Perhaps the best thing to come from President Obama’s cynical couple-of-months delay of some type of executive amnesty ploy is that it could save Republicans from themselves.
Before Obama announced his immigration plan delay, the Washington Times reported, “An effort is underway to push the Republican Party to rethink its close ties to business groups on immigration, with conservatives arguing that the way to fight immigration-reform proposals is to focus on how they would force Americans into a tougher competition for jobs.”
This proposal envisions Republicans taking a page from the Democratic class-warfare strategy by pitting immigrants against low-income citizens, a kind of intra-class warfare. As if Republicans didn’t already have enough trouble attracting the immigrant, and especially Hispanic, vote.
But the real enemy isn’t immigrants, it’s Keynesian economic policies. In a pro-growth economy, new workers, including legal immigrants, grow the economy and create more jobs rather than taking jobs away.
The article goes on to say: “But some within the Republican Party—most notably Sen. Jeff Sessions in the Senate and Reps. Lamar Smith and Steve King in the House—have long argued an immigration deal leaves American workers worse off, saying that is a pitch voters need to hear right now, with the economy still slumping and workers’ pay stagnating.”
While it is true that the economy is still struggling, that is a direct result of President Obama’s big-tax-and-spend economic policies.
So instead of trying to create a working-class warfare—even as they rightly criticize Obama for trying to create a class and gender warfare—Republicans need to be outlining a pro-growth economic agenda that would create an opportunity society.
At this point we don’t know what immigration action Obama has planned for after the election, but we know his goal is to drive Hispanics to the Democratic party. If Republicans start pitting immigrant workers against citizen workers, they will only help the president achieve his goal.
Rather, they should begin outlining an agenda that would actually grow the economy and explain what they would do about the immigration issue.
The country is desperate for honest political leadership. Standing by and hoping Obama makes more mistakes and pitting one group of people against another isn’t it.
September 9, 2014