By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Barack Obama is taking his eight-year war with his political enemies right to them. For the beginning of the fourth quarter of the battle, he chose immigration.
Just like in health care, Obama bets House Speaker John Boehner will crash in flames again.
GOP strategy relies on a vocal segment of voters who forget that tough immigration rules would have prevented most of them from being born U.S. citizens. The base fear is open borders invite people who will take our jobs and put a strain on social services. Republican leaders believe most of these new citizens will register Democrat and make the GOP a permanent minority.
If this goal of Tea Party Republicans was the summary of the GOP argument on immigration, they might prevail. Unfortunately, big business has different concerns. These immigrants work longer and harder at jobs that we don’t seem to want. English is a second language among the work groups that grow and harvest our food, butcher and pack our meats, clean our homes and hotel rooms, drive taxis, etc. Big business is reluctant to see this labor supply reduced.
Boehner blames the government’s inability to properly oversee immigration to Obama, but his argument doesn’t hold water.
The Speaker’s broken record for the past two years is a song and dance about the amount of legislation the Republican House sends to the Democrat-controlled Senate where bills never see the light of day. Obama has never had to issue a veto on legislation because Senate Democrats prevent unfavorable bills from reaching his desk. That Obama strategy ends in January when control of the Senate also swings to Republicans.
This does not mean our government will become more conservative. The Republicans may get to shovel bill after bill to Obama’s desk, but they cannot amass the two-thirds majority to override his veto.
Obama has requested legislation that would provide major changes to our immigration program. He wants to insure that four to five million children, technically in this country illegally, do not have to be deported. At the same time, he wants simpler procedures that would allow him to expel immigrants with criminal backgrounds.
Republicans in the House have a rule that has accounted for much of the gridlock that exists in Washington. Leadership requires that legislation passed in the House must have all necessary votes provided by the GOP majority. This policy promoted by the Tea Party segment insures Republicans stay united and that all actions occur without need for Democrat help.
In the ongoing controversy on immigration, without the above rule, the House could easily – with bipartisan support – pass a bill acceptable to Obama that cleared the Senate 68 to 32 over 500 days ago.
The “majority of the majority” rule adopted by House Republicans is the function that keeps Tea Party people allied with Big Business. This alliance has hobbled Obama on every issue except immigration.
Next up is a battle over the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare became law in 2009 on the mistaken assumption that a sizable majority of American voters believed adequate health care was a right. Today we cannot even assume that health care can be available for all so long as there is a perception of inadequate resources and universal health care will cost more money. People don’t want to share health care anymore than jobs and social services with foreign born.
Bottom Line: As a nation, we have become shameless in our haste to stick it to the rest of the world (unless it benefits big business) and crush those within our borders who are defenseless (and it benefits big business).
