Lunatic base ensures GOP will never reform immigration!

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/lunatic_base_ensures_gop_will_never_reform_immigration/

Lunatic base ensures GOP will never reform immigration!
The good news: The immigration bill may actually pass the Senate. The bad news: The GOP House is way crazier
By Jim Newell


The folks at the Congressional Budget Office ran the “Gang of Eight’s” immigration proposal through its adding machines and look at that: It’s estimated to reduce the budget by one of those numbers that sounds big but is essentially trivial over 10 years ($197 billion). The other important finding, in CBO’s words, is that “the net annual flow of unauthorized residents would decrease by about 25 percent relative to what would occur under current law.”

snip//

Unless the state of recent politics has metamorphosed into something completely new just for this immigration debate, though, the assumption that underlay this thinking is faulty: that Republicans currently opposed to comprehensive immigration reform can be swayed by the presentation of new evidence. And the early reactions indicate that American politics, indeed, has not changed: a good CBO score makes the bill’s backers more confident, but also makes a bill’s opponents more determined than ever to kill kill kill it.


snip//

The Base. They were on Capitol Hill yesterday, for a sad nostalgia Tea Party revival. They reacted angrily to any mention of the CBO. They booed a reporter asking for specific criticisms of CBO methodology, at a press conference. The CBO score, to them, was just a thick, fresh layer of bullshit atop the pile. Most likely, the CBO report will cause opponents to annoy their senators’ staffers with livid phone calls more, demanding they remain resolute in opposing the bill in the face of such pressure. They do not want a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The last time we heard sizable crowds of people loudly boo at faint allusions to CBO methodology was at these same Tea Party rallies three years ago, during the Obamacare debate. Why wouldn’t they do so now? Say what you will of the Tea Party Patriots, but they’re consistent in this. They consider the CBO to be a fraudulent conspiracy of liberal innumerates who don’t understand that this bill will give each illegal immigration $10 trillion in welfare per year, regardless of what it says. And all of the Senate Republican backers of immigration reform today were saying to them — feeding to them, in fact — the same things about the CBO when Obamacare was the big legislative fish. It’s a perfectly fair question for conservatives to ask of them, what nerve do you have to wave a CBO top-line number in our faces today and expect us to engage with it?

It’s possible that the Senate will still get that 70-80 votes it wants next week, since senators’ top priority is passing whatever it is the leaders want passed before they can swoop over to Reagan National and catch a plane for a vacation weekend. Even so, none of that “momentum” would transfer to a House that’s more in touch with the every whims of “the base,” a body of trigger-happy-primariers that no CBO score or anything else will persuade into supporting Obamnesty or whatever they’re gotten around to calling it. The divisions remain wide, and entrenched.

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/lunatic_base_ensures_gop_will_never_reform_immigration/

[markiv]

1. the bill contains a massive increase in h-1b visas

and all protections for US workers have been stripped out by schumer and hatch

there are many legitimate reasons to be against this bill

this party is developing a bad habit of yelling XENOPHOBE! at anyone who questions any immigration bill (akin to yelling RACIST at anyone who questions Obama)

Immigration is being used as a baseball bat on US workers in a never ending recession

[earthside]

2. I'm with you.

I've got no problem with a path to citizenship for the 11+ million people who illegally entered the United States and are still living here.

But we have a population problem in this country and we have an unemployment problem and a declining standard of living problem.

We are filled-up.

I am for tough border security.
I am for reducing 'legal' immigration.

We do not need any expansion in H-1b visas.

Things change ... we may have been a "nation of immigrants" at one time, but that is history.
We used to be a horse-and-buggy country, too; that has changed.

So many talk 'sustainability' and then go right on about adding millions of more humans into the mix in a way that is simply not sustainable --- unless we go totally Walmart with low wages, low benefits, low education, etc.

We need some immigration reform and the Repuglicans are doing their best to show just how bigoted they are, but unfortunately, too many Democrats are having no problem accepting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce line on this immigration reform effort.

[markiv]

3. we were a 'nation of immigrats' when we were a 'nation of louisiana purchase'

it's nearly unbelievable how seldom you see the latter mentioned in reubuttal to the former

yet, it's so obvious to anyone with an IQ over 60

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

4. So, let me get this straight...

you're ok with 11 million people who did not follow the rules in place (whether they are right or wrong) to obtain employment authorization and an eventual green card so that they can work in low-paying jobs, while you're not ok with educated and skilled foreign nationals who play by the rules and get withheld Medicare and social security from their paychecks (since they have legitimate social security numbers), some of whom may be in H-1B status but can also be in L, E, E-3, TN, O and so on, and most of whom will become permanent residents and possibly U.S. citizens?

[earthside]

6. Okay by practicality.

We are not going to round-up 11+ million folks and deport them.

We can legally limit those who "play by the rules".

We have plenty of "educated and skilled' Americans who can do anything that a foreign national can do.

[RedCloud]

5. But what about all those GOP farms and ranches?

There's the scandal the demmies won't bring to light. Illegals on those ag areas= lower pay, more profits and more GOP donations.