Has America Changed Too Much?

Has America Changed Too Much?“Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.” — Barry Goldwater

In 1960, Barry Goldwater published The Conscience of a Conservative. In it, he noted:

“Conservatism is not an economic theory, though it has economic implications. The shoe is precisely on the other foot: it is Socialism that subordinates all other considerations to man’s material well-being. It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place — that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.

The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature.”

Fifty-three years later that remains a constant. Unfortunately for conservatives, much of the hand-wringing over paths forward to victory involve haggling over taxes and balanced budgets and spending and debt to GDP ratios, etc.

Writing in Real Clear Politics Ben Domenech gets to the heart of this:

“The choice for the Republican Party is whether to invest more in the 2010 strategy of this populist strain, to refine it and connect more policy proposals to it … or to embark on an effort to restore the party’s standing as the adult in the room – the competent, clean cut, good-government technocracy that sees the chief appeal of Republican politicians as combining agencies and seeking out efficiencies rather than rolling back government power and draining bureaucratic swamps. The GOP swung back to this technocratic approach on a national scale in 2012, and let’s just say the electoral results left much to be desired.”

The budgetary and economic wonkery only gets the GOP so far and that isn’t far enough to victory.

In truth, I think it will take a magnetic personality to pull the GOP out of the gutter. We live in an age of personality politics. But that personality will have to have a message that resonates with the American public. What resonates right now with the American public is a deep-seated distrust of government. Any Republican way forward must capitalize on this. In other words, the faces in Washington who can play the role are very limited to people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and — if immigration can go away as an issue and the base forgives him — Marco Rubio.

The message to seize on is pretty straight forward. Under Republican and Democrat policies in Washington, particularly accelerated in the past five years, the United States meritocracy has given way to an aristocracy.

Only those of means can get ahead. Increasingly, they view their role as making life comfortable for the less well-off instead of enabling the less well-off to become well off. Wall Street, banks, major corporations, politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and the rich are the only ones who can prosper because they are the only ones who can either navigate the system or afford to pay others who can figure out how to navigate the system.

For the rest of Americans, from small business to the middle class, the only path is one of dependence on a governmental structure too byzantine to figure out and, should one be smart enough to figure out, too costly through litigation, regulation, and complication to navigate through.

An America where, as Lincoln said, every man can make himself, is replaced by an America where men are made by how the government takes cares of their individual circumstances. Students are no longer trained to be creative, entrepreneurial citizens, but to be workers for others. The self-employed are encumbered to the point of needing to be employees of others. The nuclear family is disincentivized and destabilized.

The America where one could work hard and get ahead is less and less possible because Democrats wish to force us all onto a safety net on which all are entangled, ensnared, and punished if we escape. Republicans, for fear of being disliked, would rather nibble at numbers than paint a picture of a better America for everyone.

Just one fact worth noting: under the present system, enabled by Republican and Democrat alike, a single mother on $29,000 a year and government benefits would have to get to $60,000 in salary to make it worth her getting off the safety net. This is a bipartisan construct, but one only an outsider conservative can build a campaign around fixing to the betterment of the single mom and everyone else.

Ideas of the 1960s have now grown reactionary in our world that is vastly different from a half-century ago.

Take well-meaning subsidies for those over age 62. Why are there still senior discounts, vast expansions in Social Security and Medicare, and generous public pensions?

Five decades ago all that made sense. There was no such thing as double-dipping. Seniors often were physically worn out from blue-collar jobs. They were usually poorer and frequently sicker than society in general. The aged usually died not long after they retired.

Not now. Seniors often live a quarter-century or longer after a mostly white-collar retirement, drawing subsidies from those least able to pay for them.

Seniors are not like today's strapped youth, scrimping for a down payment on a house. Most are not struggling to find even part-time work. None are paying off crushing student loans. In a calcified economy, why would an affluent couple in their early 60s earn a "senior discount" at a movie, while the struggling young couple with three children in the same line does not?

Affirmative action and enforced "diversity" were originally designed to give a boost to those who were victims of historical bias from the supposedly oppressive white-majority society. Is that still true, a half-century after these assumptions became institutionalized?

Through greater intermarriage and immigration, America has become a multiracial nation. Skin color, general appearance, accent or the sound of one's name cannot so easily identify either "oppressors" or "victims."

So who exactly should receive privileges in job-hiring or college admissions — the newly arrived Pakistani immigrant, or the third-generation, upper-middle-class Mexican-American who does not speak Spanish? Both, or neither? What about someone of half-Jamaican ancestry? What about the children of Attorney General Eric Holder or self-proclaimed Native American Sen. Elizabeth Warren? What about the poor white grandson of the Oklahoma diaspora who is now a minority in California?

Even if the 21st-century state could define who is a minority, on what moral grounds does the targeted beneficiary deserve special consideration? Is his disadvantage defined by being poorer, by lingering trauma from his grandparents' long-ago ordeals, or by yesterday's experience with routine racial prejudice?

If Latinos are underrepresented at the University of California, Berkeley, is it because of the stubborn institutional prejudices that also somehow have been trumped by Asian-Americans enrolling at three times their numbers in the state's general population? Are women so oppressed by men that they graduate from college in higher numbers than their chauvinist male counterparts?

Of all the consequences that would result from amnesty, one that hasn't been discussed enough is the expansion of affirmative action.

Affirmative action takes existing racial grievances, institutionalizes them, and then magnifies them. Affirmative action encourages "a victim-focused identity in minorities" and fosters "a parasitic diversity industry"

Affirmative action policies will benefit minority immigrants, and minority immigrants will naturally support affirmative action policies. How do we know? Because Hispanics are telling pollsters so.

Sixty-five percent of Hispanics believe that affirmative action should be used to ensure that more Hispanics get to college or university, and 68% support affirmative action in employment, according to a 2011 Angus Reid opinion poll. A 2012 Georgetown University poll showed that 63% of young Hispanics (18-24) support affirmative action to "redress past discrimination," along with 75% of young blacks, but only 19% of whites.

Of course, making up for past discrimination doesn't apply to people whose ancestors never set foot in this country, but fairness was never the goal of racial preferences; former Democratic Senator James Webb famously noted that affirmative action simply favors "anyone who does not happen to be white."

The policy is bad enough. The greatest harm is the poisonous racial grievance reinforced by the policy.

People who believe that their racial group is often discriminated against will support affirmative action. On this point, the open-borders Republicans have done an extremely poor job of understanding Hispanic viewpoints about how this country treats them. Sixty-four percent of Latino adults claim that discrimination against Hispanics in schools is "a major problem," and 58% said the same of the workplace, according to a recent Pew poll.

There are very few policy issues that liberals don't reduce to supposed racism. Even "righteous indignation against diversity and reverse discrimination" is one of the "implements of racism" for upper-class whites, according to law professor Mari Matsuda, a founder of the highly influential critical race theory

It's safe to say that when a racial group perceive a high degree of supposed discrimination, they will not be voting for limited government, but will instead favor reverse discrimination. Those who assert the contrary — pro-amnesty Republicans — have the extraordinary burden of showing some basis in history or logic for believing that groups with a racial victim mindset will reject racial preferences.

It is a false hope that any significant number of those who receive amnesty will vote Republican, unless the GOP gets in the affirmative action game. Give a group amnesty, and they'll be thankful to all Democrats and a few Republicans, but Democrats will give them more of what they want from the state. The choice will be simple.

Consider also the calcified assumptions about college education. The expanding 1960s campus was touted as the future gateway to a smarter, fairer, richer and more ethical America. Is that dream still valid?

Today, the college-educated owe a collective $1 trillion in unpaid student loans. Millions of recent graduates cannot find jobs that offer much chance of paying off their crushing student debts.

College itself has become a sort of five to six-year lifestyle choice. Debt, joblessness or occasional part-time employment and coursework eat up a youth's 20s — in a way that military service or vocational training does not.

In reaction, private diploma mills are springing up everywhere. But there are no "diversity czars" at DeVry University. There is no time or money for the luxury of classes such as "Gender Oppression" at Phoenix University. Students do not have rock-climbing walls or have Michael Moore address them at Hillsdale College.

The private-sector campus makes other assumptions. One is that the hallowed liberal arts general-education requirement has been corrupted and no longer ensures an employer that his college-graduate hire is any more broadly educated or liberally minded than those who paid far less tuition for job-training courses at for-profit alternative campuses.

Scan the government grandees caught up in the current administration's ballooning IRS, Associated Press and Benghazi scandals. In each case, a blue-chip Ivy League degree was no guarantee that our best and brightest technocrats would prove transparent or act honorably. What difference did it make that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had degrees from prestigious universities when they misled the American people or Congress?

The now-aging idealists of the 1960s long ago promised us that a uniformly degreed citizenry — shepherded by Ivy League-branded technocrats -- would make America better by sorting us out by differences in age, gender, education and race.

It is now past time to end that fossilized dream before it becomes our collective nightmare.

But, to begin, the Republicans must be able to relate. With distrust in government at an all-time high, a relevant Republican is probably going to be a guy who hates the status quo, not one who talks Washington wonkspeak.

As Domenech concluded:

“The Republican Party needs to understand that shrinking its policy aims to more modest solutions is not going to be rewarded by the electorate. Yes, they need to tailor their message better and find policy wedges which peel off chunks of the Democratic base (winning political strategy is built on an understanding that every drama needs a hero, a martyr, and a villain). But what’s truly essential is that the party leadership rid themselves of the notion that politeness, great hair, and reform for efficiency’s sake is a ballot box winner, and understand instead that politicians who can connect with the people and deliver on their limited government promises – not ones who back away from them under pressure – represent the path forward.”

Unless the Republicans can find candidates who can eloquently express true conservative they will not win. Just putting up candidates like Mitt Romney who had one note to play is not enough. They must convince the majority of the electorate that only through a return to the values of our Founders and the Constitution can this Republic be saved from the tyranny of bigger and bigger government.

The 6.3 Trillion Dollar Gamble

“You can have open borders or you can have the welfare state, but you cannot have both.” — Milton Friedman

To view the video containing Friedman's remarks on immigration click here.

I am the first generation of immigrants on my father’s side and the second (by one year) on my mother’s. Subsequently I have a warm place in my heart and mind for immigrants — be they LEGAL.

Until 1913 the United States had an open immigration policy. The first waves were the English Puritans arriving in Massachusetts comprised the first of four great migrations to America. After the English Civil War a generation later, Royalist Cavaliers, Anglican Royalists, and sympathizers of the Crown fled Puritan-dominated England and settled in the Virginia area. The third transatlantic migration occurred between 1675 and 1725, when Quakers from the northern midlands of England arrived in the Delaware River Valley. The fourth of the great migrations was comprised of Scots-Irish who settled in the broad expanse of land from western Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley. These are the people who gave us our Republican form of government. They were the stock our Founders came from.

The next large waves were the German and Irish waves of 1848. The German’s came and settled mainly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri. They were the farmers and small businessmen. They were also scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. They invented things, they discovered new pharmaceuticals, they designed and built things like the Brooklyn Bridge, and the started companies that grew in giant corporations like General Electric.

On the other hand the Irish immigrants were poor; many tenant farmers, who were escaping the potato famine that was sweeping Ireland. They settled in the big cities on the East Coast and provided the labor demanded by our growing industrialization. By the time of the Civil War many of these immigrants and their children were fighting for the Union.

After the Civil War it was the Irish immigrants were building the railroads, including the Transcontinental Railroad, our bridges, and roads. By 1880 most of the police forces of eastern cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were comprised of Irish as were the non-commissioned officers in the Army.

The next big wave of immigrants came from Southern and Eastern Europe with the majority being from Italy. Again these immigrants migrated to our big cities to fill the increasing demand for factory workers.

The one thing all of these immigrants had in common was their allegiance to the United States. They came for freedom and opportunity. Yes they brought their cultures and foods with them. They brought Italian pasta, Irish stew, and German beer and Bratwurst. What would we do today without Italian food?

Yes they settled in ghetto-like areas in the big cities with their clubs, restaurants and churches, but they all learned to speak English so they could learn the laws, gain employment, go to school, and eventually become citizens. There was no affirmative action, Multi-lingual schools, welfare programs, and special programs for immigrants. These immigrants worked hard to build their families, their homes, their churches, and mostly their communities. They were contributors, not takers

I had a close friend who was a second generation Italian. His parents had immigrated in the 1920’s. He told me that while Italian was spoken in the home his parents demanded of him and his siblings that the moment they stepped out of the house they were to only speak English. Mario went on to serve in WWII and was a decorated soldier. While these immigrants, like Mario, had an affection for their mother country’s language, food and, culture their allegiance was to the United States. This is why the United States was called a melting pot. It was like steel — it was comprised of various elements to give it strength and durability. When looking at a piece of good steel you cannot recognize those elements, but you know they are contained within.

Today our immigrants are different. We are becoming a salad bowl. According to a recent study by the Manhattan Institute more than 60% of Mexican immigrants cannot speak or read English. Writers from Aristotle to St. Augustine and Alexis de Tocqueville have stated that a common language is needed for the survival of the sovereignty of a civil society.

Many, if not most, of today’s immigrants (legal or illegal) are not coming to the United States as our previous waves on immigrants did. They are coming for one thing and that thing is money. This is mainly true for those crossing our Southern border. The economies in their home countries are so lousy and the opportunities are so slim they view the United States with its current immigration enforcement policies as place to earn money and send it home to their families. They express on real allegiance to the United States.

Legalizing an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants will cost taxpayers at least $6.3 trillion over the coming decades, according to a study released last Monday by the Heritage Foundation.

The study projects illegal immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and pay only $3.1 trillion in taxes over their lifetimes if they gain lawful status under comprehensive immigration reform pending in the Senate.

Heritage opposes the Senate immigration bill, which the group argues would provide amnesty to those who entered the country illegally. Its findings could make it tougher to move the bill through either chamber by rallying conservatives against it.

“Amnesty is unfair to those who come here lawfully and those who are waiting,” former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Heritage’s president, said during a presentation of the group’s findings. “It will cost the American taxpayer trillions of dollars over the next several decades, and it will make our immigration problems worse.”

DeMint said the comprehensive immigration reform bill crafted by the Senate’s Gang of Eight was written in a way to minimize the costs accrued over the next ten years, the window typically used by the Congressional Budget Office to assess the cost of legislation.

He compared the bill to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which CBO estimated would reduce the federal deficit by $132 billion over 10 years.

“It’s clear a number of people in Washington who might benefit from an amnesty as well as a number of people in Congress do not want to consider the cost,” DeMint said. “Clearly, by the way the legislation was written just like with ObamaCare and other legislation, they play their normal tricks of trying to push some of the expenses outside the 10-year window to get Congressional Budget Office to estimate some actual savings.”

“No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America’s already strained public purse,” said Robert Rector, Heritage’s senior research fellow in domestic policy studies.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to mark up the 844-page immigration reform bill this week.

The potential drain on the federal government was one of the principle arguments critics used against comprehensive immigration reform legislation to derail it in 2007.

The study states the typical illegal immigrant household receives $14,000 more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. Heritage estimates that gap would jump to $29,500 per household after ten years when immigrants would become eligible for welfare and other benefits, if the pending legislation became law.

Under the bill, millions of illegal immigrants would receive provisional legal status almost immediately and permanent legal status after a period of ten years. They would be eligible for citizenship after an estimated wait of 13-1/2 years.

After amnesty, the typical unlawful immigrant will receive government benefits for 50 years, meaning his household would receive $592,000 more in government benefits during his lifetime than he would pay in taxes,” Heritage concludes.

The average illegal immigrant would draw more than $3 in Social Security and Medicare for every dollar paid in Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes, the study said.

The Executive Summary of the Heritage Report states:

“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.

The governmental system is highly redistributive. Well-educated households tend to be net tax contributors: The taxes they pay exceed the direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services they receive. For example, in 2010, in the whole U.S. population, households with college-educated heads, on average, received $24,839 in government benefits while paying $54,089 in taxes. The average college-educated household thus generated a fiscal surplus of $29,250 that government used to finance benefits for other households.

Other households are net tax consumers: The benefits they receive exceed the taxes they pay. These households generate a “fiscal deficit” that must be financed by taxes from other households or by government borrowing. For example, in 2010, in the U.S. population as a whole, households headed by persons without a high school degree, on average, received $46,582 in government benefits while paying only $11,469 in taxes. This generated an average fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of $35,113.

The high deficits of poorly educated households are important in the amnesty debate because the typical unlawful immigrant has only a 10th-grade education. Half of unlawful immigrant households are headed by an individual with less than a high school degree, and another 25 percent of household heads have only a high school degree.

Some argue that the deficit figures for poorly educated households in the general population are not relevant for immigrants. Many believe, for example, that lawful immigrants use little welfare. In reality, lawful immigrant households receive significantly more welfare, on average, than U.S.-born households. Overall, the fiscal deficits or surpluses for lawful immigrant households are the same as or higher than those for U.S.-born households with the same education level. Poorly educated households, whether immigrant or U.S.-born, receive far more in government benefits than they pay in taxes.

In contrast to lawful immigrants, unlawful immigrants at present do not have access to means-tested welfare, Social Security, or Medicare. This does not mean, however, that they do not receive government benefits and services. Children in unlawful immigrant households receive heavily subsidized public education. Many unlawful immigrants have U.S.-born children; these children are currently eligible for the full range of government welfare and medical benefits. And, of course, when unlawful immigrants live in a community, they use roads, parks, sewers, police, and fire protection; these services must expand to cover the added population or there will be “congestion” effects that lead to a decline in service quality.

In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household. This cost had to be borne by U.S. taxpayers. Amnesty would provide unlawful households with access to over 80 means-tested welfare programs, Obamacare, Social Security, and Medicare. The fiscal deficit for each household would soar.

If enacted, amnesty would be implemented in phases. During the first or interim phase (which is likely to last 13 years), unlawful immigrants would be given lawful status but would be denied access to means-tested welfare and ObamaCare. Most analysts assume that roughly half of unlawful immigrants work “off the books” and therefore do not pay income or FICA taxes. During the interim phase, these “off the books” workers would have a strong incentive to move to “on the books” employment. In addition, their wages would likely go up as they sought jobs in a more open environment. As a result, during the interim period, tax payments would rise and the average fiscal deficit among former unlawful immigrant households would fall.

After 13 years, unlawful immigrants would become eligible for means-tested welfare and ObamaCare. At that point or shortly thereafter, former unlawful immigrant households would likely begin to receive government benefits at the same rate as lawful immigrant households of the same education level. As a result, government spending and fiscal deficits would increase dramatically.

The final phase of amnesty is retirement. Unlawful immigrants are not currently eligible for Social Security and Medicare, but under amnesty they would become so. The cost of this change would be very large indeed.

• As noted, at the current time (before amnesty), the average unlawful immigrant household has a net deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of $14,387 per household.
• During the interim phase immediately after amnesty, tax payments would increase more than government benefits, and the average fiscal deficit for former unlawful immigrant households would fall to $11,455.
• At the end of the interim period, unlawful immigrants would become eligible for means-tested welfare and medical subsidies under Obamacare. Average benefits would rise to $43,900 per household; tax payments would remain around $16,000; the average fiscal deficit (benefits minus taxes) would be about $28,000 per household.
• Amnesty would also raise retirement costs by making unlawful immigrants eligible for Social Security and Medicare, resulting in a net fiscal deficit of around $22,700 per retired amnesty recipient per year.

In terms of public policy and government deficits, an important figure is the aggregate annual deficit for all unlawful immigrant households. This equals the total benefits and services received by all unlawful immigrant households minus the total taxes paid by those households.

• Under current law, all unlawful immigrant households together have an aggregate annual deficit of around $54.5 billion.
• In the interim phase (roughly the first 13 years after amnesty), the aggregate annual deficit would fall to $43.4 billion.
• At the end of the interim phase, former unlawful immigrant households would become fully eligible for means-tested welfare and health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act. The aggregate annual deficit would soar to around $106 billion.
• In the retirement phase, the annual aggregate deficit would be around $160 billion. It would slowly decline as former unlawful immigrants gradually expire.

These costs would have to be borne by already overburdened U.S. taxpayers. (All figures are in 2010 dollars.)

The typical unlawful immigrant is 34 years old. After amnesty, this individual will receive government benefits, on average, for 50 years. Restricting access to benefits for the first 13 years after amnesty therefore has only a marginal impact on long-term costs.

If amnesty is enacted, the average adult unlawful immigrant would receive $592,000 more in government benefits over the course of his remaining lifetime than he would pay in taxes.

Over a lifetime, the former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes. They would generate a lifetime fiscal deficit (total benefits minus total taxes) of $6.3 trillion. (All figures are in constant 2010 dollars.) This should be considered a minimum estimate. It probably understates real future costs because it undercounts the number of unlawful immigrants and dependents who will actually receive amnesty and underestimates significantly the future growth in welfare and medical benefits.

The debate about the fiscal consequences of unlawful and low-skill immigration is hampered by a number of misconceptions. Few lawmakers really understand the current size of government and the scope of redistribution. The fact that the average household gets $31,600 in government benefits each year is a shock. The fact that a household headed by an individual with less than a high school degree gets $46,600 is a bigger one.

Many conservatives believe that if an individual has a job and works hard, he will inevitably be a net tax contributor (paying more in taxes than he takes in benefits). In our society, this has not been true for a very long time. Similarly, many believe that unlawful immigrants work more than other groups. This is also not true. The employment rate for non-elderly adult unlawful immigrants is about the same as it is for the general population.

Many policymakers also believe that because unlawful immigrants are comparatively young, they will help relieve the fiscal strains of an aging society. Regrettably, this is not true. At every stage of the life cycle, unlawful immigrants, on average, generate fiscal deficits (benefits exceed taxes). Unlawful immigrants, on average, are always tax consumers; they never once generate a “fiscal surplus” that can be used to pay for government benefits elsewhere in society. This situation obviously will get much worse after amnesty.

Many policymakers believe that after amnesty, unlawful immigrants will help make Social Security solvent. It is true that unlawful immigrants currently pay FICA taxes and would pay more after amnesty, but with average earnings of $24,800 per year, the typical unlawful immigrant will pay only about $3,700 per year in FICA taxes. After retirement, that individual is likely to draw more than $3.00 in Social Security and Medicare (adjusted for inflation) for every dollar in FICA taxes he has paid.

Moreover, taxes and benefits must be viewed holistically. It is a mistake to look at the Social Security trust fund in isolation. If an individual pays $3,700 per year into the Social Security trust fund but simultaneously draws a net $25,000 per year (benefits minus taxes) out of general government revenue, the solvency of government has not improved.

Following amnesty, the fiscal costs of former unlawful immigrant households will be roughly the same as those of lawful immigrant and non-immigrant households with the same level of education. Because U.S. government policy is highly redistributive, those costs are very large. Those who claim that amnesty will not create a large fiscal burden are simply in a state of denial concerning the underlying redistributional nature of government policy in the 21st century.

Finally, some argue that it does not matter whether unlawful immigrants create a fiscal deficit of $6.3 trillion because their children will make up for these costs. This is not true. Even if all the children of unlawful immigrants graduated from college, they would be hard-pressed to pay back $6.3 trillion in costs over their lifetimes.

Of course, not all the children of unlawful immigrants will graduate from college. Data on intergenerational social mobility show that, although the children of unlawful immigrants will have substantially better educational outcomes than their parents, these achievements will have limits. Only 13 percent are likely to graduate from college, for example. Because of this, the children, on average, are not likely to become net tax contributors. The children of unlawful immigrants are likely to remain a net fiscal burden on U.S. taxpayers, although a far smaller burden than their parents.

A final problem is that unlawful immigration appears to depress the wages of low-skill U.S.-born and lawful immigrant workers by 10 percent, or $2,300, per year. Unlawful immigration also probably drives many of our most vulnerable U.S.-born workers out of the labor force entirely. Unlawful immigration thus makes it harder for the least advantaged U.S. citizens to share in the American dream. This is wrong; public policy should support the interests of those who have a right to be here, not those who have broken our laws.”

Free-market economist Milton Friedman once warned that open borders are incompatible with a welfare state. The $6.3 trillion cost of amnesty forecast by the Heritage Foundation illustrates it in spades.

As the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill wends through Congress, it's useful to have a report from Heritage showing just how much legalizing some 11 million unlawful immigrants will cost the taxpayers amid all the champagne-glass clinking from the anything-but-in-the-shadows illegals.

Based on direct benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation; means-tested benefits, which include more than 80 different welfare programs; public education, and city services such as police, fire and highways, the fiscal tab for legalizing illegal immigrants will come to $6.3 trillion over 50 years, the study showed.

That's because illegal immigrants, who on average have lower skills and education than U.S. citizens, already take $14,000 more in benefits than they contribute to the economy and amnesty will make them eligible for far vaster pools of taxpayers' money. These new benefits include Social Security, Medicare and welfare, and will raise the differential per household to $28,000, according to the study.

"Over a lifetime, the former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes. They would generate a lifetime fiscal deficit (total benefits minus total taxes) of $6.3 trillion. (All figures are in constant 2010 dollars.) This should be considered a minimum estimate. It probably understates real future costs because it undercounts the number of unlawful immigrants and dependents who will actually receive amnesty and underestimates significantly the future growth in welfare and medical benefits," the study reports.

Critics, such as the Cato Institute, point out that the study is flawed because its static accounting fails to account for economic growth and rising wages. That might be a fair criticism.

But there is also the question of how much an economy can grow if the government is saddled with $6.3 trillion in new costs, or in any case, the certainty of higher costs based on greater eligibility for benefits. And why can't this same projected growth from new immigrants be achieved through legal immigration, with the government putting a premium on admitting the world's most productive?

Yet that's not what's happening. The records show that among legal immigrants, U.S. officials have for years systematically ignored the law that prohibits admission of immigrants likely to become public charges. The figure among illegals is almost certainly comparable, and a demonstration of the sad fact that, there are large numbers of immigrants who cross the border to take the welfare benefits superior to those available in their home countries.

In other words, "If someone offers you a gift, you take it," as Friedman has said.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 57% of all immigrant households with children use at least one welfare program, compared to 39% for native households with children. Illegal immigrants are high users of food assistance and Medicaid, but legal immigrants are consistently higher in the use of all welfare programs including those that illegals do not qualify for.

What it shows is "you cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state," as Friedman said in 1999.

The University of Chicago Nobel Laureate understood precisely why, pointing out that in its own paradoxical way, illegal immigration is actually a good thing but — "only good so long as it's illegal.

"Why? Because so long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for Social Security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket," Friedman said.

Amnesty will ensure that illegals get those benefits — without ever being screened as desirable, contributory, productive, or any of the things that should make legal immigrants beneficial to the country and the American people who welcome them.

For those Republicans who believe that a comprehensive immigration bill will bring Hispanic voters to their party I have some news for them. According to a 2012 report published by the Pew Research Center on the voting trends of Hispanics no matter what the Republicans do about immigration they will not influence Hispanics. What the majority of Hispanic voters really want is free stuff. Since 1980 Hispanic voters have never given Republicans more than 40% of their vote even after Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, and considering that it was introduced by Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican.

• 1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35% +21
• 1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37% +24
• 1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30% +39
• 1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25% +36
• 1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21% +51
• 2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35% +27
• 2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40% +18
• 2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31% +36
• 2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27% +44

According to February 2013 by the Gallup Polling Organization  Democrats enjoy 2-1 advantage over the GOP among Hispanics:

“The Democratic Party currently enjoys a significant lead in party identification among U.S. Hispanic adults. This advantage also appears to have intensified over the course of 2012, though this in large part likely reflects the general party identification patterns that affected all Americans during the election year. Factoring in Hispanic adults who lean toward a party but do not initially identify with that party, the Democrats have an especially robust advantage over the GOP among Hispanics -- a factor that may very well have shaped the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.

As Republicans consider ways to increase their appeal among Hispanic adults, it is worth noting that Republicans made little progress over 2012 in terms of winning new Hispanic supporters, while the Democratic Party made noticeable gains. Perhaps even more worrisome for the GOP is its poor performance among young Hispanic adults. While the GOP is not particularly popular with any Hispanic age groups, those aged 18 to 34 constitute almost half of the overall Hispanic adult population. Indeed, they are the engine of the Hispanic vote and its future. Gallup's data indicate that this picture is not going to get any brighter for the Republicans on its own, merely by virtue of generational shifts. Despite the higher rate of U.S. nativity among young Hispanics compared with those 35 and older, young Hispanic adults are just as entrenched in the Democratic Party, thus perpetuating the high degree of difficulty Republicans face in trying to make inroads in this important and growing community.”

The Gang of 8 with Marco Rubio acting as the front man for Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin — two very untrustworthy politicians is touting this bill on national TV. The Democrats are pushing for this bill as they want to increase their share of government-dependent voters so they can gain even more power and change Texas from red to blue.. Rubio keeps telling us that this bill will provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegals now living in this country. He claims that they will not be eligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, ObamaCare, or any other government welfare or educational program. No matter what Rubio thinks of tells us his will not happen. Even if a bill with these provision prevail in the final bill here is what will happen — mark my words.

Once comprehensive immigration bill goes into effect some illegal immigrant, given amnesty under the bill, will walk into a government office accompanied by an attorney for LULAC or MALDEF, probably in California. When the immigrant is denied the benefit the attorney will immediately file a suit in the Federal District Court. They will claim that under the 14^th Amendment they have been denied equal protection. No matter how the judge rules the case will advance to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals where once again no matter the decision the case will go up to the Supreme Court. There the decision will be left in the hands of 9 justices and if history tells us anything those portions of the bill denying the illegal immigrant his or her free stuff will be struck down and we will be in debt for 6.3 trillion dollars (money we will have to borrow from the Chinese) and the flood on immigrants from south of the border will continue.

Numerically, the left understands that this is the death-blow to the right they have long sought. Assuming 11 million such new voters (the number could be significantly higher), one need only apply the distribution of Hispanic votes in the last presidential election to grasp the endgame. Approximately 71% of Hispanic votes went to Obama, while only 28% went to Romney. While it is unlikely that every new quasi-citizen would get to the polls with his fresh license and ID, those who do will provide a 7-to-3 advantage for the left. There is no similar new bloc of voters to which the right can turn to rebalance that scale. A significant numerical advantage to the left lies in granting amnesty — enough so that they will dominate for the foreseeable future. And they know it.

Meanwhile, the Republicans fail to understand simple math. They have deluded themselves into thinking that if they are just nicer to illegals, and empower them to crush Republicans at the polls to ensure endless favors and political power, all will be unicorns and leprechauns. This is foolishness writ large, making it all the more disappointing that Senator Rubio appears to be guzzling the Kool-Aid. He appeared to be sharper than that, and hopefully he can still extract himself before the damage to his reputation is irreparable. No good can come to a Republican who consorts with Senator Schumer, or any Democrat senator. To be played by them so completely demonstrates gullibility rather than pragmatism.

The left has been at this successfully for decades. They are the Harlem Globetrotters, and the Republicans are the team they travel with — the one that always loses these games. The Democrats even tricked Reagan into believing they would fulfill their part of the bargain on amnesty, and scornfully reneged. Indeed, every single interaction between the political parties involving the left living up to its end of a deal for the last 30 years or more has been a farce. The preceding four years alone have been full of slaps in the face to Republicans, who seem destined to repeat their impressive pattern of cluelessness when it comes to sizing up their suitors.

As the Republicans are waltzed closer to the Democrats' bed, surrendering their conservative principles along the way, we stand on the edge of something very bad, indeed. We are about to say "Adiós" to any shot at political parity for a very long time. Once they have given it up, they won't get it back.

The Democrats will have gotten what they have wanted all along. They will have their class of dependent voters that will keep them in permanent power. The only problem is that they will have to hoist the Mexican flag above the capital building. It’s about free stuff — not immigration.

Another Round of Immigration Reform

“One of the critical issues that we have to confront is illegal immigration, because this is a multi-headed Hydra that affects our economy, our health care, our health care, our education systems, our national security, and also our local criminality.” — Allen West, Florida Congressman.

This nation was built on immigration. As James Madison stated: “America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.” We had immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, and Spain fighting in the revolutionary war. These immigrants came to the 13 colonies to build new lives and to escape the feudal system and tyrannical rulers of Europe. They did not come to the colonies in search of handouts. Many of them suffered great hardships to get to America and after their arrival worked hard to build a new nation dedicated to unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Over the centuries there have been waves of immigrations to the United States. In 1848 there were the Irish and German immigrations. The Irish came to escape the potato famine that was causing people to stave and the Germans came to escape the oppressive policies of the land-owning barons. At the turn of the 20^th Century we had waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. They came from Italy, Poland, and Italy. In fact my maternal grandparents emigrated from Hungary in 1911. These were controlled immigrations where the immigrants passed though Ellis Island in New York Harbor and were screened for physical and mental diseases. These immigrants dispersed throughout the nation, mainly into the cities where they worked in the factories, opened restaurants and shops, and worked on farms. Most of these immigrants learned English and became citizens loyal to the United States. It was their sons and daughters who fought in World War II and built our post-war economy. They spoke English, graduated high school and college. They became doctors, engineers, teachers, and business owners. They were contributors not takers even though the majority voted Democrat.

The last great wave of immigrants from Europe came after World War II when thousands of displaced persons from war ravaged Europe came. The quota system was waived for these DPs. The came mainly from Eastern Europe and the Ukraine and were escaping the territories overrun by the Soviet Union. They came to the United States to find freedom and opportunity. They worked hard to assimilate into the culture of the United States while retaining their traditions. They did not bring gangs of criminals and they became loyal American citizens. I can speak to this issue because I grew up surrounded by these folks in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. They worked hard, built houses and churches. They insisted their children speak English and graduate from high school. Once again these were contributors, not takers.

This changed in 1965 with the passage of the passage of Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act) as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones.] At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture.

In order to convince the American populace — the majority of who were opposed to the act — of the legislation's merits, its liberal proponents assured that passage would not influence America's culture significantly. President Johnson called the bill "not revolutionary", Secretary of State Dean Rusk estimated only a few thousand Indian immigrants over the next five years, and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, hastened to reassure the populace that the demographic mix would not be affected; these assertions would later prove wildly inaccurate. In line with earlier immigration law, the bill also prohibited the entry into the country of "sexual deviants", including homosexuals. By doing so it crystallized the policy of the INS that had previously been rejecting homosexual immigrants on the grounds that they were "mentally defective" or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority"

During the debate over the bill on the floor of the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy claimed:

“First our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same. Secondly, the ethnic mix of will not be upset. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, the bill will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and economically deprived nations of Asia or Africa.”

Johnson, Kennedy and the other Statists were dead wrong, and it’s hard to believe they were not intentionally deceiving the public. In 1964, Republican vice presidential candidate Representative William Miller well understood the overall increase in immigration that would result from the 1965 Act. Miller stated:

“We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.”

The bill abolished the decades-old policy of national quotas, which was said to be discriminatory because it favored immigrants from Europe (especially the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany) over the Third World. Thus it increased immigration levels from each hemisphere setting in motion a substantial increase in immigration from Latin America, Asia, and Africa — to the detriment of previously favored aliens from Europe. The bill also introduced, for the first time, a system of “chain migration”, which as the Center for Immigration Studies notes, “gave higher preference to the relatives of American citizens and permanent resident aliens than those applicants with special job skills.

Consequently, the historical basis for making immigration decisions was radically altered. The emphasis would no longer be on the preservation of American society and the consent of the governed; now it aliens themselves would decide who comes to the United States through family reunification. With the elimination of national quotas and the imposition of chain migration, aliens immigrating to the United States were poorer, less educated, and less skilled than those who had preceded them — a pattern that continues to this day.

Moreover, as a result of the 1965 law legal immigration soared from 2.5 million in the 1950s to 4.5 million in the 1970 to 7.3 million in the 1980s to about 10 million in the 1990s.

Furthermore, as political and economic circumstances in the Third World deteriorated, particularly in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Africa the egalitarian nature of the 1965 law and the growing American welfare state also encouraged the unprecedented and illegal migration of millions of additional destitute and uneducated aliens to the United States.

The late author Theodore White, who was no conservative, wrote:

The immigration Act of 1965 changed all previous patterns, and in so doing, probably changed the future of America. It was a noble revolutionary — and probably revolutionary — and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society.”

As the numbers of illegal immigrants began to grow and create a drain on the social safety net and medical care of the states Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), enacted November 6, 1986 (also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act).Passed by the 99^th Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan the IRCA was supposed to:

• Require employers to attest to their employees' immigration status.
• Make it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants.
• Legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants.
• Legalized illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously with the penalty of a fine, back taxes due, and admission of guilt. About three million illegal immigrants were granted legal status.

For President Reagan to sign this Act Congress made a promise to secure the southern border and make it more difficult for Mexicans and Latin Americans to cross over illegally. This did not happen and the influx of illegal aliens continued to flow north overtaxing or social welfare system. Reagan was tricked by a Democrat controlled Congress. iT was like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football. As the numbers of illegal aliens began to grow and organization like the ACLU and LARAZA began to gain power and turned to the courts. Today these illegal aliens are eligible for most of our social welfare programs and our public education system. No other nation in the world takes this approach, including Mexico.

Steven Malanga, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute; Senior Editor, City Journal states during a panel discussion at the Center for Immigration Studies:

“Much of the bulk of our immigration today is low-skill, low-education immigration. In fact, a study by Harvard economists and economists with the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that about 63 percent of Mexican adult immigrants here in the United States, male immigrants, do not have a high school education. In essence, the educational levels and the skill levels of today's immigrants are not much different than immigrants of the first great generation, but America is a hundred years advanced; the American economy is a hundred years advanced. The American workforce is not the American workforce of a hundred years ago.

That creates enormous differences. One of the things that's done is that's slowed down economic mobility among immigrants. A study done of Mexican immigrants who came here in the 1970s, using 2000 Census data at those same immigrants, found that when those immigrants came here, first of all they had a greater wage differential with the American worker at the time than the immigrants of the first great immigration had with American workers then; it was about a 30 percent wage differential.”

Today the Republicans are ready to embark on another immigration reform program. They believe that they need to cow tow to the Hispanic voters with the hope of winning elections. This is a fallacy. According to a report from the Pew Research Center in the 2012 presidential election Obama captured 71% of the Latino votes while Romney garnered a mere 27%. Even with after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty program Michael Dukakis got 69% of the Latino vote while George H.W. Bush got 30%. Here are the numbers for presidential elections since 1980:

• 1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35%
• 1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37%
• 1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30%
• 1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25%
• 1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21%
• 2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35%
• 2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40%
• 2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31%
• 2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27%

I don’t believe the issue is immigration reform as much as the desire for more from government. Obama was promising the Latino community more in government handouts than Romney. He was promising in-state tuition for illegals to attend college as a part of his executive orders “dream act.” This was no different than the Democrats have been doing for years with the African American voters and why the vote over 90% for Democrats.

According to the Pew Research Center report the top issues for Latino voters in 2012 were:

“For Hispanic voters, according to the national exit poll, 60% identified the economy as the most important issue (of four listed) facing the country today, virtually the same as the share (59%) of the general electorate that identified the economy as the nation’s most important issue. On the other three issues asked about, for Hispanic voters, the economy was followed by health care (18%), the federal budget deficit (11%) and foreign policy (6%).

Throughout this election cycle, the issue of immigration has been an important issue for Hispanics. In the national exit poll, voters were asked about what should happen to unauthorized immigrants working in the U.S. According to the national exit poll, 77% of Hispanic voters said these immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status while 18% said these immigrants should be deported. Among all voters, fewer than two-thirds (65%) said these immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for legal status while 28% say they should be deported.”

According to Pew in the 2012 Battleground States:

“Hispanics made up a growing share of voters in three of the key battleground states in yesterday’s election—Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

Obama carried Florida’s Hispanic vote 60% to 39%, an improvement over his 57% to 42% showing in 2008. Also, Hispanics made up 17% of the Florida electorate this year, up from 14% in 2008.

The state’s growing non-Cuban population—especially growth in the Puerto Rican population in central Florida—contributed to the president’s improved showing among Hispanic voters. This year, according to the Florida exit poll, 34% of Hispanic voters were Cuban while 57% were non-Cuban. Among Cuban voters, the vote was split—49% supported Obama while 47% supported Romney. Among the state’s non-Cuban voters, Obama won 66% versus 34% for Romney.

In Colorado, Obama carried the Latino vote by a wide margin—75% to 23%. The president’s performance among Latino voters in Colorado was better than in 2008, when Obama won the Latino vote 61% to 38%. Hispanics made up 14% of Colorado voters this year, up from 13% in 2008.

In Nevada, Obama won the Hispanic vote 70% to 25%. However, the president’s Hispanic vote was down from the 76% share he won in 2008. Among voters in Nevada, the Hispanic share was 18%, up from 15% in 2008.

In other states, the president also carried large shares of the Hispanic vote. Among other battlegrounds, Obama won 68% of the Hispanic vote in North Carolina, 65% in Wisconsin, 64% in Virginia and 53% in Ohio.”

As you can see from the above exit polls the top four issues for Hispanic voters were; the economy (jobs), health care, the deficit, and foreign policy. The Democrats did a better job of convincing these voters that he would give them more than Romney. Keep in mind that Obama’s victory in those battleground states was less than his overall plurality of 52% (3.4 million votes). According to Politico in Florida it was 0.8% and Ohio 1.9%. Of course 95% of African Americans voted for Obama. Immigration was not an issue with them; it was the traditional Democrat offerings of more from government.

The subject of immigration (and evidently, illegal immigration) has proven to be a divisive issue for conservatives. There are divergent opinions as to which policies should be pursued vis-à-vis the 12 million illegal immigrants who reside in the country. However there are certain fundamental goals and red lines that conservatives and Republicans should all unite behind as we commence debate on this issue. Any so-called comprehensive immigration reform proposal that is worth more than a bucket of spit must ensure the following:

• We are not saddled with 12 million new consumers of the welfare state;
• We don’t have 12 million new Democrat voters;
• Those receiving the amnesty will not have the ability to spawn chain migration;
• Before any amnesty is implemented, there is a complete establishment of visa tracking, border control, and mandatory E-verify to ensure that this won’t create another ‘Charlie Brown with the football’ scenario of more waves of illegal immigration;
• Our legal immigration system move towards a merit-based process that favors high-skill immigrants instead of the current “Kennedy” system that is random and tendentious towards low-skilled immigrants.

Undoubtedly, Republican negotiators of reform proposals, like Marco Rubio, are well-intentioned in their desire to solve a serious problem with thoughtful solutions. However, if they are really committed to advancing conservative solutions and addressing conservative concerns about the immigration system, they must understand the adversity we all face with our Democrat opponents on this issue. Their proposals must be crafted to work not just in a world full of Marco Rubios and Paul Ryans, but in a political system full of Luis Gutierrezs and a judicial sphere full of ACLU and MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) types. Hence, when proposing immigration bills, to know thy enemy is key. We know that whatever plan is turned into law the ACLU and MALDEF will make every effort to take each issue to a sympathetic court to revise the law in their favor. They, like all progressives will not quit. If they can’t get their way in Congress they will turn to the courts.

Democrats like Luis Gutierrezs and Chuck Schumer believe that all 7 billion people in the world are born with a God-given right to immigrate to the United States. When they speak of “our broken immigration system,” they are not bemoaning our policies that are biased towards low-skilled immigration; they are complaining that our generous acceptance of over 1 million new immigrants every year, predominantly from the third world, is not enough. As such, they believe that illegal immigration is a natural and justified result of our refusal to let in even more low-skilled immigrants than we have already admitted over the past two decades. They believe that our unwillingness to immediately grant them amnesty is a violation of their natural rights, and is a reflection of our sinister bigotry towards others.

Inevitably, when they speak of “comprehensive immigration reform” they are referring to the following: complete amnesty of all illegals so they can immediately sign up for welfare programs and commence the path towards becoming a permanent Democrat voting bloc; an even larger increase in legal immigration from the third world and from countries that represent a security risk; more welfare recipients now — enforcement later (or never).

This is the brutally honest reality of the liberal immigration policy yearning. Any Republican who plunges into this debate while disregarding this reality is willfully ignoring the statements and actions of Democrats over the past several decades.

Marco Rubio is in the process of formulating and negotiating a proposal which he tells conservatives would deal with the aforementioned concerns. He claims that his proposal to grant work visas to a selected group of illegal immigrants based on paying a fine and learning English (much like the 2006/07 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bills) would not result in them receiving welfare benefits, and would force them to go to the back of the line to embark on the process of obtaining a green card and eventual citizenship (although they would not have to return to their country of origin — the place of the real line). He also says that he would like to reform our legal immigration system to one that pursues higher-skilled workers.

Again, the brutal reality is that if his proposal would indeed contain those guiding principles and red lines, his Democrat counterparts would never support it. Never. They will seek to adulterate it with poison pills that reflect their goals and aspirations. All too often, we’ve witnessed Republicans who become so emotionally invested in their proposals that they continue to promote them, even after they are completely co-opted by the left. Will Marco Rubio promise conservatives that he will stand by his demands and will not let the Democrats cross our red lines? Or will we stay the course and face the inevitability of a reform bill that guarantees amnesty/chain migration now with the vacuous promise of enforcement/conservative reforms later (think tax hikes now/spending cuts later)?

Will we really hold off on any amnesty until there is adequate visa tracking in place and operational control of the border? Why would all of the promises of enforcement actually work this time? Also, given Obama’s penchant for selective enforcement of our immigration laws, does anyone really believe he would enforce new laws? His record of ignoring laws is clear. These are all questions that must be answered with confidence.

Furthermore, even if by some miracle Democrats agree to this grand bargain, they will view this as the first step, not the final piece of legislation. Once a significant portion of illegal immigrants become permanent legal residents, Democrats will demand that the rest of them obtain that status, even the ones who are not ‘churchgoing grandmothers’ who were here for 20 years. They see this this as a perpetual lock for Democrats on our government.

Also, the next civil right will be welfare benefits and voting rights. It will never end. You simply can’t win a bidding war with Democrats over pandering to this constituency. Once Republicans agree to legalize them, it will be virtually impossible to stop the runaway train of subsequent congresses from granting them full privileges. As long as Republicans compromise, but leave a few issues on the table, Democrats will continue to use them as political footballs. A permanent legal underclass is a much more potent force than an illegal constituency. We can never get to the left of the Democrats on the issue. Ultimately, we will never make inroads with the Latino vote by out-flanking Democrat on amnesty; we will only win their vote, as Jim DeMint has said, by communicating to them how liberal policies have utterly failed them.

Moreover, proponents of Rubio-style proposals need to explain how we can legally firewall welfare benefits from those granted amnesty. There is a well-oiled, truculent legal defense community that will relentlessly sue for full privileges and an end to this status of “second-class citizen.” At present, these people lack many legal protections. Once they become legal, it will be very difficult to ensure they do not join the dependency utopia of blue America.

Remember, just the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit for illegal immigrants — a tiny portion of the welfare state — costs $24 billion over 10 years. That figure accounts for just 2.18 million illegals who are able to use a loophole to obtain the refundable credit. When you factor in the entire smorgasbord of programs for millions more, we’re talking about trillions in new welfare spending. This is a far cry from the immigrants who came here in the 1950s.

These are all legitimate questions that need to be debated and analyzed before conservatives sign off on such a deal that the “secret bipartisan working group” plans to foist upon us. Let’s remember that full amnesty for those who are here illegally is a lot to ask for. Many conservatives would be willing to entertain such an idea so long as we are ensured that it will not play into the hands of the left. However, we cannot panic and impetuously pursue amnesty under the false pretense that we will gain Hispanic support without first addressing some basic concerns.

If we’ve learned anything from the 1986 amnesty, it is that trust but verify is not going to cut it when it comes to illegal immigration policy. We need inviolable enforcement mechanisms on the enforcement side before we are prepared to make painful concessions. Otherwise, comprehensive immigration reform will look a lot like comprehensive healthcare reform. And we will be having this same debate in 20 years from now, albeit with a permanent Democrat majority.

Can Republicans Increase Their Share Of The Hispanic Vote?

“When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it—without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud—to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.” — Frederic Bastiat (The Law)

Yesterday I quoted extensively from a Column by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. In his column Mr. Krauthammer wrote referring to the future of the Republican Party:

“They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example). The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.”

While this may or may not be a strategy for winning elections by increasing the Hispanic vote conservatives must take a very cautious approach to this issue. It was Ronald Reagan who followed a similar course, but was sabotaged by Congress when they failed to secure the border allowing millions illegals to cross over our southern border.

Hispanic amnesty activists are expanding their goals beyond the so-called “DREAM Act” youth amnesty, towards a national amnesty for roughly 11 million Hispanic illegals.

President Barack Obama and Congress “need to come together to deliver change on immigration policy, and by that we mean a roadmap to citizenship for our parents and communities,” said Cristina Jimenez, director of an advocacy group, United We Dream.

According to an article in the Daily Caller Jimenez was born in Ecuador and arrived in this country as an illegal immigrant.

“Deporting members of our community is irresponsible and unacceptable,” added Lorella Praeli, the group’s policy director.

Their demand is an opening salvo in a post-election campaign to persuade the House GOP to provide “a path to citizenship” for roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are low-skill laborers who compete for jobs against low-skill Americans.

The amnesty goal is supported by many progressive groups, in part, because most Hispanics prefer generous welfare policies, and so usually vote for Democratic candidates.

In contrast, many Republican advocates and legislators favor high-skill immigration, partly because high-skilled workers spur the economy and lower unemployment.

But the issue has been gridlocked because most GOP leaders prefer high-skill immigration, while most progressives believe that continued arrival of low-skill immigrants boosts their political power.

For example, the board of Jimenez’s group includes Josh Bernstein, the “immigration director” for the Service Employees International Union. That union’s membership has been boosted by the recruitment of many foreigners working without legal permission in the United States.

Polls show some support for amnesty, but other polls of working-class Americans in swing states show opposition.

Gov. Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, in part, because of low turnout by blue-collar workers in Ohio and other states.

The renewed advocacy for an national amnesty comes as the formal unemployment rate among Americans ticked up to 7.9 percent.

Roughly 23 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Many additional low-skill workers Americans are paid low wages because employers have many potential job-applicants.

In June, Obama announced a temporary amnesty for roughly 800,000 younger illegal-immigrants.

That move greatly boosted Obama’s political support among Latinos prior to the Nov. 6 election.

Under this so-called “Deferred Action” measure, up to 1.76 million illegal immigrants could get work permits, according to an estimate by the Migration Policy Institute.

Only 6 percent of the eligible illegals have college educations, the MPI estimated.

However, Obama’s June decision isn’t enough, said Sonia Martinez, another young illegal immigrant working with the United We Dream group.

“I’m undocumented [and Deferred Action] is really important for me and my daughter. But we believe that Deferred Action is not enough for us,” she said.

“We’ll be fighting to keep families together,” instead of winning amnesty for younger illegal immigrants, she said.

The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population.

If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. It is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation. Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election.

And California is the wave of the future. A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican Party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.

It is estimated that each illegal immigrant costs the people of the State of California $22,000 per year. That’s equivalent to the cost of a very good new car each year or a year’s worth of payments on a $200.000 home mortgage. The County of Los Angeles is going broke with the burden imposed by the welfare and health care costs of illegal immigrants, people who have broken our laws by coming here illegally.

To me I cannot understand how giving illegals amnesty will help Republicans as according to the law a person cannot vote in a presidential election unless they are a citizen. This is an issue the Democrats have advanced on a purely emotional level in attempt to get the votes of citizens of Hispanic heritage. It is an issue the Republicans have not adequately explained to Hispanics or the American People on the whole.

According to Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute writing in National Review On “Line Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans:”

“I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”

And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.

The idea of the “social issues” Hispanic voter is also a mirage. A majority of Hispanics now support gay marriage, a Pew Research Center poll from last month found. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about twice that of whites.

The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants mean that a Republican party that purports to stand for small government and free markets faces an uncertain future.”

On election night, as the camera panned the audience waiting to hear Barack Obama give his victory speech, what struck me was that the audience was primarily young people and minorities. My thought was, "These are the very people who will suffer the most under a second Obama administration. Don't they know they are voting against their own best interest?"

And then I thought about it and came to the conclusion: "No, they don't." They don't because they are, by and large, uneducated. Oh, some of them may have college degrees or even graduate degrees, but they are still substantially uneducated. I would bet that very few of them know the difference between Keynesian economics and Austrian School economics. I am sure that most of them have never heard of the Laffer Curve. I would guess that most of them aren't familiar with the first principles behind the origin of our country. I doubt that many of them know what evil lies in Socialism or Communism, or unbridled leftism. Or are even aware that Barack Obama is a man of the left, and what that means. They, for the most part, have no idea what the concept of individual liberty is, nor how a big, powerful central government reduces that liberty. I also am pretty sure that they feel that Barack Obama is someone who cares about the poor, women, minorities, and the "middle class," and that Republicans don't. I would stake my substance on the fact that they don't know what is meant by a limited government, or what the Tenth Amendment says. I am certain that most of them don't know anything about Benghazi. Substantially uneducated!

For the past 40 or so years most of our K-12 (and college) educators have been teaching a progressive agenda and class warfare to their students. From kindergarten up they use text books that focus on social issues and downplay our heritage. In many of the urban school districts classes are taught in Spanish so as to provide this progressive agenda without the need for learning English. They are providing these students a crutch, a crutch that will keep them in low paying jobs and poverty so they will be dependent on government for their existence. Also this lack of learning to common language of the United States along with the lack of exposure to our founding principles and heritage tends to keep these immigrants (legal and illegal) in ghettos where politicians can exploit them for their support and votes and they become easy prey for unions like SEIU.

If you live in Germany, France or Italy you need to learn the language to exist. Unlike the United States in these countries official documents are in the native language. You cannot get a license to drive a vehicle unless you take a test in the native language and all ballots are only printed in the native language. The Bundestag or French Parliament does not have a black caucus or Hispanic caucus. Their legislatures are concerned with all of the people not just certain racial or ethnic special interest victim groups. You are either German, French or Italian or you are not.

If you talk with a student in Germany, which I have, they will tell you, in detail, about their history, legal system, culture, and politics. Upper grade students will also tell you a great deal about the American system of government — much more than the average urban black or Hispanic students can.

To summarize — the children in our K-12 urban public school system, for the most part, believe the following:

a) Republicans care about only the rich — the top 1% — and don't care about anyone else.

b) Republicans hate people of color and especially Latinos.

c) Republicans hate gays.

d) Republicans are racist. Many do not know that it was the Republicans under the leadership or Abraham Lincoln who emancipated the slaves and Republicans who advanced the civil rights legislation of the 1960s while the Democrat party led by Al Gore senior, Richard Byrd, and J. William Fulbright who attempted to block it.

e) It is the government that provides jobs. When asked that question many times in classrooms or assemblies — "who is it that creates jobs in America?" The answer is invariably, without hesitation, "the government." This is what they learn from their teachers and parents.

f) Corporations are bad, and profits are very bad. Business shouldn't make profits; they should give any excess money they make to their employees.

g) Taxes are good; they provide the money for the government to take care of people.

h) Government should expand and take care of everyone in the country.

i) America, rather than being a force for good in the world, has been a force for evil.

j) Government has an unlimited source of funds. (When asked "where is the government going to get the money to do all these things you want it to do?," the answer is "taxes.")

These children will soon be voters. How is it, in America, that we are raising children to believe that bigger government is better, that government is the engine that provides jobs, that profits are bad, that Republicans care about only the rich, that we are racist, and that we hate minorities and gays.

This is not something to be ignored. Our country is being changed forever by children who have had this type of indoctrination. We must figure out how to stop it. We need to create a love of country in our children as we once did. We need to have our children say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning or the Preamble to the Constitution (in English), as we once did. We need to teach our children that America has been a force for good in the world. We need to teach them that it is not the role of government to "take care" of people. We need to teach civics once again, and the Constitution. And above all we must stop this culture destroying policy of bi-lingual education. English should not be a second language, but the language of this Republic.

Until this problem is dealt with, and it needs to be soon, we will be raising generations of children who believe in an ever-larger government and who will permanently change America into Greece. There will be no Republican Party or conservative candidates who will win elections as more and more of the population is indoctrinated with leftist thinking. Goodbye to the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free if we don't act on this issue.

If you look at the county by county map of how this nation voted in this last presidential election you will see how the Democrats dominated the urban population centers while the rest of the nation voted Republican. (You can click on the map for a larger view). You can also see a more interactive detailed view of the California vote for President and Jerry Brown’s enormous tax raising Proposition 30 by clicking the links shown.

In State after State and district after district, Democrats won by promising that government would do something for the people hearing their message. Subsidize their healthcare, pay for their prescriptions, finance their schooling, guarantee their retirement… the list goes on and on. It’s the 21st century version of promising a chicken in every pot.

And, folks, let’s face it. It worked. What happens when a majority of voters are told they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, if they’ll only put the “right people” in charge?

We saw the answer Tuesday. They’ll stand in line for hours to vote to keep the goodies coming.

It’s going to be awfully hard to outwork, outspend and outvote them. The silent majority is being replaced by a “gimme” society. What’s going to prevent them from dragging this country over a fiscal cliff — and us along with them?

I don’t know. Do you?

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I’m stunned and saddened over the results of Tuesday’s elections. I thought it was one of the clearest choices between two different directions for this country I’ve ever seen. And I’m scared to death of the decision a majority of voters just made.

Ah, well, there is one positive thing I can say about the outcome. It will give this humble scribe — and the other conservative and libertarian writers — plenty to write about for the next few years.