pudge's Journal: Filibuster Immigration Proposal

I am no big fan of the filibuster. But if ever there was a good use of it, this would be it. The majority of the GOP Senators who are against this bill, it seems to me, probably have enough votes to filibuster it. There are several egregiously bad portions to this bill, including Social Security benefits for illegal aliens, which passed by a single vote. There was also an amendment, defeated 55-40, that would have required securing of the border before any guest worker provisions went into effect.

A GOP filibuster would be great for the party's chances this November, apart from also perhaps improving the legislation at hand: while you normally don't want to stick it to your own party's President, the fact is, in this case, the party faithful is unhappy with the President on this issue, and they might very well stay home rather than support a do-nothing GOP majority who won't even stand up on this issue, that they almost all agree on.

Stop worrying about the party's position in Nov.

[SiliconJesus]

Worry about what's right for America.

Naturalizing these folks before the border is secure is absolutely assinine. It will cause a MASS migration into the US before the border is closed. People will show documents that they've been here for the required amount of time regardless of whether or not they've stepped foot in America before last Tuesday. You probably have a vague idea of how easy its going to be to forge these documents.

That's my biggest problem with the GOP today. They're not worried about th

Re:Stop worrying about the party's position in Nov

[pudge]

Stop worrying about the party's position in Nov.

No. Why should I? I am working on Congressional and Senate campaigns for November elections *now*.

Worry about what's right for America.

I am doing that too. Did you miss the part where I said this is a good idea in and of itself, and the many other times I have said I am in favor of enforcement first?

I don't have to choose from your false dichotomy. :-)

Re:Stop worrying about the party's position in Nov

[SiliconJesus]

Its hard to tell where you fall on such items, as you've been pretty faithful to the President's vision even when it has in the past clashed with traditional conservative ideals.

Personally, I'd be willing to take a week off of work in order to either provide free labor to assist with the creation of this wall. I'd be very willing to even go as far as to sponsor a stretch of wall between two posts. I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of other Americans that would be more than happy to 'sponsor' a s

Re:Stop worrying about the party's position in Nov

[pudge]

Its hard to tell where you fall on such items

Even when I said so?

as you've been pretty faithful to the President's vision even when it has in the past clashed with traditional conservative ideals.

Wow. Um, no. Why would you think such a thing?

The SS thing is insane!

[RevMike]

In my opinion we whould use illegal immigration to fix social security. Anyone who employs an undocumented worker needs to pay the employer portion of the social security tax, plus withold the employee portion of the social security/medicare taxes and withold the amount of federal, state, and local income taxes that a "single-zero" person would need to pay, assuming that the one day of wages represented the average of 225 days of work. There would be no way for the undocumented worker to collect specific

Re:The SS thing is insane!

[Dark Coder]

Don't forget, 2.8 million illegal immigrants are more or less already paying into the vast and rapidly dwindling Social Security Trust fund (and bolstering some poor lucky soul's retirement at the same time).

If only 1/2 of them make 15K a year, and SS tax is 8.4% (not to mention here Medicare's 8.3%), then we've got a 1.7 BILLION dollar a year support system (or 3.4 BILLION total).

I'm a fan of legal immigrant (cheap labor) but certainly not illegal ones. However, we could use the money to offset and push f