Biden places illegal immigration blame on wrong party.
Published Mon, Nov 27 2006 11:50 PM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics, Immigration, Democrats
The A.P. reports on Joe Biden's presidential campaign this evening.
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Sen. Joe Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's incoming chairman, wants to get tough with Mexico, calling it an "erstwhile democracy" with a "corrupt system" responsible for illegal immigration and drug problems in the U.S.
Biden, D-Del., was in Columbia on Monday in his first postelection trip to this first-in-the-South presidential primary state as he continues to line up support for his presidential bid.
During a question-and-answer session before more than 230 Columbia Rotary Club members, Biden was asked about immigration problems.
Biden, who favors tightening the U.S.-Mexico border with fences, said immigration is driven by money in low-wage Mexico.
Sen. Biden is only partly correct. We need better border security, but illegal immigration is only partially driven by money in low-wage Mexico. The other part is the obvious fact that if you break our laws and stay long enough, our congress, and indeed our president, will make sure that you not only get away with it, you get rewarded for it.
And why can't Sen. Biden come out and say it straight. Immigration isn't a problem. Illegal immigration is.
"Mexico is a country that is an erstwhile democracy where they have the greatest disparity of wealth," Biden said. "It is one of the wealthiest countries in the hemisphere and because of a corrupt system that exists in Mexico, there is the 1 percent of the population at the top, a very small middle class and the rest is abject poverty."
Unless the political dynamics change in Mexico and U.S. employers who hire illegal immigrants are punished, illegal immigration won't stop. "All the rest is window dressing," he said.
Punishing employers in the U.S. that hire illegal immigrants is a necessary step. What goes on on the other side of the U.S. Mexico border is none of our business. Yes, it would be good if the political dynamics changed in Mexico, but that's not something a U.S. Senator is charged with doing anything about.
On the other hand, ensuring that the administration has the funds to enforce our immigration laws is something the Senator can and should do something about.
"I warn all of you, all of you making more than a million bucks - I hope you all are - I'm taking away your tax cut," Biden said. "I'm not joking."
The extra revenue would generate $75 billion a year and pay for a backlog in national security and local law enforcement programs, Biden said.
That wouldn't bring in extra revenue, it would decrease it. The Federal Government took in record revenues in recent years. They wouldn't have done that if the economy hadn't rebounded after tax cuts gave business owners an incentive to invest in their business and to create jobs.
"Tax cuts for the rich" is a myth anyway. If you're going to give a tax cut, you can only give it to the people that actually pay taxes. Giving tax cuts to people that don't pay taxes is just another way to redistribute income, to punish success, and to reward failure.
Haven't Democrat Senators learned yet that when you subsidize a behavior you get more of it? We subsidize illegal immigration by looking the other way when businesses hire illegal aliens. We subsidize illegal immigration when our politicians grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens every dozen years or so. Is it any wonder we get more of it?
Mexico isn't the reason we have so much illegal immigration. The majority of illegal immigrants may be from Mexico, but not all of them are. The real reason we have so much illegal immigration is because we encourage it, and because we aren't really serious about enforcing our own laws.
Until we do, nothing that happens in Mexico is likely to even slow down the pace of illegal immigration.
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