Home » Rand Paul On Gang Of Eight’s Immigration Reform: “It’s A Little Bit Like Obamacare”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said that he is for immigration reform, though I disagree with how he wants to reform the process of immigration in the same way I disagree with how Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and his Gang of Eight want to reform it. However, when it comes to blasting Rubio’s proposal on immigration, Paul does an excellent job.
“I am worried that the bill before us won’t pass,” he said. “It may pass the Senate, may not pass the House. I want to be constructive in making the bill strong enough that conservatives, myself included, conservative Republicans in the House will vote for this because I think immigration reform is something we should do.”
“In this bill I am worried, though, and this is similar to what Senator [Ron] Johnson said, that it says, well, you have to have a plan to build a fence, but you don’t have to build a fence,” the Kentucky Senator continued. “And if you don’t have a plan to build a fence, then you get a commission. I don’t know what happens if the commission doesn’t do anything. That’s the story of Washington around here.”
“To me, it’s a little bit like Obamacare,” he added. “And I hate to bring that up, but 1,800 references to the secretary shall at a later date decide things. We don’t write bills around here. We should write the bill. We should write the plan. We should do these things to secure the border whether it be fence, entry, exit, we should write it, not delegate it. What’s going to happen in five years if they don’t do their job — maybe not even them, maybe somebody else who doesn’t do their job in five years, and the border is not secured? We will be blamed for the next 10 million that come here illegally.“
He’s right. There is no teeth in the bill. It’s just another form of amnesty and we see how well that worked out under George W. Bush. It didn’t stop a thing. This bill doesn’t punish anyone breaking the law. It doesn’t really hold any agency accountable, but it does cost the America tax payers. It costs them dearly.
According to the Heritage Foundation, it will cost $6.3 trillion! Yeah that kind of is like Obamacare, isn’t it? From the executive summary of Heritage’s report:
Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue:
-Direct benefits: These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.-Means-tested welfare benefits: There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.-Public education: At a cost of $12,300 per pupil per year, these services are largely free or heavily subsidized for low-income parents.
-Population-based services: Police, fire, highways, parks, and similar services, as the National Academy of Sciences determined in its study of the fiscal costs of immigration, generally have to expand as new immigrants enter a community; someone has to bear the cost of that expansion.
The cost of these governmental services is far larger than many people imagine. For example, in 2010, the average U.S. household received $31,584 in government benefits and services in these four categories.
I wish there had been a serious study like this of the prescription drug bill put out before that monster was signed into law. It may have never seen Bush’s desk.
In fact, Mediaite’s AJ Delgado tweeted out:
I think today’s @heritage study may have definitively sunk the immigration bill. heritage.org/research/repor…
— A. J. Delgado (@missADelgado) May 6, 2013
Just realize that this study and assessment of $6.3 trillion covers the amnesty/citizenship in the Gang of Eight’s bill. In fact, this assumes there are only 11 million illegals in the country. There are far more than that! These figures don’t cover the entire cost of the bill.
Heritage President Jim DeMint said at a press conference on Monday, “We believe that the only approach that can work at this point is a piece by piece approach.”
What is wrong with upholding the existing laws regarding immigration? It’s not that it’s been tried and found wanting. It’s that it hasn’t been tried!
UPDATE: An amendment To the legislation, submitted by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was voted down in the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 6-12. I’ll note that every Democrat on the committee voted against it, and even those with “R’s” on their jersey, who sit on the committee voted against it, namely Senators Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham. Yes, they are a part of that Gang of Eight.
Here’s a summary of the amendment:
Purpose: To prohibit the granting of registered provisional immigrant status until the Secretary has maintained effective control of the borders for 6 months and to apply border security strategies to all border sectors.
UPDATE: I’ll also add that until we deal with corruption in the Department of Homeland Security, especially concerning those that deal with immigrants coming through land ports, such as indicated by this DHS whistleblower, we should not be even considering amnesty and “paths to citizenship.”
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