Quick, when you think of the Marco Rubio radio commercials, constantly broadcast on talk radio and TV, does the phrase “pay back taxes” come to mind? It shouldn’t, because Amnestyites have dropped any sort of tough posture from the bill, and Rubio has moderated his language just to say “pay taxes”
(Politico) The question of whether lawmakers should force immigrants to ante up what they owe Uncle Sam on any money they were paid off the books might seem easy at first.
After all, it was one of the Gang of Eight’s main talking points when it unveiled the immigration blueprint in January. Sponsors vowed that their proposal would include a back tax requirement to ward off critics’ claims that their bill would be “amnesty.†Citizenship would come with a price, they said.
But the gang has all but dropped that talking point. The immigration legislation currently moving through the Senate includes a scaled-back provision that relies almost entirely on immigrants coming forward to the Internal Revenue Service voluntarily. Critics call it “toothless.â€
It is mostly toothless. The language of the bill leaves all the power of making the rules to collect from those who feel like it in the hands of the IRS. Usually, one can count on the IRS being the only agency that works really hard to collect, but, as we’ve seen, they’ve become pretty darn prone to hyper-partisan political manipulation.
Schumer also argued that a strong back tax requirement could deter immigrants from coming out of the shadows but said that the group would try to come up with some sort of compromise on the floor.
Yeah, the “compromise” was to leave it up to the Illegals, but somehow The Politico puts the burden of not getting something done on the Republicans if they dare to push for tougher measures. Then there’s the border security part
The Gang of Eight’s hopes for a Senate supermajority is running into the GOP’s push for a dramatic crackdown on border security — testing the limits of the bipartisan coalition that’s propelling the bill through Congress.
With Congress back this week to work on the measure, Senate negotiators want to pick up as many as two dozen Republican votes in a show of force that compels the House to act. But the result has to be much stricter than the current version of the bill to give it any hope of passing there either. They’ve got to do it without alienating the vast majority of Senate Democrats who like the bill as it is.
And whatever happens, it has to keep Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) satisfied.
Rubio, a key member of the Gang of Eight, is shopping around a proposal to have Congress — not the Department of Homeland Security — write the border control strategy that would be a prerequisite for most of the other elements of reform. Rubio hasn’t yet landed on specific parameters, but, arguing that Americans don’t trust their government to get it right, Rubio wants lawmakers to craft the plan at the outset, rather than leave the details up to the Obama administration.
Sorry, Marco, but having Congress write the border control strategy isn’t much better than having DHS write it….wait, you missed that border security has been vastly watered down, too?
Under the bill passed by the Judiciary Committee, unauthorized immigrants could not transition into a probationary legal status until DHS has laid out a strategy for the Southern border. And most of those immigrants would not be allowed to apply for green cards until several security benchmarks — such as implementation of a system for employers to check workers’ immigration status and an electronic exit system at major airports and ports of entry — are met over the next decade.
Remember when the border had to be secure? Rubio told and tells us this time and again, ad nauseum. Now they get probabtionary status just by DHS coming up with a strategy. What if the strategy is “hey, it’s good! Things are fine.”? The security measures will surely be weakened further, or be no more than token measures. Others will be ignored. All in the name of creating more Democrat voters quickly.
Remember this op-ed by Rubio?
There are also far-left activist groups that see citizenship for illegal immigrants as a “civil right” and will push to water down border security and enforcement measures that are critical to reform’s long-term success. These groups view immigration reform as something that should quickly legalize as many people as possible. That idea—which is manifest throughout the current administration—has done more to poison the well of immigration reform than anything that restrictionist groups could ever manage on their own.
Well, the Leftists in the Senate have already watered it down. Many Republicans on the Gang Of 8 have helped. Rubio is the face of this crap-sandwich. Now the GOP will be blamed and demonized for attempting to strengthen it.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Read: Gang Of 8 Amnesty Bill Runs Into Problems With Back Taxes, Border Security »
