Not Quite a Fracture

The Hill suggests that the Gang of 8 "fractured" over the issue of whether to give newly-legalized immigrants access to the earned income tax credit:

Graham and Flake supported an amendment sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to deny earned income tax credits (EITC) to people with Registered Provisional Immigrant Status (RPI).
An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants would gain RPI status under the immigration reform bill pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Schumer and Durbin voted no.
It failed on a party-line vote of 8 to 10.
“EITC is generally available to anyone who has a Social Security number and many are abusing that today we’ve discovered but as these RPIs are established and get a Social Security number, they will qualify it appears under the law for Earned Income Tax Credit,” Sessions said.

However, as Byron York reports, this might be less a real political fracture and more an orchestrated difference:

The situation was potentially embarrassing for Graham and Flake, who might not want to explain to their constituents that their bill gave federal benefits to newly-legalized immigrants. So it appears that the Gang had met and Democrats had given the two Republicans permission to support Sessions’ amendment. As the clerk was calling the roll for votes (at about 3:05 in the video), Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, the de facto leader of the Gang, was heard turning to an aide and asking, “Do our Republicans have a pass on this one, if they want? Yes.”
They did indeed want. In a somewhat unusual show of Republican unity, Graham and Flake joined other Republicans to vote for the Sessions amendment. It didn’t matter — Democrats have a 10-to-8 majority on the committee and voted unanimously against Sessions’ amendment, meaning it was killed by a 10-to-8 margin. But the moment provided a glimpse of the degree to which Graham and Flake are working with Schumer in maneuvering the Gang of Eight bill through the Judiciary Committee.

No Scandal Is an Island

Some (e.g. Mickey Kaus) worry that the current obsession with scandals could undermine efforts to oppose the Gang of Eight bill.  Over at National Review, I raise some doubts about how much these scandals really will help the Gang's plans.

The Scandals of the Day and Big Government

In National Review, I argue that conservatives should keep their eye on the bigger implications of the IRS and DOJ scandals:

Contemporary progressivism depends upon faith in bureaucracy: to collect data, to manage daily affairs on the local and national levels, and to serve as an impartial arbiter of fairness. Many of the major initiatives of the Obama presidency — from Obamacare to his expansion of executive authority to comprehensive immigration reform — demand this bureaucratic faith.
So every scandal that reveals a bureaucracy’s capacity for corruption deals a methodological wound to this centralizing enterprise. While the president might deride those who fear the subversion of a free republic into a less-than-free state, these sorts of scandals — whatever their outcomes — reveal that such fears are hardly misplaced. After all, we now know that federal tax-collection authorities systematically targeted opponents of the reigning ideology. We now know that federal agents could blithely monitor the phone calls of journalists. Those are not the figments of tea-party paranoia; as far as we can tell, they are facts.
The way it looks at the moment, there are two possible impulses behind these scandals: malice or incompetence. Neither one bears good tidings for bureaucratic progressivism.

You can read the rest here.

And Ed Morrissey makes some further points along these lines.

Pennsylvania: A GOP Keystone?

The Cook Political Report suggests that Pennsylvania could play a big role in the GOP's hopes for 2016:

The only blue states that have become less blue since 1998 are Iowa, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.
Of the three, Pennsylvania is the biggest prize with 20 Electoral Votes.
The last time a Republican won the state was in 1988 when George H.W. Bush managed to eke out 50 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia market, and carried the rest of the state with 52 percent of the vote. Since then, however, Republicans have failed miserably in Philadelphia--which makes up 40-42 percent of the vote--and haven’t run up the score enough in the rest of the state to make up the difference.
In 2012, Obama carried the Philadelphia area by 63 percent, while Romney won the rest of the state by 55 percent. If Romney had gotten just 45 percent of the vote in Philadelphia--and still carried the rest of the state by 55 percent--he would have won the state. In other words, if a Republican could lose Philadelphia by the same percentage they win the rest of the state, they could turn the state red.
The Romney campaign spent $8.9M on broadcast TV in Nevada during the general election to get 46 percent of the vote. In Pennsylvania, the Romney campaign spent a paltry $2.4M and got 47 percent. In other words, Team Romney spent four times as much in Nevada as they did in Pennsylvania, to get essentially the same percentage of the vote. Now, imagine that the money invested in Pennsylvania came earlier--and more intensely. 

 With the right policy steps, Pennsylvania could have been in play in 2012.  It was very close with relatively little direct spending by the Romney campaign.  It is very possible that the Republican road to the White House is through the Rust Belt.  But putting this area in play might demand that the GOP rally around the message of middle-class and working-class uplift, industrial renewal, and a popular prosperity.

Many Republicans are sympathetic to the Gang of Eight immigration bill because they hope it will benefit the party electorally.  But the Gang of Eight's guest-worker provisions---the corporate giveaways and enshrining of a two-tier labor model---could undercut the outreach to workers needed to edge states like Pennsylvania into the GOP column.

Is What's Good for the Middle Class Good for the Economy?

I consider this question over at the Corner.

Medical Cost Release

The release of hospital expenditure data (and what federal reimbursement for these expenditures) seems like it could have significant effects on the evolving US debate about health-care policy.  The Washington Post notes the vast range in medical charges for the same procedure:

In the District, George Washington University’s average bill for a patient on a ventilator was $115,000, while Providence Hospital’s average charge for the same service was just under $53,000. For a lower joint replacement, George Washington University charged almost $69,000 compared with Sibley Memorial Hospital’s average of just under $30,000.
Virginia’s highest average rate for a lower limb replacement was at CJW Medical Center in Richmond, more than $117,000, compared with Winchester Medical Center charging $25,600 per procedure. CJW charged more than $38,000 for esophagitis and gastrointestinal conditions, while Carilion Tazewell Community Hospital averaged $8,100 in those cases.

 The lack of price transparency has probably been a major challenge for getting more market-oriented reforms.

The Battle over Heritage

While many in the media are focusing on the personal views of one of the authors of the Heritage report on the Gang of Eight bill, David Frum wonders why the evidence of this report is not gathering nearly as much media attention:

Sorry, no. If you agree with the Heritage study - and so far I have not heard any good reason to doubt it - the results are so important and explosive that the coauthor's other views dwindle into a mere footnote to history. It's not some personal quirk of Jason Richwine's that has caused him to doubt that the legalized immigrants will rapidly raise their skill levels or education standards. 

Some in the media could also perhaps bear to spend a little more time analyzing the various provisions of the bill itself---rather than the biographies of its critics.

A Few Immigration Points

A fairly big news day for the immigration bill, so a slight round-up might be in order.

Heritage has released its controversial report estimating the cost of a mass legalization.  It's worth noting that government costs are not the only reason to be skeptical about the bill.

Yuval Levin suggests some ways to improve the Gang of 8 bill.

Bill Kristol thinks the House should support piecemeal reform.

The NYT reports on opposition to the bill.

Guest Problems

In National Review, I explore the Gang of Eight's guest-worker plans and suggest how they might be problematic for the GOP:

The vast majority of media attention on the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill has focused on three aspects: the legalization of illegal immigrants, the promise of future enforcement (and to what degree that promise will be broken), and the political fallout of the bill and debates about it. However, the Gang of Eight bill also makes far-reaching reforms to other aspects of the immigration system. Under the proposed bill, the nation’s guest-worker programs would be considerably expanded — and this expansion has major implications for the nation as a whole, especially its workers. This guest-worker program could have three big outcomes: bigger government, bigger downward pressure on wages, and bigger problems for the GOP and the future of conservative principles.

Under this bill, the three principal guest-worker programs would be agricultural, low-skilled labor, and high-skilled labor. According to Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. already issues 700,000 guest-worker visas a year. Some of these visa-holders work in the U.S. for a short period of time, but others can stay for much longer. The Gang of Eight bill significantly increases the number of guest-worker visas. The annual cap on H-1B visas — meant for “high-skill” guest workers, especially those in technical fields — would immediately jump from 65,000 to 110,000. This new cap would be the floor for H-1B visa numbers in the future, and it would have the potential to rise in further years, all the way up to 180,000.

 Read the rest here.

It's the Middle Class

Byron York notes what really harmed Governor Romney's electoral chances in November:

Romney lost because he did not appeal to the millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living decline over the past decades. They're nervous about the future. When Romney did not address their concerns, they either voted for Obama or didn't vote at all. If the next Republican candidate can address their concerns effectively, he will win. And, amazingly enough, he'll win a lot more Hispanic votes in the process. A lot from other groups, too.

It would do more than any immigration bill or outreach program ever could.

For Better Days

Bill Kristol attacks the complacency of the "new normal":

By the way, the new normal is bipartisan. It’s of course true that the administration in power during this period of national decline has a particular interest in selling the concept of a new normal. It’s true that the idea fits uncommonly well with the fatalism that, beneath the airy talk of hope and change, lies at the heart of modern liberalism. But Republican elites aren’t immune to the charms of the new normal, which excuses subpar performance in so many areas.

So it’s apparently the new normal for GOP leaders in Congress to be more interested in exempting themselves from Obamacare than in laying the groundwork for repealing it, and thereby exempting all Americans. It’s apparently the new normal for GOP elites to spend all their time, money, and effort trying to quickly muscle through a poorly crafted immigration bill—which once passed will have irreversible effects—than trying to do anything significant for American workers or against crony capitalism. It’s apparently the new normal for GOP leaders, at once terrified and contemptuous of their own base, equally intimidated by donors and voters but uninterested in treating either group as grownups, to think they too can simply shelter in place, under the awning of the new normal. (One might add that, when it comes to the leaders of both parties colluding to preserve power and perquisites, the new normal bears a striking resemblance to the old normal.)

Still a City upon a Hill

In National Review, I have an essay up looking at the meaning of the Boston Marathon as a terrorist target:

Boylston is empty.
It is Sunday, and Boylston Street — the avenue of the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, the Prudential Tower, and the Old South Church — is, nearly a week after the terrorist attack of Patriots’ Day, empty. One of the central arteries of the great New England metropolis — usually crowded with vitality and ambition and the hectic beat of urban life — is bare, with the exception of a few police officers and FBI agents. In a grim reminder of the toll of terror, a few signs celebrating the Boston Marathon remain in that empty space. A crime scene, that stretch of Boylston has also become a time capsule.
There is a hole in the city. There is a hole in too many families and too many hearts.
John Winthrop, a leader of those Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, proclaimed in 1630 that the new commonwealth would be a “City upon a Hill” to serve as an exemplar of success or failure to people around the world. Well, nearly 400 years after Winthrop’s sermon, the city of Boston serves yet again as an example: of what terror would destroy and of the means of resisting terror.  

Read the rest here.

It's the Workers

Ramesh Ponnuru turns his attention to the dangers that a "guest-worker" program could pose to the United States's civil fabric:

The guest-worker program is where they go wrong. For the Republican politicians who have in the past been its main supporters, this provision is like a dessert with no calories: Businesses get the benefit of the temporary workers’ labor and they get to make some money, but the rest of us don’t have to make room for immigrants in our society, and Republicans don’t have to worry how they will vote.
That’s exactly what’s wrong with the idea. One of the worst things about illegal immigration is that it creates a class of people who contribute their labor to this country but aren’t full participants in it and lack the rights and responsibilities of everyone else. A guest-worker program doesn’t solve this problem. It formalizes it. 

The guest-worker component is a key and under-discussed aspect of the Gang of 8 bill.  If the GOP is going to restore itself as a party of upward mobility and middle-class uplift, a guest-worker program could pose a significant political problem.

Coordination Between CATO, ATR, and Others

Breitbart unearths some emails showing some coordination between CATO, Americans for Tax Reform, and others to counter skepticism about the Gang of Eight immigration bill after last week's events in Boston.

Obamacare and Immigration

Jed Graham raises an interesting point about the immigration bill, arguing that it may incentivize the employment of recently legalized immigrants:

Under the immigration reform bill, some employers would have an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.
In avoiding one controversy — the cost of providing millions of newly legalized immigrants with ObamaCare subsidies — the Senate "Gang of Eight" may have risked walking into another.
The bipartisan legislation released Wednesday dictates that those granted provisional legal immigrant status would be treated the same as those "not lawfully present" are treated under the 2010 health law.
That means they would neither be eligible for ObamaCare tax credits nor required to pay an individual tax penalty for failing to obtain qualifying health coverage. It also means some employers would face no penalty for failing to provide such workers affordable health coverage.

Gang of 8 Immigration Bill: Bigger Government?

Over at NRO, I explore two aspects of the Gang of 8 immigration bill: how it could affect far more than 11 illegal immigrants, and how it could open the door to a massive new government agency.

Amnesty Incentives?

Mickey Kaus notes an interesting tweet from Senator Marco Rubio's press secretary, Alex Conant:

Rubio press aide Alex Conant tweets that

Without temporary worker program to fill US demand for low-skill labor, people will find way to come illegally despite new fence

Really? Hasn’t Rubio been busy telling us that his plan would secure the border? Now his flack tells us people “will find a way to come illegally” despite it? Doesn’t this mean that those who can’t get into the guest worker program (maybe because it’s full, or because they don’t qualify) will be able to “find a way” in as well–so the elaborately negotiated limits on the number of guestworkers will be routinely violated and, in practice, meaningless? Doesn’t it also mean that those who are drawn by the prospect of the next amnesty (because, you know, ”we can’t deport them all!” and “Latino voters”) will “find a way”in too?

But Conant isn't the only one suggesting that future border enforcement might be less than effective.  Senator Rubio himself says it, this post from Hot Air notes:

“A lot of it is going to hinge on the viability of a guest worker program. There are elements in organized labor that don’t want one. I think, really, that’s going to become the critical issue in this debate … whether we can create a viable guest worker program that protects American workers, but also ensures that in the future [if] we need foreign labor for limited periods of time, we’re able to access that in a legal way. Because if we don’t have a program like that in place, we’re going to have 10 million illegal immigrants here in a decade again.”

This statement obviously contradicts the line taken by the New York Times and others that we needn't worry about an amnesty encouraging further illegal immigration because there are few people left abroad who would want to immigrate illegally.

Terror in Boston

As the evidence piles up, it seems increasingly clear that the explosions that interrupted the Boston Marathon today were acts of terrorism.  A large number of the specific facts regarding this tragedy remain unclear.

What should remain clear, though, is the endurance of a resolve of a free people.