The Answer Is No
The answer is "no"; that word works in English or Spanish. Bill Kristol's summary echoes my own opinion of what the house should do with the awful immigration reform bill passed in the Senate.
Sean Trende asks, in a thoughtful and data-heavy piece, whether the GOP has to pass immigration reform to be competitive in the future at the presidential level. The answer is no.
Meanwhile, with respect to the 2014 congressional elections, it's increasingly clear that allowing any form or permutation of the Senate bill to become law would divide and demoralize potential Republican voters. So if Republicans want to win House and Senate seats in 2014, John Boehner should kill the Senate bill—first refusing to take it up in the House, and also by making clear the House will refuse to go to conference with it. The House can still pass specific bills to address particular immigration issues this session (which presumably the Senate won't take up—but let Harry Reid explain his refusal to do so). But the key is for Boehner to kill "comprehensive" immigration "reform" in this session of Congress.
The primary and indeed sufficient reason to do this is of course because the Senate legislation is such bad public policy. But it may be reassuring to elected officials that doing the right thing won't hurt politically in 2014 or most likely 2016. And it's also the case that Republican presidential candidates can set forth whatever proposals they think right in 2015 and 2016, so they're not just saying no. But the House GOP, for the sake of party and country, should say no: No Capitulation, No "Comprehensive" Bill, No Conference.
I think the most offensive thing about the bill is the comprehensiveness. That's a big word which means bigness. The thing is as obese as Obamacare. Public policy would be served better by smaller "reforms", if you must call them that; Kristol calls them "specific bills to address particular immigration issues".
An enterprising political talk show host would bring out a cart of encyclopedias representing the thousands of pages in these "comprehensive" bills and ask members of Congress whether they would sign a mortgage or other business contract of this massive size, sight unseen or (at best) after being given only a weekend to review the document.
ReplyDeleteThose who would say yes, should be commended for their consistency but dismissed from public office for their sheer stupidity.
Those who would be honest enough to say no, should be dismissed for their wickedness. "Corrupt" and "hypocritical" are true, but the words don't go far enough: the politicians who vote for these massive bills into law are simply evil, because they do not even attempt to abide by the Golden Rule, to treat others as they themsevles would like to be treated.
You can see the same sort of fundamentally wicked behavior on the part of the radical left and too many evidently willing accomplices in the supposed opposition party, in how they approach documents like the Constitution and the Bible. Without regard for the authors' intent, they seek to twist and distort other people's writing to suit their purposes: they would hardly accept others doing the same to their own writing, and they would never participate in even an amateur softball league with people who are equally willing to subvert the written rules.
The will to power has triumphed over even common decency.
why even pass a law if the executive branch can simply choose not to enforce it? the problem here is Congress letting themselves be made useless by a power mad executive branch. These bills don't even matter. All the Washington pundits insist on missing this point as well. Congress is a relic now, and it's almost as if they are fine with that and don't want to be bothered. They should be raising holy, constant hell about the IRS scandal among others. They know damn well they are being marginalized, too, but don't want to rock the boat.
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