We’ve moved from the Fiscal Cliff threat to the Sequester threat. What will it be next?
The Sequester threat is that if the Congress doesn’t act by March 1 there will be automatic massive cuts across the board in military as well as domestic spending.
They say if this is allowed to happen it will cost us somewhere close to 600,000 jobs and around $2.5 trillion dollars in cuts that would drop us right back into the recession or very close to it.
Maybe, just maybe the Republicans and Democrats should use this threat to make counter proposals.
First the Republicans put on the boards all the domestic cuts they would like to see done. Then the Democrats lay out all the military cuts they would like to make. Then the two come together to compare cuts and make…here I go again—I’m going to use a dirty word, a Compromise. Yes a compromise on a budget, which has considerable cuts in both the military and domestic spending.
I haven’t seen any kind of proposal by either side as to what should be and can be cut.
Once this is done, they can then finalize things by fixing the tax code so that the rich can’t write off millions of dollars by paying their expensive lawyers to find loopholes. This would put a big dent in the deficit.
The other big issue is immigration reform. The one part of it President Obama and most Democrats feel they can solve right away is through the Dream Act. This is for the immigrants who came to this country as children and have been in this country all their lives as productive residents. They want to automatically make them legal American citizens. However, the problem with this is, what about their parents who are here illegally? Do you force your parents who have been in this country for years illegally to go back to Mexico?
They have suggested a forgiveness plan. But who is to be forgiven, the children, the parents or both?
The same is true for many other nationalities, not just Mexicans, even though they probably form the majority.
After the so-called dream kids, other illegals would then get in line to become citizens.
Sounds simple. But there are two big hang-ups.
One is the Republicans say they aren’t going to vote for anything until the borders are secured. That’s like asking for ice water in hell.
How can you possibly secure a border as massive as the Mexican, U.S. border without spending billions of dollars that you don’t have. Remember we are in a recession, and the Republicans are calling for massive cuts in vital programs affecting American citizens. Yet they are willing to spend billions on securing the border?
The other issue is what is going to happen with the millions who are already here and have been here for years. Do you send them back and if so who pays for this. Deporting millions of people could become a very costly endeavor. And what person in their right mind would voluntarily admit to being here illegally.
But something has to be done and I think will be done. First of all the Republicans aren’t stupid. They know that every year that nothing is done on immigration the number of voting Latinos are growing and the percentage of them voting Democratic is increasing drastically.
The vast majority of these people are employed. So I would think that something very seriously has to be done with or to businesses that hire illegals, because as long as there is work there are going to be people coming across the border, and not just Mexicans. But if you eliminate the jobs, you don’t need the borders secured, because no one is coming.
So with this in mind something will happen but will it be anything meaningful?
I personally feel a person has a right to make sure he and his family has a roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their back. If he can’t get it where he’s at then he has the right by God, to go where he can get it. Be it across state lines or across countries. And no man made laws have the right to stand in his way. America was built on this principal. But because most of the new people are Latinos, Asians and Middle Easterners all that has changed.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
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