Thursday, May 18, 2006

Standing for Stronger Borders and Against Amnesty

By looking at the title of this speech one would think it came from Ronald Reagan, JFK, Newt Gingrich, Bob Doornan, Ron Paul or anyother well known constitutionalist representative. Yeah I know Ronald Reagan didn't have a constitutionalist presidency as he went right along with the status quo of unconstitutional spending and other areas that were deemed shady.

This article right here folks is why the "liberal" "conservative" monikers don't hold water. I would bet Sean Hannity was beside himself that Robert KKK Byrd is more conservative on this issue then he is. That's right everyone Robert KKK Byrd is a democrat and by all accounts has been labeled a "liberal" and even Mr. Byrd stands for what is right when it comes to "illegal immigration"

Of course those on the so-called "right-side" of the argument will proclaim that Senator Byrd is in complete agreement with the "conservative" side for once. I doubt that to be the case, Mr. Byrd seems pretty stuck in his ways on this issue and I doubt he has changed his opinion.

Do we label Senator Byrd a "liberal" when his viewpoint doesn't agree with our own?? That seems to be the fortay of the well listened to windbags on the radio.
I doubt if Senator Byrd and I agree on much, but i won't label him to suit myself, I'll just consider him another reason why the voter apathy gets larger by the day.


News organizations seeking more information should contact Senator Byrd's Communications Office at (202) 224-3904.

April 4, 2006

Standing for Stronger Borders and Against Amnesty

In the Senate on April 4, Senator Byrd talked about the dangers of granting amnesty to illegal immigrants in the United States. There are millions of people waiting in line in their home countries to come into the United States legally; those people should not be forced to wait even longer because others have chosen to flaunt the law. Rewarding those who break the laws would serve to encourage more people to rush the borders and break the laws. Senator Byrd’s remarks are below.

Today, I speak on the Specter-Leahy substitute to S. 2454, the Frist Border Security bill.

At the present time, the Frist bill contains no amnesty for illegal aliens. However, if the Specter-Leahy Substitute is adopted, it would effectively attach a massive amnesty for eight to twelve million illegal aliens. And provide those illegal aliens with a path to U.S. citizenship. According to immigration experts, the pending substitute amendment – with its guest-worker program, and amnesty for undocumented aliens – would open the gates to thirty million legal and illegal immigrants over the next decade.

I oppose this amnesty proposal – absolutely and unequivocally. I urge the Senate to pass a clean border security bill like the House did – without amnesty, without a guest-worker program, and without an increase in the annual allotment of permanent immigrant visas.

For more than four years, the nation has wondered how 19 terrorists managed to penetrate our border defenses to carry out the September 11 attacks. It chills the blood to think of those terrorists crossing our borders not once, but several times in the months before the attack – easily outsmarting our border security checks to plot their dastardly scheme. They walked among us as tourists, students, and business travelers. Three of them even stayed in the United States as illegal aliens.

Today, more than four years later, our country remains dangerously exposed to terrorists seeking to penetrate our border defenses. Since September 2001, an estimated two million new illegal immigrants have successfully beaten our border and interior security, and are now settled in the United States. That’s two million new illegal immigrants since the Government pledged to regain control of the border after the 9/11 attacks.

Our immigration agencies are plagued with management and morale problems. They still do not have an exit-entry system with interoperable, biometric watch lists to accurately identify who is entering the country. We still cannot tell who is leaving the country. The requirement for foreign visitors to use biometric, machine-readable passports continues to be delayed, exempting millions of aliens each year from background checks. The Administration, still, stubbornly refuses to support the resources our border and interior enforcement agencies need to effectively do their jobs.

Meanwhile, the immigrant population continues to surge. The Center for Immigration Studies calculates that 1.5 million immigrants are settling both legally and illegally in the United States each year. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration will be a major cause of the population of the United States increasing to 400 million people in less than 50 years.

The National Research Council estimates that the net fiscal cost of this massive immigration ranges from $11 billion to $22 billion per year, with the infrastructure of our nation – our schools, our health care system, our transportation and energy networks – increasingly unable to absorb this untenable surge in the population.

Many tout the additional border and interior enforcement personnel authorized since September 2001, but the president’s budget has not come anywhere close to funding those authorizations. Homeland security expenditures have been capped at levels that prohibit the Congress from adequately filling the gaps. Senator Gregg and I have had to fight for every additional nickle and dime that goes into our border security. It is never enough.

Immigration enforcement in the United States remains decidedly, half-hearted. We are pulling our punches. Tougher border security mandates are signed into law, but then not fully funded. Statutory deadlines are set, but then indefinitely postponed. Undocumented aliens are denied Social Security cards, but then issued drivers licenses and taxpayer identification numbers. Employers are warned not to hire illegal labor, but then allowed to sponsor, without penalty, their illegal workforce for legal status. Funds are not requested to perform even the barest level of work site enforcement. We send troops abroad ostensibly so that we don’t have to fight terrorists on American streets, but then we turn a blind-eye to millions of unauthorized, undocumented, unchecked aliens – any one of whom could be a potential terrorist.

When lawmakers and the so-called pundits comment that our current system is unworkable, it’s because we haven’t really tried to make it work. The contradictions in our immigration policies are undeniable. Lawmakers decry illegal immigration, but then advocate amnesty proposals which only encourages more illegal immigration. Advocates may try to distance themselves from that word – “amnesty”. They may characterize their proposals as “guest-worker” programs or “temporary visas”, but the effect is the same – to waive the rules for lawbreakers, and to legalize the unlawful actions of undocumented workers and the businesses that illegally employ them.

Amnesties are the dark and sinister underbelly of our immigration process. They tarnish the magnanimous promise of a better life enshrined on the base of the Statue of Liberty. They minimize the struggle of all those who dutifully followed the rules to come to this country, and of all those who are still waiting abroad to immigrate legally. Amnesties undermine that great egalitarian and American principle that the law should apply equally and fairly to everyone. Amnesties perniciously decree that the law shall apply to some, but not to all.

Amnesties can be dangerous, dangerous proposals. Amnesties open routes to legal status for aliens hoping to circumvent the regular security checks. By allowing illegal aliens to adjust their status in the country, we allow them to bypass State Department checks normally done overseas through the visa and consular process. One need only look to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, where one of the terrorist leaders had legalized his status through an amnesty, to clearly see the dangers of these kinds of proposals.

Our immigration system is already plagued with funding and staffing problems. It is overwhelmed on the borders, in the interior, and in its processing of immigration applications. It only took nineteen temporary visa holders to slip through the system to unleash the horror of the September 11 attacks. The pending proposal would shove 30 million legal and illegal aliens -- many of whom have never gone through a background check -- through our border security system, in effect, flooding a bureaucracy that is already drowning. It’s a recipe for utter disaster.

Amnesties beget more illegal immigration – hurtful, destructive illegal immigration. They encourage other undocumented aliens to circumvent our immigration process in the hope that they too can achieve temporary worker status. Amnesties sanction the exploitation of illegal foreign labor by U.S. businesses, and encourage others businesses to hire cheap and illegal labor in order to compete.

President Reagan signed his amnesty proposal into law in 1986. At the time, I supported amnesty based on the same promises we hear today – that legalizing undocumented workers and increasing enforcement would stem the flow of illegal immigration. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work today. The 1986 amnesty failed miserably. After 1986, illegal immigrant population tripled from 2.7 million aliens, to 4 million aliens in 1996, to 8 million aliens in 2000, to an estimated 12 million illegal aliens today.

In that time, the Congress continued to enact amnesty after amnesty, waiving the Immigration Act for lawbreakers. The result is always the same – for every group of illegal aliens granted amnesty, a bigger group enters the country hoping to be similarly rewarded.

The pending substitute amendment embodies this same flawed model. It’s more of the same – more amnesties, more guest worker programs, more unfunded mandates on our immigration agencies. We ought to be focusing on how to limit the incentives for illegal immigration, and erase the contradictions in our immigration policies that encourage individuals on both sides of the border to flout the law and get away with it.

What’s backwards about the pending substitute amendment is that it is actually rewarding illegal aliens. It rewards illegal behavior. It authorizes illegal aliens to work in the country. It grants illegal aliens a path to citizenship. It pardons employers who illegally employ unauthorized workers. It even repeals provisions in current law designed to deny cheaper, in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens.

The pending amendment is a big welcome mat for illegal immigrants. It is a misguided and dangerous proposal that would doom this Congress to the failures of previous Congresses.

The economist John Maynard Keynes once described the qualification for an economist as being the ability to study the present, in the light of the past, for the purpose of looking into the future. Patrick Henry echoed those sentiments more than a century earlier when he said “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.”

Our nation’s experience shows that amnesties do not work. They are dangerous proposals that reward and encourage illegal immigration. Our experience shows that we cannot play games with our border security or American lives could be lost.

I will oppose the Specter-Leahy substitute amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do likewise.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Senators urge farmers to rally behind aid plan

Senators urge farmers to rally behind aid plan


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. farmers and ranchers should sign electronic petitions to support a Congressional proposal for $4 billion in agricultural disaster aid the White House has vowed to veto, a handful of senators said on Tuesday.

can anyone find the justification for this in the Constitution. Once more we have elected representatives not abiding by the oath of office. The Congress doesn't have the constitutional authority to misappropiate the taxpayers money in this fashion. This is why the farmers are urged to have crop insurance.

The Senate approved the aid as part of a $108.9 billion spending bill to help pay for the war in
Iraq. But the White House has threatened a veto because of the disaster aid and $10 billion in other spending it does not want.

Just how does crop insurance help the war in Iraq? Can you spell special interest program to constituents? Sorry readers but this is clearly a republican sponsored bill with democrat undertones.

House and Senate negotiators still must write a final version of the bill.

Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mark Dayton of Minnesota urged producers to sign the on-line petition.
Well at least we have mention of the democrat offenders. I wonder why no news media types will ask them where they garner the authority to do this type of spending?

"We have a pretty stiff test ahead of us," Dorgan said, to keep the disaster aid in the spending bill and prevent a veto. "We're here to encourage farmers across the country (to sign the petition). This is important."
Farmers just like the elderly rely on subsidies to make a living. I guess when business gets hard I as well should approach congress for my handout. Just kidding I can do for myself, I don't need government thinking for me.

Lincoln said it was possible that negotiations over the final version of the bill would not begin until June.

At least were safe for a few more days, grab a hold of your wallet after that though. There will be no stopping this spending until each and everyone of them is kicked out of office.

"I don't know when conferees will meet," said Dorgan, one of the Senate negotiators. He suggested House Republicans were stalling as a prelude to trying to kill Senate-backed provisions.

At this point then I'm happy we still have republicans that realize the money isn't theirs to spend willy nilly. Could be the HoR just wants to appropiate it some where else.

The petition was available at Dorgan's Web site, http://dorgan.senate.gov and also on Dayton's site, http://dayton.senate.gov. Dorgan said he expected other senators would put the petition on their sites too.

I recommend going to these sites and explaining to these people why the vast majority of people are against this type of spending.

Along with offering aid to producers on losses that exceed 35 percent, the bill would give grain, cotton and soybean growers a payment to offset rising energy prices.

Are they going to give the Owner operator truck driver one of these subsidies as well? Without trucks America stops. That is not even up for debate, should the American truckdriver shut down for 3 straight days our economy would be in the toilet. These trucking companies operate on a limited profit margin and I'm sure rising fuel cost is hurting the truckdriver/owner just as much as it is the farmer.
"general welfare" would mean all those that have been hampered by the high energy cost, not just a select few.

You want to see change in the political machine, then kick out the old and in with the new.
Martz4Missouri
district 139
state representative

Monday, May 15, 2006

Highlights of President Bush's Speech

By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Monday, May 15, 2006; 9:10 PM

-- Highlights of President Bush's speech:

_ BORDER PROBLEMS:

Bush said the United States does not have complete control of its borders and millions of people who have sneaked across the border have stayed in this country, living in the shadows of society.
Since both political parties contributed to this problem is anyone amazed? After all it is a Constitutional duty to defend the borders. I guess congress critters along with the president are extremely to busy spending our money.

_ NATIONAL GUARD:

Bush said the federal government will pay for up to 6,000 National Guard troops to be deployed to the southern border. They will serve in two-week rotations, meaning that over the course of a year a total of 156,000 troops could be involved. He said Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities; that duty will be performed by the Border Patrol. Guard units will work in support positions.

In other words they will walk around an look like they are trying to stop the influx of the problem. The National Guard troops should also be involved in the detainment of people until the Border Patrol arrives to handle the arrest.

_ TEMPORARY WORKER PROGRAM:

Bush called for a temporary worker program allowing foreign workers to enter the United States for jobs for a limited period of time. They would be required to return to their home countries at the conclusion of their stay.

Like this has ever worked in my lifetime. What he really means to say is you can come up here an perform work and when that job is over you can blend into our society and once another amnesty program passes you'll be a citizen.

_ EMPLOYERS:

It is against the law to hire an illegal immigrant, and Bush said employers must be held to account for their employees. He said a tamper-proof identification card for every legal foreign worker would help with law enforcement and leave employers with no excuse for violating the law.

This will be a national ID card for everyone, and the amount of information being stored on it will make privacy right groups cringe.

_ PATH TO CITIZENSHIP:

Bush said it is not realistic to deport the millions of people illegally living in the United States. "I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law. What I have just described is not amnesty; it is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen."

Smoke" pot" GO TO JAIL, break into the country retain your job and eventually you'll become a good productive citizen. It is quite a good idea I had when I donned my hip waders to watch this display of "conservatism"

_ ASSIMILATION:

Bush said that Americans "are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly and an ability to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America."

Micheal Savage has been saying it for years; Borders, language, culture. These people don't want to assimilate into our culture they really want to assimilate us in the manner of the Borg on Voyager.
_ APPEAL TO CONGRESS:

Bush said he was speaking directly to members of the House and Senate in appealing for a comprehensive immigration bill. "All elements of this problem must be addressed together or none of them will be solved at all," he said. The House passed a law-and-order immigration bill that would erect fences along the Mexican border and treat people who sneak across borders as felons to be deported. The Senate began debate Monday on a broader bill.

Check you wallet when this one is done. It could be they may have to raise the debt ceiling again to contain this one within the ballpark. Be very aware of overladen pork in this as well.

I probably wouldn't build a fence but definite security measures would need to be in place quickly, since for years the congress critters with the help of the President has allowed the OATH OF OFFICE to mean exactly NOTHING.

Is ignoring your oath of office an impeachable offense?

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tom martz