Re: Senate denies funds for new border fence
- From: "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:51:48 GMT
This is one of those situations where I have to wonder whether those we
elect, really have their head screwed on right. It does not make a whole
lot of sense to me...
"Islander" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BrOdnbwe0ZIrSyrZnZ2dnUVZ_o2dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gary James wrote:
(our masters are at their lying best)Probably just as well. The fence is a really stupid idea IMV. $1.8B for
Senate denies funds for new border fence
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 14, 2006 Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build
370 miles of
new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted
against providing funds to build it. "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." Mr. Sessions offered his amendment
to authorize $1.8 billion to
pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along
high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May
17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built
along the border. But the May vote simply authorized the fencing and
vehicle
barriers, which on Capitol Hill is a different matter from approving
the federal expenditures needed to build it. "If we never appropriate the
money needed to construct these miles
of fencing and vehicle barriers, those miles of fencing and vehicle
barriers will never actually be constructed," Mr. Sessions told his
colleagues yesterday before the vote. Virtually all Democrats were joined
by the chamber's lone
independent and 28 Republicans in opposing Mr. Session's amendment to
the Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Only two Democrats -- Sens.
Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Thomas R. Carper of Delaware -- supported
funding the fence. All told, 34 senators -- including most of the
Republican
leadership -- voted in May to build the fence but yesterday opposed
funding it. The overall bill, which appropriates more than $32 billion to
the
Homeland Security Department, including $2.2 billion for border
security and control, passed on a 100-0 vote last night. Sen. Judd Gregg,
the New Hampshire Republican who historically has
fought to increase border security and enforcement of federal
immigration laws, was among those who opposed Mr. Session's amendment.
"We should build these walls; there's no question about it," he
said. "But the real issue here is the offset that's being used, and
the offset creates a Hobson's choice for almost everyone here." Mr.
Session's amendment would have required across-the-board cuts
to the rest of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, Mr. Gregg
said, which would mean cutting 750 new border-patrol agents and 1,200
new detention beds for illegal aliens that he included in the bill.
"We've attempted very hard to increase Border Patrol agents in
this bill, increase detention beds," he said. "And, yes, we haven't
funded the wall specifically as a result of our efforts to do these
increases." http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060714-120633-1188r.htm
a false sense of security. And, this only addresses 370 miles of what are
presently the high traffic areas. It will only move the traffic to other
areas and we are not prepared to fence the entire border, even if fences
were an effective deterrent.
This smacks of discrimination against Latinos. Note that no one is
proposing that we also build a fence along the Canadian border. If this
were really a national security issue, we would be addressing the larger
problem. Realistically speaking, we cannot prevent the motivated
terrorist from entering the country.
It is time to face up to the reality of a source of cheap labor that our
industries are unwilling to do without. If we really wanted to stop
migration to the US, we could do so by simply enforcing existing law by
prosecuting employers. The bottom line is that we want cheap labor to
give us cheap products and services.
There is an irony in this. The 2000 census was the first time that there
was an attempt to count illegal immigrants. The result was a nearly flat
distribution of age groups by decade across those of working age.
Approximately 40M per decade. For those who are concerned about the baby
boom and the economic viability of Social Security, our demographics show
that, including immigrants, we have the work force to support Social
Security. The problem is the wages are not keeping up with inflation. We
have elected to accept low prices, but are unwilling to look at the longer
term. Instead, we are totally irrational on this topic. The implications
of exporting 11M-12M people would not only result in higher prices, but
also reduce revenue that is paid into SS by people who will never benefit.
A perfect lose-lose strategy.
In the past, we had a spotty record, but at least attempted to provide a
path for immigrant labor to be absorbed into our culture. There was an
opportunity to legally participate in the American Dream. This is no
longer true and we rationalize that "these people" really don't want to.
It sounds very much like the rationalizations that we used in the past to
discriminate against other minorities and is unfair to the many Latinos
who work very hard, even volunteering to fight in our military, to
participate in our society. Unfortunately, the odds are badly stacked
against them.
Face it. We are exploiting these people. The fence is a political
smokescreen to distract us from the real issues.
.
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