More Fun with the Times

I love reading the Times.

A once great paper, now reduced to the level of reporting urban legends (NUNS DENIED THE RIGHT TO VOTE BECAUSE THEY LACK ID!) and an opinion page which makes no pretense toward either honesty or consistency.

Today’s effort, worth a brief blurb in response, opines on the "poisonous atmosphere" surrounding illegal immigration. Seems Congress, in its zealous desire to ensure that only citizens received the (wholly idiotic) "economic stimulus" checks, restricted same to folks with social security numbers. Horrors.

"But why shouldn’t undocumented immigrants with taxpayer numbers get the cash too? The checks are not rewards for good behavior; they are taxes returned as a means to an end. Illegal immigrants constitute about 5 percent of the work force and earn much less than the native-born. They are just the sort of group the stimulus should be aimed at, if the purpose is to get the most economic bang for every rebate dollar."

Bad economics, wholly dishonest, and completely absurd.

First, to reiterate a previous column, borrowing money today to hand out gifts constitutes inexcusable policy. If Congress wanted to significantly benefit the economy and felt a few hundred billion dollar hit on the deficit were a reasonable price to pay, it should have abolished the AMT, made the Bush tax cuts permanent, and lowered the corporate tax rate, toward the goal of abolishing that levy altogether.

Instead, Congress decided to send us all campaign flyers ... er, personal checks, for which we will be suitably grateful come November.

The Times assertion that these were "taxes returned" is dishonest in precisely the same way the New Jerseys "Property Tax Relief Fund" is dishonest: the benefits do not flow to the people who actually pay the taxes. Tax cuts do just that; they cut taxes. Tax rebates are just that; returns of money the individual or entity which actually paid the tax. These "stimulus" checks were completely divorced from the amount of taxes actually paid. To many folks, they were simply another bi-partisan giveaway program: handing out other folks’ money. Indeed, given that the entire sum was borrowed, it’s akin to a reverse allowance: we’re spending money our kids will have to repay.

And handing money to illegals – who should neither be here nor working – is patently absurd – unless conditioned upon the use of that money for plane tickets home, at which it would be cheap at the price. Too, the Times ignores the fact that many illegals send a substantial part of their earnings out of country. Although I have nothing against Peru, American taxpayers should not be going into debt to underwrite economic recovery there.

The Times avers that "industries across the country are suffering and crops are rotting for lack of workers." ‘Zat so? Tough to explain that in the teeth of rising unemployment – now 5%, up .5% since the Democrats took over Congress. NJ, for instance, keeps losing jobs; we haven’t created and kept a single private sector job since the Democrats took control in 2001. A lack of prospective applicants for private sector jobs has not been high on the list of business concerns flowing into my legislative office.

Some sources report that America welcomes more (legal) immigrants than the rest of the world’s developed nations combined. And the word is "WELCOME". The Times correctly notes that we don’t need a society with a permanent, terrified underclass, laboring away in anonymity, terrified of the law and doing a fair measure of lawbreaking itself. (The suspect in an attempted murder in Morristown this week is – surprise! – an illegal alien) But the Times’ solution is always the same: ignore their lawbreaking and welcome those who cheated to get in, including showering them with welfare programs paid for by their law abiding, unwilling hosts. Five years from now, when the newly legalized crop of immigrants is replaced with a new crop of illegals, The Times’ reaction will be the same, and the process will start anew.

These illegals are, for the most part, hardworking, law abiding folks; under different circumstances, they’d likely make great Americans. Likely, most Americans would object not at all to their presence, if they weren’t costing the taxpayers an unholy fortune. American taxpayers don’t mind welcoming newcomers, following in the paths our ancestors took, but they quite properly object to subsidizing the trip.

The thought of handing out rebates to illegals, already the recipients of massive subsidies, quite properly strikes most American taxpayers as absurd. They should be encouraged – indeed, compelled – to leave, not given a taxpayer-funded incentive to remain.

Conservatives Win Again!!

Much of the Left today celebrates the latest in a string of special election victories by Democrats in conservative, formerly Republican districts. And, truth be told, the tidings are not great for the GOP. The country, at this juncture, remains monumentally unhappy with the Republican Party. They’re not happy about the economy; they’re not happy about Iraq. They see the price of gasoline skyrocketing and, more importantly, the price of food following suit. Couple that with the unremittingly negative drumbeat of the liberal media, the mood looks dark for the GOP.

But not, necessarily, for conservatives.

Consider the recent string of electoral losses in formerly Republican, solidly conservative districts. In the most recent races in Louisiana and Mississippi, the prevailing Democrats are both staunch pro-life, pro-Second Amendment conservatives. For conservatives, who care less about party affiliation than they do about the policies eventually adopted, it was a win-win situation. If the Democrats believe that they can win seats only nominating candidates to the right of Scott Garrett, great.

The new crop of Democrats are already driving policy, sometimes in good directions, sometimes otherwise. On the negative side, the Journal reports that the desire to protect the seats of 30 freshman Democrats from rural districts led to the creation of the egregious farm bill, which provides tens of billions in taxpayer handouts for wealthy agribusiness. So much for the so-called "Blue Dog" Democratic claims about fiscal responsibility. (President Bush promises a veto which should provoke some interesting local commentary from local "progressive" Democrats: "send me to Congress, instead of Scott Garrett, and I’ll support the Democratic Leadership position by providing corporate welfare to agribusiness millionaires"? Or, "I’ll go to DC and be even more vociferous that Scott Garrett in my support of President Bush in his fight against the irresponsible corporate welfare policies of Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats"?)

Consider, too, that Health Shuler, one of the stars of the Dem Freshman class, has proposed that all employers verify the immigration status of their employees through an expanded instant-verification system. Hardly the stuff likely to make it into a BlueJersey.com puff piece. Indeed, his REPUBLICAN colleagues have been pushing a discharge petition on that proposal, which has 185, mostly Republican signatures. Query whether the new Democratic Congressman from Mississippi will affix his name to that petition?

The lesson that liberal bigwigs learned over the course of the last few election cycles is that it’s more important to elect Democrats than it is to elect liberals. They harken back to the good old days of the 1960's, when an uneasy coalition of staunchly conservative, mostly Southern Democrats, and fringe-left, most coastal liberals, lorded over Congress. Back then, most of the ideological battles occurred within the Democratic Party – and the conservatives, with huge seniority, often won. If the Democrats wish to recast themselves as a party with room therein for pro-life, pro-gun, pro-freedom conservatives, God bless.

Conservatives, after all, don’t oppose Democrats; they oppose liberals. If the Left wishes to count new Congressman Childers as "one of them", great! Indeed, if the Democrats want to start running candidates in NJ just like him, wonderful! Conservatives care about policy, not the Party which advances it. If the Democrats choose to elect lots of folks who would be considered too right wing to win a Republican primary in NJ, who’s to complain?

Speaker Pelosi, indeed, may have said it best:

"As I tell every new Member of Congress, 'your title Representative is your job escription.' Travis Childers earned the votes of the people of Mississippi's First Congressional District because he reflects their values and shares their hopes and dreams for the future."

The fact that those "values" are 180 degrees separated from Pelosi’s don’t seem to matter to her. She will, for the time being, keep her job as Speaker with the votes of Democratic conservatives, but as they amass seniority, and in order to keep their seats, they will expect – and they will receive – concessions to those "values". Will Congress be supporting anti-freedom restrictions on firearms? T’aint likely. Advancing the leftist agenda on abortion? Not with Childer’s vote. Anyone think gay marriage will be high on Childers’ to-do list?

Childers website attacks Congress for "spending as the deficit and national debt hit all time highs". Does he sound like a reliable vote for Barack Obama’s platform to double federal spending on ... everything? (Indeed, he, and the other Democratic victors, vociferously denied that they had the support of, or wanted anything to do with, national Democrats). While his web-site is issues-lite, he clearly made every effort to avoid being seen as leftist. If Childer’s represents the future of Blue America, fantastic. He’s wrong on pork, Social Security, and SCHIP, but, then again, so are most Republicans.

Conservatives learned a baleful lesson here in NJ when they supported Democrat-lite Republican candidates for office due simply to the ‘R’ after their names, only to have them adopt policies which contributed to the bankruptcy of the State. If so-called progressives find comfort in the victory of pro-life, pro-gun conservatives, we’ve moved a long way toward solving the problems the state and the country face in the way conservatives always said they should be solved.

And there are traps aplenty waiting for these conservative Democrats as they try to explain to those at home, who do not share the San Francisco "values" of the Pelosi Democrats, why they support those folks. The Congressional Dems just proposed a (non-binding) budget resolution which calls for increasing spending at 4% per annum, would permit the largest tax increase in American history, and which – in a typical display of political courage – does precisely nothing to address exploding entitlement costs. In short, the same fiscal irresponsibility we’ve come to expect from non-conservatives, of either party. Will conservative Democrats be able to explain supporting such insanity to the folks back home?

Folks worried about rising gas prices? The only way to address that is to increase supplies, and "progressives" absolutely refuse to seek new domestic supplies. Folks worried about jobs? Unemployment’s up .5% since the Dems took control, and their protectionist proposals are worse than useless. Spending outrageous now? Just wait until Mr. Double Everything (except the military) takes office! Your taxes bad now? You ain’t seen nothing yet; wait til Obama gets to town. The proposed farm bill will actually increase food prices. Given that the policies of the national Democrats are wholly divorced from the values of the folks in the districts which elected conservative Democrats, their tenure may be very short.

That having been said, people get tired of single party rule, and there’s no particular rhyme or reason to their predilections in any given year. Germany and France just became more conservative; Australia moved the other way. Labour in Britain runs the risk of being reduced to holding their party caucuses in one of the fast disappearing red phone booths.

The Dems will likely benefit from the electorate’s Bush fatigue, although Obama may be simply too far out on the left-wing fringes for the people to stomach, even in a Democratic year. When virtually all of the local Dem victories came to pass by nominating staunch conservatives, will a presidential nominee to the left of George McGovern appeal to those constituencies?

To "progressives" celebrating the recent electoral victories, consider this thought: Speaker Childers. Who would likely be more upset by the resulting policies: Mike Carroll or Reed Gusciora? If he represents the new face of the Democratic Party, the Country will be a much better place.

Efficiency and Immigration

Today’s Times editorializes that the Social Security bureaucracy (you know, the same folks that the Left tells us administer Medicare for a minuscule fraction of what it costs the private sector to administer private health insurance plans) lacks the means to expand E-Verify to ensure that all employers in the county possess the ability to immediately check the employability of their workers. Immigration enforcement, the Times opines, would constitute a "harmful diversion" from the agency’s "core mission", thereby compromising the well-being of – of course, who else? – the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

The editorial points out a huge backlog in disability cases: 500,000 pending cases as well as three-quarters-of-a-million pending appeals and opposes imposing any additional responsibilities.

Apparently, these exemplars of governmental efficiency (1% administrative costs at Social Security, 2% at Medicare, according to The New Republic) are so incompetent that they can’t handle their present responsibilities in a timely fashion and, faced with the task of ensuring that people who are contributing to the system actually exist, would completely fall apart.

Oh, and there would be costs, too: $40 billion per annum, the Times avers, a combination of actual administrative costs "... and falling tax revenue as workers are driven off the books". Come again? About what group of "workers" does the Times speak? Presumably the only folks "driven off the books" would be illegals; if they’re paying a paltry $4 billion per annum in taxes, the sooner they go "off the books" – and home – the better for the taxpayers. In New Jersey alone, some estimates of governmental expenditures on illegal aliens run into the billions of dollars.

Or consider this gem:

"Because the Social Security database is rotten with errors, the crackdown could force millions of Americans to battle a computerized bureaucracy that tells them, unjustly, that they cannot work."

Hmm. The IRS seems to make do with the same information. But take the assertion at its face value: if this model of governmental efficiency presides over a data base "rotten with errors", are these the folks to whom we should be considering entrusting the entire national health care system?

Amusing, isn’t it? To a Leftist, Government is, at once, wholly incapable of policing the borders, checking employment status, or discerning who might properly register to vote. (Another Times editorial ... , er, news story, today reports on the baleful effects that keeping non-citizens out of the voting booth would have upon (yup, you guessed right again), the poor, the elderly, and minorities) and, yet, this same government is fully competent to handle the entire health care system. There would, of course, be no "battles with a computerized bureaucracy" when government takes over health care; everything would run smoothly and efficiently.

Indeed, per the Times, enforcing the law as it presently exists constitutes a grave error. The Gray Lady harumphs:

"Such a system cannot be imposed without other immigration reforms, including a path to legalization for undocumented workers who would otherwise be pushed permanently into the shadows by a plan that gives them no way to work or to get right with the law."

Illegal aliens always possess a simple way "to get right with the law": go home. A "path to legalization" already exists: go home and apply to come here legally.

As it happens, the Times is (partially) correct: government does nothing efficiently. The idea of entrusting the entire national health care system to the same folks who presided over the spectacularly successful Hurricane Katrina relief efforts ought to terrify any rational adult.

But while private folks can, and, do, easily attend to their own health care, they cannot police the borders. As bad and inefficient as government might be, no alternative exists to reliance upon it for law enforcement. The fact that some folks might have to wrestle with this "efficient" bureaucracy before they receive their taxpayer subsidies should not preclude using the best means possible to exclude those who don’t belong here.

Rich Liberals -- in Florida

A few decades back, an assertedly conservative columnist – fond of opining that Americans were undertaxed (a curious philosophy for a conservative – got snagged in a tax shelter scam. I remember chuckling; Americans might be undertaxed, but he wasn’t.

Americans, a forgiving lot, will excuse just about any sin, save hypocrisy. Such is the reason sex scandals tend to hurt conservatives more than liberals (Eliot Spitzer to the contrary notwithstanding). The electorate expects no better of the Bill Clintons; it expects those who assert fealty to "traditional values" to adhere to them personally.

Liberals often adopt the do-as-I-say philosophy, acting unapologetic when caught in the flagrant contradiction. Recall Carl Rowan, liberal scribe extraordinaire, scourge of the NRA, supporter of just about every gun restriction ever conceived. But when confronted by an intruder in his Washington, DC, home, guess who blazed away with an illegal pistol? Unrepentant, he asserted that as long as the criminals had guns, he reserved that right for himself. The news reports never indicated whether he paid his NRA membership, having just made their case.

Now, consider the observation by OpinionJournal.com today. It seems that liberal lion Howard Metzenbaum, erstwhile Senator from the great state of Ohio, who died in March, at the age of 90.

In Florida.

Curious, that, no? A doctrinaire lefitst, Metzenbaum never met the tax he didn’t love – when, apparently, other people paid them. But facing Ohio’s almost-New-Jerseyish 7% income tax, and knowing that, approaching 90, that he would shortly go to his reward – thereby subjecting his heirs to Ohio’s 7% death tax – he suddenly discovered the merits of a jurisdiction without either an income tax or a death tax. For a man of his wealth, his savings while alive, and his family’s savings upon his death, probably totaled many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or more.

But, of course, the tax benefits to a man of his station must be a complete coincidence. We all know that people don’t move from one state to another based upon something as trivial as tax rates. We have Jon Shure’s word on it, and Jon Shure is an honorable man.

That same publication noted, earlier this week, that erstwhile Maryland Governor Ehrlich has taken to calling PA "North Maryland", due to the ever burgeoning exodus of MD resident’s fleeing that state’s increasingly confiscatory taxes. Given PA’s long time status as "West New Jersey" – hosting hundreds of thousands of NJ expats similarly seeking a modicum of tax sanity unavailable in their former home – one wonders: will PA become increasingly Red, as Maryland and New Jersey increasing hemorrhage shed taxaphobic residents?

Or will the "progressives" – who continue to strive to turn NJ (and MD) into socialist paradises, in which only rich liberals, governmental employees, and the poor can afford to live – eventually awaken to the fact that the laws of economics are not subject to political repeal?

Nah.