Amnesty Reform: Making The Whole Idea Go Away
09/05/2013
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In How Amnesty Goes Away, [September 4, 2013] the Daily Caller’s Mickey Kaus has a four-point plan for “Ending Amnesty As We Know It” by which he means making the idea of an amnesty go away so we don’t have to keep fighting it very four to six years.  He compares it to what was done with welfare reform in the 90s—”ending welfare as we know it”.

Ending Amnesty As We Know It: I’ve semi-obsessively compared the current immigration reform debate with the welfare reform debate of the Nixon era, when there was also a respectable bipartisan consensus supporting a disastrous policy idea–the “guaranteed income.”  The idea was defeated in Congress on a close vote and faded away. A much more sensible policy–replacing welfare with work– then became the core of what was called “welfare reform,”... [More]

Kaus's plan is briefly  

1. Block “Legalization First” bills in this Congress.

2. Republicans hold on, and maybe even win the Senate in 2014–and hold on again in 2016.

3. Buy off the business lobby with increased visas and guestworkers, and split the amnesty lobby by legalizing some “DREAMers.”

4. Beat a couple of Dem senators on the issue

(Read The Whole Thing for details)

The last point is a good idea. If a couple of Democratic Senators lose their Senate seats over their support of amnesty, it will make the point that the American people don’t want amnesty: even if elected officials are incapable of seeing the light, they can generally feel the heat.

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