Senate grants full Social Security benefits to illegals
As I've already conceded to commenter Robert, this is utterly unacceptable.
One strong reason for hope remains, however, that the travesty of an immigration bill the Senate is cobbling together will not stand. A conference committee is going to have to iron out the differences between it and the tough House bill. Rep. James Sensenbrunner (R-Wis), one of the most vocal immigration "hawks," will be leading the negotiating team for the House.
The longer the process goes on in the Senate, the worse the bill seems to get. I only hope that the apparently self-destructive Red Meaters don't follow through on the bizarre strategy of voting against hard-line Republicans because they're Republicans, or- even worse- vote for soft-line Democrats because they're not.
One strong reason for hope remains, however, that the travesty of an immigration bill the Senate is cobbling together will not stand. A conference committee is going to have to iron out the differences between it and the tough House bill. Rep. James Sensenbrunner (R-Wis), one of the most vocal immigration "hawks," will be leading the negotiating team for the House.
The longer the process goes on in the Senate, the worse the bill seems to get. I only hope that the apparently self-destructive Red Meaters don't follow through on the bizarre strategy of voting against hard-line Republicans because they're Republicans, or- even worse- vote for soft-line Democrats because they're not.
Comments
... begin quote
"
Mark Steyn
Not just immigration: It's societal transformation
May 21, 2006
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
From the Washington Times: "The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment."
Well, I think that's the kind of moderate compromise "comprehensive immigration reform" package all Americans can support, don't you?
Some mean-spirited extremist House Republicans had proposed that illegal aliens should only receive 75 percent of the benefits to which they're illegally entitled for having broken the law.
On the other hand, President Bush had proposed that illegal aliens should also be able to collect Social Security benefits for any work they'd done in Mexico (assuming, for the purposes of argument, there is any work to be done in Mexico)."
... end of quote
Robert
(and by the way, URL's are helpful in situations like this).
Lots of cheekiness here, of course. The line about McCain, while a good piece of rhetoric, also begs the issue: "amnesty," as I've pointed out before, involves full dismissal of all legal penalties for the entire membership of a class, and to use the term with reference to immigration simply isn't helpful, for the very reason Styne points out. If we're going to have a dialog, we first have to succeed in accurately our terms.
That said, what can I say? Of course, he's right. What is emerging is looking more and more unacceptable.
It's a horrible dilemma for the President, and one I frankly didn't think he'd have to face. Whatever one may think of his immigration speech, what he's proposed is more than any president in history has proposed to secure our southern border. Yet as with Clinton's coddling of al Quaeda and neglect of our intelligence capabilities, it seems that Dubyah is the one who is going to bear the brunt of the blame for generations of neglect.
The neighborhood in which I grew up was a Bohemian area on Chicago's near Southwest Side which turned Mexican about the time we left (because our family in the area had moved elsewhere). I would not fit in easily were I to move back to the part of Chicago which in a sense will always be "home" in a way nowhere else on Earth will ever be. I understand what the kind of societal transformation Steyn refers to is like. I also, parenthetically, greatly admire the way the Mexican community in Little Village has in recent years cleaned up and maintained the neighborhood, which during the time of transition had started going downhill.
But sure. Assimilation of a group as large as the newcomers from Mexico cannot help but have a major impact on the character of society- especially a community which- like that of Little Village- remains unassimilated in a way which simply is not true of the groups who preceeded them.
Partially because I grew up in Chicago, and have always enjoyed the diversity of my home town, I have always favored the "stew" model of America, rather than the "melting pot;" the Poles, the Swedes, and even still the Bohemians, to some extent, remain undigested lumps in the mix, lending their flavor to the whole without disappearing as discrete entities. And we are the richer for it.
So with the newcomers from Mexico. But their numbers are unprecedented, their means of entry a challenge to the most fundamental values of our society- and those issues have got to be addressed.
Sadly, I'm coming to the realization that the middle ground may not be easy to find. But we have got to try.