Waking Up to the Ponzi Logic of Immigration “Saving” Social Security
“It looks like we’ve discovered the panacea for all of our economic and social ills. We’ve found the solution to the entitlement crisis as well. We’re going to find the poorest countries in the world and import as many of their people as possible within a short period of time. That way we will have millions of people paying into Social Security, purveying the ‘trust fund’ with endless bounty. This is what passes for sane analysis from the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary,” says Daniel Horrowitz at Red State.
“It is amazing to watch those on the open-borders right adopt both the Alinsky political tactics and the policy arguments of the left in their pursuit of amnesty now, enforcement never. And speaking of enforcement, the SSA actuary estimates that the bill will ‘reduce the number entering the country without authorization by about half a million per year.’ This newly-minted expert in border security doesn’t provide the source for this assertion. Maybe he got it from a cereal box – or maybe from Janet Napolitano. Besides, according to his analysis, why would we ever want to prevent a single soul from coming to the country? Why deny the vaunted Social Security Trust Fund its much-needed revenue?”
Echoes of 1986
[W]ith 11 million illegals in the country, the 1986 law is anything but forgotten. It has given opponents of comprehensive immigration reform a potent argument for modifying the Senate bill drafted by the so-called Gang of Eight (four Democrats and four Republicans) or killing it altogether. When the Senate Judiciary Committee met last week to begin considering the bill, the 1986 legislation was the first matter to come up. ‘This bill looks too much like the 1986 bill,’ Sen. Chuck Grassley said. He is the senior Republican on the committee,” says Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard.“Grassley objected to the provision in the Gang of Eight’s bill that would give the 11 million legal status when the bill goes into effect—that is, before the border security and enforcement parts are fully implemented. So did Alabama’s Jeff Sessions: ‘This is how we got taken to the cleaners’ in 1986, he grumbled.”
Foreign Lobbyists Swarm Amnesty Bill for Handouts
“The government of South Korea hired a former C.I.A. analyst, two White House veterans and a team of ex-Congressional staff members to help secure a few paragraphs in the giant immigration bill. The government of Ireland, during St. Patrick’s Day festivities, appealed directly to President Obama and Congressional leaders for special treatment. And the government of Poland squeezed Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill for its own favor, a pitch repeated at an embassy party last week featuring pirogi and three types of Polish ham,” the New York Times says.
“Those countries, and others, succeeded in winning provisions in the fine print of the 867-page immigration bill now before Congress that give their citizens benefits not extended to most other foreigners.”