You should know: The U.S. Senate is not serious about border security
After making a big show in May about the need for beefed-up border security by voting to authorize 370 miles of fence in critical areas along the border with Mexico, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly DEFEATED a bill to fund it yesterday.
"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."In May the Senate voted 83-16 to authorize the fence. What has changed since May? Absolutely nothing. It was always a sham vote.
...
Mr. Sessions said that if his colleagues were serious about building the fence that they promised, they would find the funding.
"We will rightly be accused of not being serious about the commitments we've made to the American people with regard to actually enforcing the laws of immigration in America, which many Americans already believe we're not serious about," he said. "They don't respect what we've done in the past, and they should not. We have failed, and it's time for us to try to fix it and do better."
To prove his point, Mr. Sessions offered another amendment, which appropriated another $85.7 million to enable Homeland Security to hire 800 more full-time investigators to probe immigration-law violations. The vote against that amendment was 66-34.
These men and women are America's worst hypocrites.
Here's the essential part of what you need to know before November:
1. Every Democrat, save two, in the Senate voted against funding the fence. Ben Nelson of Nebraska is running for re-election and knows his constituency won't stand for any games. That's good. As long as he respects his voters, he can stay. The other Dem was Thomas Carper of Delaware, also running for re-election. A check of his record indicates he isn't as far left as most of his party, so perhaps he should stay as well. As for all others who may be on the ballot this year: may you lose badly and rot in hell.
2. So-called independent Jim Jeffords, the turncoat Republican, voted against the fence. He's retiring anyway. Good riddance. Surely the people of Vermont can do better.
3. Only 27 Republicans voted for the fence. They are (alphabetically) Allen of Virginia, Brownback of Kansas, Bunning of Kentucky, Burns of Montana, Burr of North Carolina, Chambliss of Georgia, Craig and Crapo, both of Idaho, DeMint of South Carolina, DeWine of Ohio, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Dole of North Carolina, Ensign of Nevada, Enzi of Wyoming, Grassley of Iowa, Hatch of Utah, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Isakson of Georgia, Lott of Mississippi, Roberts of Kansas, Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sessions and Shelby, both of Alabama; Talent of Missouri, Thomas of Wyoming, Thune of South Dakota and Vitter of Louisiana. Any of those who might happen to be running for office this year deserve your consideration.
Those Republicans who did not included both Tennessee senators, Lamar Alexander and Bill Frist. (Davy Crockett is surely spinning in his grave!) Wimpy Alexander is up for re-election in 2008. Do not forget!
Notable on the list of those who voted against funding the fence is Texas Sen. John Cornyn who, it was reported earlier this week, is pushing a bill (SB 3622) that would use American taxpayer dollars to fund public service projects in Mexico. It would not surprise us to discover that those projects are connected to the NAFTA SuperHighway project. Regardless of their intent, do we really need to be spending billions on Mexican public works when we can't even muster $1.8 billion (a budgetary hiccup for this bloviated Congress) for pieces of a security fence?
It's damn certain that someone's interests are being representing in the U.S. Senate, but we do not think they are yours or ours. We live in strange times in which the loony left and corporate elitists have Congress in a stranglehold, and the needs and desires of the vast majority of the citizenry is ignored.
The only realistic solution is for us to get mad and stay mad long enough to do some rearrangement of the membership of Congress come next January.
posted by Dave the Oklahomilist @ 10:34 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
First of all, you are forgiven for shouting and name calling. Second, it's interesting, don't you think, that Sen. Cornyn pulled the plug on his own bill (a later development).
Now, let's be honest. A tariff is a tax. If the United States charges a tariff on an imported good, that becomes U.S. tax money which, as we understand it, would go back to develop Mexican infrastructure.
You can call it "Mexico's own money" if you wish, but it is no more Mexico's money, once it becomes a collected tariff, than it is your money once Uncle Sam takes it from you in income tax.
BTW, the NAFTA thingee (a technical term) was foisted on us partly because of promises that it would help equalize economies. Despite the fact many U.S. companies have built maquiladoras in Mexico, the flood of immigrants, legal and otherwise, continues.
We supported NAFTA back when it was first argued and implemented. In retrospect we now believe it to have beeen a mistake.
While we may not be as smart or as well informed as you, it is certainly within our rights as Americans to question our economic efforts vis-a-vis Mexico, partly because of the corruption you mentioned, and partly because we have learned the hard way that you can't trust the promises of some of our own companies much either. We fear too often that the desire for profit trumps patriotism (and national security).
Finally, while we are sympathetic with Mexico's need to improve its infrastructure, it is a Mexican problem that should require a Mexican solution. The corruption you speak of will not be cured from a solution imposed from Big Bro del Norte.
Upon further review, there is more to say about this tariff issue. (Damn, I hate these "morning after" shoulda-said-this blues!)
It really isn't at all accurate to say that the tariff on Mexican imports is Mexican money. In reality the tariff is paid by consumers in the U.S. in the form of higher prices. An automatic 9% price hike on all things Mexicana isn't going to help the U.S. economy when, at the moment, the real inflation rate - versus the lie the government feeds us every month - is somewhere north of 6%.
In fact, it probably means that U.S. firms would import more goods from places like, say, China, and less from our southern neighbor.
Tariffs are tricky beasts. They have their place, but used at the wrong time for the wrong purpose, unintended consequences may result.
If Americans are going to pay 9% more for Mexican goods, perhaps that money ought to go to rebuild American infrastructure.
Post a Comment
<< Home