Victor Davis Hanson: Another Partisan Push for Another 'Comprehensive Reform'?
[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.]
Candidate Barack Obama promised immigration activists, "I think it's time for a president who won't walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular."
Now pressure groups are demanding Obama come through on his pledges.
In response, the administration may trump the healthcare debate with another divisive issue — "comprehensive reform" on immigration — that is surely just as "politically unpopular."
After the failure of the polarizing cap-and-trade bill, and the current blood-on-the-floor fight over "comprehensive healthcare reform," tackling illegal immigration right now would be a political nightmare....
So let us be honest for once on this issue. The problem is almost exclusively one of illegal immigration — namely, the until-recent unlawful entry of somewhere between a half-million and 1 million new arrivals annually, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, that resulted in the current 11 to 15 million illegal aliens already living here in the shadows....
If the administration is foolish enough to go along with their demands for such a blanket amnesty, President Obama may gain probable new registered voters, but it would be a political disaster that dwarfs the failed Bush administration attempt at addressing illegal immigration....
In addition, the economy remains stagnant. The old argument that cheap laborers from the south do the work Americans won't is now dated. Unemployed Americans might be more willing to hammer shingles, wait tables or mow lawns in the current depressed climate. And you can bet they are less willing to pay out unemployment, welfare and food and housing subsidies for those who are neither lawful residents nor always fully employed....
So the idea of yet another partisan knockdown, drag-out fight over "comprehensive reform," begs the question: Would an Obama effort to offer another polarizing fix really be about solving pressing problems — or perhaps, once again, be more about creating bigger and permanent political constituencies?
Read entire article at Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers
Candidate Barack Obama promised immigration activists, "I think it's time for a president who won't walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular."
Now pressure groups are demanding Obama come through on his pledges.
In response, the administration may trump the healthcare debate with another divisive issue — "comprehensive reform" on immigration — that is surely just as "politically unpopular."
After the failure of the polarizing cap-and-trade bill, and the current blood-on-the-floor fight over "comprehensive healthcare reform," tackling illegal immigration right now would be a political nightmare....
So let us be honest for once on this issue. The problem is almost exclusively one of illegal immigration — namely, the until-recent unlawful entry of somewhere between a half-million and 1 million new arrivals annually, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, that resulted in the current 11 to 15 million illegal aliens already living here in the shadows....
If the administration is foolish enough to go along with their demands for such a blanket amnesty, President Obama may gain probable new registered voters, but it would be a political disaster that dwarfs the failed Bush administration attempt at addressing illegal immigration....
In addition, the economy remains stagnant. The old argument that cheap laborers from the south do the work Americans won't is now dated. Unemployed Americans might be more willing to hammer shingles, wait tables or mow lawns in the current depressed climate. And you can bet they are less willing to pay out unemployment, welfare and food and housing subsidies for those who are neither lawful residents nor always fully employed....
So the idea of yet another partisan knockdown, drag-out fight over "comprehensive reform," begs the question: Would an Obama effort to offer another polarizing fix really be about solving pressing problems — or perhaps, once again, be more about creating bigger and permanent political constituencies?