Today, after the senate passed an immigration reform bill intended to be sent to the house of representatives, the speaker of the destination chamber, Mr. Boehner, said “[t]he house is not going to take up and vote on whatever the senate passes. We’re going to do our own bill through regular order, and it’ll be legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people.” I would like to point out that while his statement may one lead to believe that these two separate things are one and the same, they are not so. “Our majority” means “most republicans in the house”, while “the will of the American people” is entirely up to debate. First of all, the majority of Americans who voted for members of the house or representatives in the past two cycles voted for democrats—and only through the magic of gerrymandering was it possible for the republicans to maintain control of the house of representatives. Second, the majority of Americans believe the senate version is just fine. As a matter of fact, the numbers are even higher among religious groups, which one would expect more heavily favor the republicans who are now objecting in the house. So I ask, about what “America” is Mr. Boehner talking? The traditionally very-conservative Catholic and LDS churches agree on *shorter* not longer paths to citizenship. While we can all agree that a more secure border is of benefit to the country, I have heard plenty of objections to blindly throwing more bodies at the border—the more level-headed arguments I’ve heard call for more intelligent restructuring of our existing policies and procedures. No change the government made since the 90’s had a significant impact on illegal immigration overland from Mexico, for example, and the improvements to the security wall since then cannot compare to the change in said immigration brought about by the recent recession, despite the fact that Mexico’s economy also went through similar difficulties. Still, the senate multiplied the number of border agents greatly—enough that even many republicans in that chamber were satisfied and voted for the measure. Third, business and labor both agree this is necessary. How often does that happen? When a new measure comes up in the middle east and both Israel and Palestine tell me it’s a good thing, I don’t really question it too much. Still, even if we were to question this further, every economist I’ve read or heard discussing this topic says we’re shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot. Some claim we should just open the borders, which I think is a bit extreme, but all say we need to start from scratch, structuring the system keeping in mind the needs we’ll have in the future, as opposed to our usual approach, simply responding to the troubles of the past. Our reactionary policies are, to put it politely, counterproductive and inefficient. Finally, even from a simple political perspective, Mr. Boehner’s pandering to his current perceived political base will so alienate (pun fully intended) his party’s future prospective members that unless other significant changes come to the republican party, this might be just another harbinger of their upcoming doom. I hope no such change comes. I want them gone.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 22:48:33 +0000
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