In Newsweek, Mickey Kaus blogs:
When I worried that the Obama White House might have a plan to enact the so-called DREAM Act in "some sort of insidiuous tax-cuts-for-amnesty grand bargain," I figured it was just paranoid speculation. That's what bloggers are for, right? Unfortunately, the possibility of a lame-duck grand bargain that would include a big immigration amnesty has become more realistic since then.
Two things have happened: (1) The White House, Hill Republicans, and Hill Democrats have appointed a special negotiating group to hash out lame-duck issues, especially what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts, and (2) 42 Senate Republicans have signed a letter pledging to vote against cloture "on any legislative item [including, presumably, the DREAM Act] until the Senate has agreed" on a plan to extend the tax cuts and also to fund the government.
That second development might seem to preclude consideration of the DREAM Act, but it doesn't. DREAM would just have to follow a broader tax deal—or maybe be part of it.
What, GOP politicians might sell out on immigration in return for tax cuts for the rich? I'm shocked, shocked to learn this.
And at some point the GOP's sellout on immigration and other issues of importance to the tea party and "middle America" is going to lead to more dramatic political changes. I don't get the impression that regular White folk that have become recently engaged are just going to go away. At least I hope not.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very scary possibility. Upper class tax cuts and more immigrant workers depressing wages would be a double win for Republicans, who are only interested in redistributing wealth upwards to the richest people in the country. The only thing that has been holding them back is Republican base voters, but immigration in this lame duck case would be blamed on Democrats.
ReplyDeleteThere will be hell to pay if the GOP sells out on immigration. I voted Republican in the last election and if those bums don't do something on spending and immigration, I'm sitting out 2012.
ReplyDeleteA lot of conservatives think like me and I'd bet the GOP is aware of this. I think it's unlikely they'll sell us out.
Another problem: The Tea Party. There's so much grassroots power and anger from the Tea Partiers that the national will be scared to defy them.
Hi Steve. One demographic you haven't touched on in the last election is seniors turning against Obama. This is very bad for Democrats, because seniors vote.
ReplyDeleteThey are much whiter than other age groups, so race could have played some role. Also, they became very distressed during the health care votes that their Medicare would be taken or changed, and didn't trust that Obama was looking out for them. It's hard to see that they were thinking through all possibilities, because Republicans have never hid their hatred of Medicare. Health care is complicated, and seniors unfortunately have lower unadjusted IQs, so for many this was probably based more on instinct than on number crunching.
Ha, ha! Just imagine those corporate execs being forced into accepting the inflow of more immigrant workers in exchange for getting their personal taxes cut...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the gnashing of teeth can be heard around every country club in America...
The Dream Act is massively unpopular with the Republican Base for Senators facing re-election in 2012. McCain had to go to the border to posture, to beat his primary challenge. It is also poison for a significant amount of Democrats.
ReplyDeleteImmigrant workers and the rich describes Democrats more than Republicans who face a slow-motion but incomplete takeover by the Tea Party activists. The NYT is complaining "even" Dick Lugar can face a primary challenge! Well of course.
Dems want START, DREAM, some form of Cap and Tax, and various other wish lists including ending Don't Ask Don't Tell. In 17 days. Plus the Bush Tax Cuts.
Its not going to happen. And what's the benefit to giving Obama a victory for the GOP? Just run out the clock, so you get the House and the Senate in more favorable terms. Indeed if the Bush Tax Cuts expire, its all on Dems. They own it. Obama is wounded and has little to offer.
Do Reps in the Senate trust Obama and Reid? That is what it will come down to.
A "compromise" where the rich benefit from both sides. Clever.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats are offering the GOP a poisoned apple. Tax cuts for the rich (which benefits as many Democratic donors as it does Republican ones), plus amnesty for millions of new Dem voters. It would not shock me if Republicans ate it, with Democrats laughing all the way to the next elections.
I don't sense that either McConnell or Boehner have the faintest idea why Bush failed and why they were turned out of office to begin with. In case you didn't know, Mitch McConnell voted for the first proposed amnesty back in 2006.
As I've said many times before, extending tax cuts for the rich needs to be pre-conditioned on passing other elements of the conservative agenda, including immigration enforcement. 30 years into the Reagan Revolution conservatives haven't gotten spit. The gov't is bigger, the deficit is bigger, there are more people on the dole; affirmative action is more widespread, abortion is still legal, illegitimacy rates are higher and school choice is a distant mirage - but taxes for the rich are a lot lower.
Conservatives have gotten nothing out of the bargain and, until they realize how the game is played, they never will.
The Republican leadership probably figures that the Republican base will get a little angry, but will forget by the time the 2012 elections come around. That isn't the problem, though.
The real problem is that illegal immigration does real damage to the economy, to the federal budget, to worker's wages and to unemployment rates. Flooding neighborhoods with poor illegals reduces the natives' quality of life. Extending the tax cuts will add to the deficit, do nothing to stimulate the economy, and increase income disparity. Getting other constituencies (farmers, seniors, federal workers, etc.) to accept spending cuts is less likely if Congress is extending tax cuts for the rich.
One man likely to suffer if DREAM passes is Orrin Hatch, even though he personally has pledged to vote against it. Reason being that he invented the idea, sponsoring the first version of DREAM back in 2001. The author of the House version of that bill was Chris Cannon (R-UT), who was defeated, largely on immigration issues, in 2008. Sen. Bob Bennett was also pro-amnesty and he was defeated in Utah this year.
ReplyDeleteUtah Republicans have long been making noises of dissatisfaction with Hatch. If DREAM passes, Hatch will take the blame for having first thought it up.
I don't think it will pass. So long as it doesn't it'll be nice to have another amnesty vote on the record. It'll make for some great campaign commercials.
Tax cuts for the rich.
ReplyDeleteCheap servants for the rich.
Do I detect a pattern?
Steve,
ReplyDeleteThe great Republican project of transferring as much wealth as possible to the super-rich, whilst creating a mass 'helot' class of impoversished wage-slaves has been spectacularly successful.
In fact, it's just about the only policy in modern US politics that HAS actually succeeded - and succeeded well - it's there, it's unchallenged, largely unnoticed and irreversible.
Why push it even more? it's beginning to look like ignorance and arrogance.
People need to channel their anger into the GOP (and DEM) primary process and before.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the powerful elite control the primary process, the angry public has no real choice on issues like amnesty, big government, deficit spending, unwise foreign wars, etc which the elite Republicrats uniformly support.
The immigration bit, I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteBut "tax cuts?"
Unless you assume that the state has first call on individual income, these are not "tax cuts."
Extending the current tax basis is not cutting taxes.
The GOP should let all the tax cuts expire if they're smart (which they're not). Throw W.'s pathetic legacy under the bus. Let the middle class start paying Clinton rates, and then let the Obama administration argue that we're doomed if Bush's tax cuts aren't restored for the middle class.
ReplyDeleteThen the GOP can mock Obama for perpetuating the failed policies of W. and turning against the tax system we had during the Clinton boom. The GOP should embrace the smart parts of Clinton's economic policies, now that the Dems have completely gone away from them.
Also, don't pass any extension of unemployment insurance past 99 (!) weeks, that's just keeping a band aid on a bleeding artery. Let it bleed, let people start competing for minimum wage jobs with illegals. As long as people have that unemployment coming in, pride keeps them from realizing how far they've fallen. Let them realize it; let them see how bad this economy truly is. The worse they feel, the less chance Obama has of getting reelected.
The Bush tax cuts are across the board, not just for "the rich":
ReplyDeleteTax Brackets
EGTRRA [the Bush tax cuts] created six tax rate brackets--10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35%, based on income levels. If no extension is passed and signed into law, then the pre-2001 tax rates will go back into effect starting in tax year 2011. The 10% bracket would disappear, and those taxpayers would move up to the 15% bracket, which would apply to all incomes below $34,550. The other tax rates would increase to 28%, 31%, 36% and 39.6% for the highest earners making more than $379,650.
Child Tax Credit
One major provision that will expire at the end of 2010 is the child tax credit, which EGTRRA doubled from $500 to $1,000 per child. Unless Congress votes to extend the child tax credit, the maximum amount will revert back to $500 for tax year 2011, and the number of families eligible for that amount will be much less as tougher eligibility standards that existed prior to EGTRRA will go back into effect.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/22/expiring-bush-cuts-affect-personal-finance-taxes.html
....
So even people making less than $34,550 per year will see their taxes go up. Plus the child tax credit will disappear. Of course, it is true that most of the savings will accrue to "the rich" - after all, the top 1% of earners pay about 40% of the taxes, so any tax cut is bound to affect them the most.
With regard to a possible GOP sellout on immigration, it wouldn't surprise me. The Bush-McCain brand of Republicanism was massively repudiated by the voters in 2006 and 2008, but when the GOP got smart and dropped it in 2010, they won big. But old habits die hard. It may be the the Republicans just can't stand success.
Dear Senator ______ ,
ReplyDeleteI'm writing to express my concern that the lame-duck session of Congress is preparing to act unwisely on immigration policy.
The "DREAM Act" would advance certain interests -- notably those of large service-sector businesses. But it would do so by punishing poorer and less-skilled Americans.
With unemployment above 10%, it's heartless to consider flooding the labor market with a broad amnesty for illegal aliens. To say nothing of stepping up legal immigration.
The "DREAM Act" would be bad policy for the United States under any circumstances. It is particularly awful given the current economic conditions.
Please reflect on the broader interests of American citizens when cloture for the "DREAM Act" comes up for consideration. Vote No!
My prediction is that if the Dream Act is ever passed there will never be "comprehensive immigration reform". Once the Dream Act or something like it, the pro-immigration side will lose its leverage to prevent real enforcement from being enacted. It probably would not happen in one legislation but E-Verify, a fence, fully expanded 287g, defunding sanctuary cities, etc. will be sure to follow.
ReplyDeleteThere are too many Democrats in red and red-leaning states up for re-election in 2012 for DREAM to get through. Senators like Webb, McCaskill, and Manchin might as well start sending their resumes out to K Street if they let this thing go through. Even Pelosi's having trouble herself getting a majority in the House, as the outgoing blue dogs are pissed about screwed over by her agenda.
ReplyDeleteI could very well be proven wrong, but this looks like so much empty posturing.
and they'll probably cave into to some radical libertarian group and lift any restrictions on trade with china as well.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is a bizzare combination of militant pro israel foreign policy, free markets for the rich when things are going well, bailouts when they are not, and rugged individualism for middle class americans who are increasingly bearing more and more of the burden.
Hey, class-warfare retards:
ReplyDeleteThe rich make jobs. Stop hating them.
-A Non-Retard
Tax cuts for the rich.
ReplyDeleteCheap servants for the rich.
Also - tax fodder for bankrupt entitlement plans, so seniors won't oppose it.
This is actually what this is all about.
my goodness, it never ends.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Machiavelli say, basically, politics was about rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies? Are the Repubs really going to reward the bankers in deep blue Connecticut and the trial lawyers and the Silicon valley tycoons.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Is-the-GOP-a-Better-Party-for-Minority-Candidates-6012
ReplyDeleteThis guy completely stole your analysis from your last vdare.com essay. (no need to post this, just wanted to bring it to your attention.)
Jeb Bush is also out there shilling for this and broader amnesty right now, just as if the 2010 elections never happened and the "official" unemployment rate was not at 10%. Babs and Poppy were on Larry King acting just as pompous and detached from the base as they actually have always been, mocking populist conservatism. Just when I thought I could not detest the Bush family any more, they reach a new high in lows.
ReplyDeleteThe only good that can come out of this is that conservative voters may realize that the Bush family has been destroying the republican party since 1981. This Dream Act is not going to pass if the republicans and blue dogs want to keep their jobs. Tea Party activists are keeping score on sitting members and already working to draft congressional candidates for the 2012 republican primaries.
Hatch said he is retiring, won't run for re-election. However, one has never been able to trust Hatch.
ReplyDeleteWell I am happy that most of you are opposed to keeping the tax cuts...if nothing else :)
ReplyDeleteLots of Repub senators will face dangerous Tea Party primary challenges if they let the "Dream" amnesty act get passed one way or another.
ReplyDeleteIt's not gonna happen. Klaus is just being paranoid. There's not chatter about this attachment strategy being done.
The DREAM ACT isn't that bad. I get the idea that Steve's blog trends toward WN these days.
ReplyDeleteShame.
hand-size seems to be a
ReplyDeleteprerequisite for greatness
i can't think of any "great" man, a CEO, a leader, or any charismatic person who
had really small hands.
it's not the hand-size per se that matters....
hand-size = masculinity...
leaders are ....masculine
even female leaders exhibit what we consider "masculine" qualities
a daring...
a willingness to decide, he's a "decider!"
Steve, it sounds to me like you're coming around to my way of thinking. The rich voted for Obama in 2008, so why not let them have the tax increase they voted for?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the economy held up fine when the tax rates were higher during the 1990s.
Finally, the idea that lowering taxes would lead to less government spending is an idea which never panned out.
Steve S. said:
ReplyDeleteWhat, GOP politicians might sell out on immigration in return for tax cuts for the rich? I'm shocked, shocked to learn this.
So the REPs offer the oligarchs a tax cut in return for reducing their labour costs. Gee what an agonizing trade-off.
Why dont the REPs give the oligarch bankers a free pass to award themselves astronomical bonuses. Oh wait a minute, the oligarchs have already done that for themselves.
You guys should get used to the idea that you live in a country where the ruling strata is indifferent to the nation's fate.
Just when I thought I could not detest the Bush family any more, they reach a new high in lows.
ReplyDeleteAnd how many votes does the Bush family have in the Senate? Answer: Zero. Who cares what they think?
Meanwhile Lindsey Grahamnesty has announced he'll vote no on all the versions of the DREAM act now being proposed.
This is all Kabuki theater for the La Raza crowd. Reid wants to be able to tell them that he at least tried.
The DREAM ACT isn't that bad.
ReplyDeleteThe concept wouldn't be that bad if we'd taken care of enforcement. The devil, though, is in the details. The bill is so loose in its wording it would be an effective amnesty for a large chunk of the illegal population, it would encourage all manner of fraud, and it would incentivize further illegal entry.
FWIW, Laura Ingraham interviewed Lindsay Grahamnesty. He said he is against any DREAM act (Reid has four versions) until the borders have been secured for years.
ReplyDeleteThat's Grahamnesty. Not up for re-election until 2014. He has read the Tea Leaves.
The best play for the GOP is to let the Tax Cuts expire, create a double-dip recession, then push for even bigger cuts and spending (on Dem pork/favored constituencies) to match.
If Reid had a deal, he would not be pushing four stealth DREAM measures. Nor would all 42 Republican Senators including the Maine RINO squishes up for re-election in 2012 (Maine is now completely Republican in the State Legislature, for the first time in about fifty years).
The Bush tax cuts also cut taxes for small businesses. Who file mostly under the personal rate, not a corporate rate. You'd be surprised how many small businesses (chief engine of job growth/creation) are run as personal not corporate enterprises. Fees for incorporation in California for example are around $4,000 K total, IIRC. And the state is strict about corporate governance. Make small business owners already hating Obama have reason to hate him more (i.e. Obama could have pushed for it, say before the mid-term elections).
Dear working class and lower middle class GOP voters. Thanks much for the tax cut I didn't really need, but will put to good use hiring Hector and Jorge to put a new hardwood floor down.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
a Democratic voting Hollywood elitist
The rich make jobs. Stop hating them.
ReplyDeleteSlight correction: The rich make jobs for people in China and India, and for illegals. Stop hating them.
"The Bush tax cuts also cut taxes for small businesses. Who file mostly under the personal rate, not a corporate rate. You'd be surprised how many small businesses (chief engine of job growth/creation) are run as personal not corporate enterprises."
ReplyDeleteThat gets repeated a lot, but I'm pretty sure it's b.s. The small businesses that file under the personal rate are probably almost all sole proprietors (or maybe sole props that keep a spouse or a kid on the payroll part-time), and not 'engines of job growth/creation'. Engines of job creation are the fast growing small and mid-sized businesses, nearly all of which certainly file as corporate entities, for liability and tax reasons.
The DREAM ACT isn't that bad.
ReplyDeleteCompared to global thermonuclear war, no, it's not that bad.
It still sucks though.
"The rich make jobs. Stop hating them."
ReplyDeleteNo, they don't. People create real jobs in the process of becoming rich, i.e. while they build businesses and add value to the economy. People who are already rich only create jobs for cooks, fashion designers,luxury good manufacturers and personal wealth management. Not a sustainable economy. Sure, you could argue that rich people deploy their aggregated capital more efficiently than would a large number of middle class people - but that's what we supposedly pay banks to do. And countries like Germany or Japan don't seem to allocate capital that much more inefficiently than we do.
The GOP Strategy
ReplyDeleteStep 1 - encourage immigration to depress wages, undermine ethnic white labor unions, and allow the rich to continue strip mining the white middle class.
Step 2 - create and fund "Tea Parties" to use fear of immigrants and anxiety about declining white middle class standards of living to convince those same white males to vote GOP despite GOPs dismal record on immigration
Step 3 - encourage immigration to depress wages, undermine ethnic white labor unions, and allow the rich to continue strip mining the white middle class.
Step 4 - etc. etc.
Not to worry. The GOP will keep the flow of low wage labor flowing, will cut taxes on the rich, and will take no meaningful action on the deficit. But they'll make some really passionate speeches about gay marriage, abortion, the war on Christmas, and the ground zero mosque. They'll take a brave stand on protecting us from the dire threat of having sharia law imposed on us by the vast high-tech armies of the Arab/Muslim world. And they'll oppose socialism bravely, unless Goldman or Citibank should happen to make some bad investments.
ReplyDeleteAnd the really beautiful part is, it'll work. Vast numbers of Republican voters will thank the GOP for shafting them and the country, so long as the party mouths the right phrases to make their low-information voters think they're on the same side, and promises to protect the country from imaginary threats.
RKU
ReplyDelete"Just imagine those corporate execs being forced into accepting the inflow of more immigrant workers in exchange for getting their personal taxes cut"
Forced? That's what they want.
Shouting Thomas
"Unless you assume that the state has first call on individual income, these are not "tax cuts"
You know what a deficit is?
Anon
"It probably would not happen in one legislation but E-Verify, a fence, fully expanded 287g, defunding sanctuary cities, etc. will be sure to follow."
Yes millions of extra Democrat voters would lead to that. Defo. Top analysis. Have a cookie.
Anon
"The rich make jobs. Stop hating them."
The rich have been sucking all the capital out of America and transplanting it abroad.
"some sort of insidiuous tax-cuts-for-amnesty grand bargain,"
ReplyDeleteIsn't this essentially the Tea Party platform? Those folks don't seem too concerned about immigration. No doubt they'll be thrilled by this deal.
"Vast numbers of Republican voters will thank the GOP for shafting them and the country..."
ReplyDeleteAnd the alternative to the GOP is...?
No, I'm not happy with the GOP, but the Democratic Party is not a viable alternative. Utilizing the primary system to replace bad Republicans with better Republicans is the way to go.
"As long as the powerful elite control the primary process, the angry public has no real choice on issues like amnesty, big government, deficit spending, unwise foreign wars, etc which the elite Republicrats uniformly support."
We have a decent system in Utah, where precincts, of which there are about 3500, send delegates to county and state conventions to narrow down the field of contenders to at most two candidates. The result was that this year Bob Bennett, whose massive cash pile could've probably saved him in the primary, was eliminated at the convention, where it did him little good.
As you might guess, some party leaders are now pushing for a more conventional primary system, where big money would have a much larger say.
"The concept wouldn't be that bad if we'd taken care of enforcement."
WTF? If we'd taken care of enforcement we wouldn't have all these illegal "kids" here with a DREAM.
People create real jobs in the process of becoming rich, i.e. while they build businesses and add value to the economy. People who are already rich only create jobs for cooks, fashion designers,luxury good manufacturers and personal wealth management.
ReplyDeleteOkay, but people who are already rich don’t pay much income tax -- and the "Bush tax cuts" are reductions in income tax rates. High income taxes are not taxes on the rich, they`re taxes on getting rich -- one of the truest political aphorisms ever coined.
When Warren Buffett calls for income taxes to rise, it’s no skin off his nose because he doesn’t pay significant income taxes. He pays capital gains taxes and corporate taxes. You don’t hear him calling for any raises to those.
Half Sigma said...
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the economy held up fine when the tax rates were higher during the 1990s.
Tax rates were only a TINY bit higher in the 1990s. A better example is the 1950s or the 1960s or the 1970s. Tax rates were wickedly high (70-90% in the top bracket), but innovation and productivity both advanced rapidly.
The GOP is just continuing a long-term trend. The Democrats push the country to the left - mass immigration, open borders, more welfare, more entitlements, more affirmative action, more federal control of schools, etc. The GOP then campaigns hinting that they will reverse the changes made by the Democrats, but they never get around to it.
ReplyDeleteOccasionally - as with Bush's amnesty proposals, Medicare Part D, and NCLB - they openly embrace positions of the left, usually under the dubious notion that they need to do these things to win elections.
The result is that perhaps the only ways that this country has moved to the right since 1980 is lower crime and lower taxes on the rich.
Obviously, embracing the Dems is not an option. The Tea Party tactic of intra-party primary challenges is certainly the right tack to take, even if I'm dubious of the Tea Party itself. It's time to start punishing Republicans who aren't actively pushing conservative policies. The problem is that for too damn many conservatives it's hard to get them to care about much more than saving a few dollars on their taxes.
"Tax rates were only a TINY bit higher in the 1990s."
ReplyDeleteIf we're talking about the tax cuts for the rich, then we're talking about capital gains taxes. Those taxes were higher during the 80s and 90s (at some points nearly twice as high) and the economy didn't suffer. In fact it grew faster than it did during the last decade.
And of course we had a 55% estate tax the entire time.
"Okay, but people who are already rich don’t pay much income tax..."
But the current debate about the tax cuts is also about extending tax cuts for the already rich - the 15% cap gains max and the complete elimination of the estate tax.
Please know what the hell you're commenting on before posting your opinion.
Yes, Buffett's taxes will go up if the Bush cuts for the rich aren't extended.
Occasionally - as with... NCLB - they openly embrace positions of the left
ReplyDeleteWill you people PLEASE quit dissing the NCLB Act?
The ironclad testing requirements of the NCLB are the single most important innovation in American edumakashun in a century or more.
Why do you think we keep getting these stories in the NYT every week [which Steve dutifully comments on] bemoaning the dogged steadfastness of "The Gap"?
It's because NCLB [& California STAR & the like] are proving - beyond any possible shadow of any possible doubt - the underlying certainty of what Murray & Herrnstein had prophesied more than 15 years ago - that, as things now stand [barring some miraculous breakthrough in neurology and neurochemistry and neuropharmacology], the genetic/intellectual situation for the NAMs is simply hopeless.
And if we can't stand up for the general principle of "Shining the Light of Truth" on a fiasco like this, then we are no better than the nihilists on The Left who seek to destroy us.
PS: If the The Left can't succeed in removing the NCLB testing requirements via overt politics and legislation, then look for them to mount a covert Gramscian/Frankfurt School attack on the testing bodies themselves - infiltrating the testing boards and redesigning the tests so as to make them meaningless [as Steve has pointed out so often with e.g. the firefighters' and policemen's tests, the only way to make "The Gap" disappear is to either make the test so difficult that everyone fails it, or to make the test so easy that everyone passes it].
Just a month ago people were ecstatic about how the Republicans had made gains in the election and that a new day was about to dawn in America. People were gushing with hope, change was in the air. Now, the sellout has already begun? That sure didn't take long, you could have set an egg timer by it. We have a one party state with two factions within it so pick which one you might prefer based on how congenial the personality of the head of the ticket appears to be on television. People who don't vote are often castigated as indifferent citizens but really, who can blame a person who decides not to participate in a shell game of cynicism and betrayal? It's just a matter of choosing which hangman you prefer.
ReplyDeleteA good way for tea party supporters, or more generally the GOP white working class base, to make a stand and discipline the elite would be to oppose Obama's revived trade pact with Korea. These corporate-directed deals are very unpopular, and by now the scoop is out that they depress American employment and wages. Let new GOP house members know that they'll face a primary challenge if they support this agreement.
ReplyDelete>Hey, class-warfare retards:
ReplyDeleteThe rich make jobs.<
For whom?
(Regarding your notion: it is more accurate to say intelligent, daring, and innovative people make wealth - and jobs - possible in the first place; and adding to our population the x million Mexicans whom Vincente Fox wishes to be rid of has a negative effect on such people. But trust-fund people, public sector job people, and corporate welfare people are benefited by it - in the nanny-hiring department.)
Nah, they won't do it. If they let the Dream act pass, they'll be annihilated in 2012 and beyond. They'll lose both the hispanics AND any patriotic Americans who voted for them in 2010.
ReplyDeleteThey're stupid, but THAT stupid?
Why don't you all get off your asses and start phoning, faxing, writing checks, and emailing your representatives instead of moaning about it here?
ReplyDeleteThose of us who DO do those things need all the help we can get.
"A good way for tea party supporters, or more generally the GOP white working class base, to make a stand and discipline the elite would be to oppose Obama's revived trade pact with Korea. These corporate-directed deals are very unpopular, and by now the scoop is out that they depress American employment and wages. Let new GOP house members know that they'll face a primary challenge if they support this agreement."
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that "free trade" is still something that the talk radio/Fox News people won't oppose and average people just don't get as worked up over it as they do about illegal immigration.
Jeff Maylor et al have a much, much higher opinion of the teaparty loons than they should. The TPers almost completely ignored immigration for over a year and (at least based on Twitter) they've played only a very small role in opposing the DA. That's not surprising to me: even though many of them (per polls) oppose mass immig., they tend to do what their leaders (Armey, Kochtopus, etc.) want them to do. None of them that I've seen (again, based on Twitter) are capable of taking on even the least capable DA-supporting hacks. They're just useful idiots for Armey et al and they support the exact rich-friendly policies the as the GOP.
ReplyDeleteDon't put your faith in the TPers, and don't think that reducing immigration is just a right-wing issue.