But, again, if some further atrocity gets rammed down Americans' throats, this will merely underline what my Democrats' Congress and Administration have been doing to hurt us.
Talk about chutzpah! We are in the Great Recession — so dubbed because no one wants to admit we are bankrupt — and still taking in over a million aliens on various legal work visas every year.
So, let’s face it, Republicans: it was ANGER that got you this new power — despite your dreadful record of getting us into endless wars, alienating millions with our arrogant militarism, and incurring raging deficits.
By the way, your success was in no small part the result of the Tea Party’s support. As David Corn notes in a recent column: Teapartiers and the Need for Anger Management
"Look at a big tea party target: the TARP bailout. The Bush-Cheney program — which Barack Obama supported as a candidate and then continued as president — was hastily arranged and shoved down America’s throat, with little due diligence or small-d democratic input. It was rightly seen by many as a bailout of the big schemers who had derailed the U.S. economy (while hanging on to their multiple vacation homes). But it may well have partially worked by preventing a more calamitous economic decline, and last week, the news came out that the U.S. government earned $25.2 billion on its $309- billion investment in TARP. That’s an 8.2-percent return — more than what you'd get from a 30-year Treasury bond. Are tea partiers upset that Obama made money for U.S. taxpayers?
"And by the way, it was Obama and the congressional Democrats who went after the Street scoundrels with a Wall Street reform bill that was opposed by GOPers. The legislation may not have been tough enough, but it did more to rein in the perps than anything proposed by the GOP. So why do tea party types complain about TARP (which is paying off), while not caring much about changing the rules so the Big Banks don’t play American taxpayers and consumers for suckers again?
"Speaking of taxpayers, should tea partiers be ticked off about taxes? Not at all. Taxes are down for most Americans and at a historic 60-year low, partly due to Obama’s tax cuts."
So, Republicans, you're on a very short leash! Will your victory, if you do not perform, galvanize Obama in 2012?
That things are likely to be bad for our economy for years has been well documented. For example, in an October 28th AP article, Economists: Unemployment Won’t Drop to Normal Until 2018, we learn that, while modest improvement is expected in the economy next year, AP finds that economists' optimism "has dimmed over the past three months." Other stories recently have echoed the economists' views in this AP article:
"In their view, shoppers and employers will stay cautious. Households will keep saving. Inflation will remain tame. And unemployment will dip only a bit from the current 9.6 percent rate to a still-high 9 percent at the end of 2011.
"In the previous survey in July, the economists predicted unemployment of 8.7 percent at the end of next year. In the survey before that, they foresaw 8.4 percent.
"Some now think unemployment won’t drop to a historically normal 5.5 percent to 6 percent until at least 2018 — several years later than envisioned earlier"
But this long-term outlook does mean that we may have a chance to do something about our immigration invasion.
What? Serious discussions at the highest levels of our government about what the law should be. A real reform debate, with all options on the table. Certainly an immigration moratorium should now get serious consideration.
Moderate voices have for years been arguing, not against immigrants or reasonable immigration, but for a serious discussion of the issue by our Congress and Administrations.
But instead, since the disastrous 1965 immigration act, over 70 million aliens, legal and illegal, have come here and produced children, as well as bringing many of their relatives from abroad.
The untimely demise in January of 1996 of former Congress member, Barbara Jordan who headed the landmark study on immigration — 1995’s The Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) was formed by Congress in 1990, kept a fuller debate at bay.
No-one then or now has called Jordan the names so freely tossed at those who seek such a discussion by the open border crowd. But now, as has been apparent for some time, the only bullet left in the anti-immigration reform gun is the charge of racism. Everyone discussing real immigration reform has been charged as such by the growing cabal of open border liberals.
The AP story involved some serious polling:
"The economists are sharply split on whether the Fed should do so. And they overwhelmingly oppose another round of government stimulus spending. They think the economy will make steady gains, just more slowly than they had earlier thought.
"The AP survey collected the views of 43 leading private, corporate and academic economists on a range of indicators, including employment, consumer spending and inflation. Among their forecasts:
The economy will expand just 2.7 percent next year, scarcely more than the tepid growth predicted for all of 2010. Under an economic rule of thumb, growth would have to average at least 5 percent for a whole year to lower the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point.
Shoppers will boost their spending 2.5 percent in 2011, slightly better than the increase that economists envision for this year. But spending would have to rise roughly twice that fast to deliver enough economic punch to lower unemployment. Three months ago, the economists were more optimistic about 2011: They predicted shoppers would boost their spending 3 percent.
Inflation will equal just 1.7 percent next year. That’s slightly more than the 1.2 percent predicted for this year. And it’s about the minimum level of inflation the Fed thinks a healthy economy needs.
Americans will keep rebuilding their savings, leaving less money for spending. They're expected to save 5.4 percent of disposable income next year. That’s slightly less than the 5.7 percent savings rate predicted for all of 2010. But it’s still near the highest savings rate since 1992.
"'When you look to 2011, the words to describe the economy are glum, lousy, subpar,' says Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University’s Economic Forecasting Center.
"What to do about it is the subject of dispute. Two-thirds of the economists surveyed say Congress should refrain from more stimulus spending. Some worry that such aid wouldn’t be targeted effectively.
"Others say the extra spending would take too long to lift the economy.
"An overarching concern is that more government spending would widen the budget gap, already at $1.3 trillion".
We are going bankrupt and still importing cheap labor — while our real unemployment rate is north of 15%!
This insanity must be stopped. We American taxpayers must demand it.
Donald A. Collins is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.