Dream Amnesty Elitist Dream

Dream Amnesty Elitist Dream

By Joe Guzzardi

As expected, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act (DREAM). Soon the Senate will consider the bill which would grant legal status to about 3 million illegal aliens who claim – an allegation that will never be fact checked – to have entered the country when they were 19 or younger.

Dream Amnesty Elitist Dream --

The amnesty bill also addresses 300,000 illegal aliens from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Syria, Nepal, Burma, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, Venezuela and Yemen who have received Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Finally, the amnesty package includes illegal immigrants with Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), an immigration benefit that affords the unlawfully present an administrative stay of removal designated for a specific time.

DREAM would be a boon for its recipients who will get lifetime valid work permits, and a host of other affirmative benefits which would also be effective for the duration of their lives. Others who profit are cheap labor-addicted employers, immigration lawyers and immigration expansion advocates. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, for example, is all-in. In a tweet, Cook urged Congress to pass the bill on behalf of the 450 DREAMers that Apple employs. Those Apple DREAMers displace or deny American tech workers and recent U.S. tech grads high-paying white-collar jobs.

But tens of millions of working-class Americans get nothing from DREAM except more job competition, and an increasingly overcrowded nation that further deteriorates already-dire public classroom seating capacity and emergency room hospital care conditions. Those specific types and classes of immigration admissions – DREAM, TPS and DED – will by 2031 conservatively add at least 3.2 million more residents to the U.S. population.

In another sobering study, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the DREAM/TPS/DED amnesty would cost taxpayers $35 billion during the next decade. The amnestied aliens would become eligible for the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid tax credits as well as the earned income and child tax credits, an aggregate of about $42.5 billion in new federal government expenditures. However, the new green card holders would only generate about $7.5 billion in revenues, mostly from corporate income and Medicare taxes, and the nonrefundable portion of health insurance tax credits.

The method through which amnesty contributes to soaring population is explainable in two words: chain migration, another immigration albatross that Congress refuses to end. As soon as DREAM amnestied illegal immigrants become 21-year-old citizens, they can petition for their parents, who broke the law in the first place, to get them into the U.S. Hence, the chief immigration lawbreaking perpetrators, the parents, will ultimately be rewarded. More troubling eventualities: through chain migration, the amnestied youths will ultimately become anchors, paving the endless path for lawful permanent residency and lifetime work authorization for their aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Using Census Bureau data, the Pew Hispanic Center identified immigration – immigrants and their U.S. born children and grandchildren – as the nation’s leading population driver that, left unchecked, will contribute 82 percent of the anticipated 117 million U.S. residents’ increase by 2050.

For the more than two decades that the Dreamer’s lead advocate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), has insisted that young aliens should not be punished by, because of their parents’ crimes, imposing perpetual illegal immigrant status on them. In 2021, in yet another attempt to put DREAMers on a citizenship pathway, Durbin called for ending the filibuster which, with the Senate’s 60-yea vote requirement, blocked his previously failed efforts.

But the true reason DREAM hasn’t passed in the last 20 years is because it’s bad, elitist-written legislation designed to benefit illegally present foreign nationals and profiteers, but that harms mainstream Americans. Concerned citizens have consistently rejected DREAM. Their consensus is that giving existing immigrants the authority to choose future immigrants without considering what the newcomers may contribute to the common national interest, as DREAM Act-sponsored chain migration does, is self-defeating and risky business.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Dream Amnesty Elitist Dream

Optimist is as wrong William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-31-21

Optimist is as wrong William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-31-21

Thuf vm aol xbvalz mvbuk vu aol pualyula aoha hyl haaypibalk av mhtvbz wlvwsl hyl qbza uva aybl.
Thohath Nhukop

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: An optimist is as wrong as often as the pessimist but is far happier
Genny Lanning

 An optimist is as wrong as often as the pessimist but is far happier Genny Lanning

Optimist is as wrong William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-31-21

Government Is Greed, Public Works Are About The Benjamins

Government Is Greed, Public Works Are About The Benjamins

By Lowman S. Henry

It is a law of nature that bureaucracies and government agencies always crave a larger share of the public treasury. In Pennsylvania, the undisputed leader of the pack is the public education establishment which has a voracious and insatiable appetite for taxpayer dollars.

A close second is the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) which is always clamoring for more money – much more money. The public education and transportation behemoths have two traits in common: no matter how much their budgets are increased it is never enough, and neither shows any significant improvement in performance resulting from constant funding increases.

PennDOT kicked up the most recent funding controversy by floating a plan to place tolls on several major bridges in the commonwealth, supposedly to maintain and upgrade the structures. Predictably, the idea has been met with stiff opposition from commuters and the potentially affected industries.

Governor Tom Wolf has never met a tax he does not like – until now. He is empaneling a special commission to develop a plan to replace the state’s gasoline tax with a new funding scheme. The increased fuel efficiency of gas-powered vehicles coupled with the trendy push for electric cars threatens to drive gas tax revenue downward. The goal of the commission, of course, is to increase the flow of funding into PennDOT’s coffers.

At 58.1 cents per gallon, Pennsylvania’s gas tax is the second-highest in the nation behind only California. Just a few years ago, in 2013, higher taxes were levied on producers, the practical impact of which was to add about 30 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline for a cumulative hit of over $2 billion per year to motorists. Now, the agency is claiming it needs an additional $7 billion per year to maintain the state’s roads and bridges.

For decades successive governors and legislatures have slapped band-aides on Pennsylvania’s transportation funding formula. That approach has had a particularly negative effect on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which is a separate state agency. In 2007 a law went into effect that has siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from Turnpike coffers into PennDOT, some of which the commission has had to borrow. That in turn has triggered steep annual increases in turnpike tolls, more than doubling fares over that time frame.

The labyrinth that is state transportation funding is further complicated by the continued financial drain caused by public transportation. Both PennDOT and a portion of those turnpike dollars subsidize public transit systems. The biggest, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in the Philadelphia region and Port Authority Transit (PAT) in Pittsburgh are bloated, inefficient, and inept bureaucracies that have been resistant to reform due to union-driven political pressures.

Against this backdrop, Governor Wolf has ordered the establishment of a special commission to develop recommendations for changes to the current system of transportation funding. In a departure from his usual go-it-alone approach to governing, Wolf seeks to include legislators and transportation industry representatives on the commission.

This, however, should be viewed with great suspicion. The commission’s charge is to find a way to eliminate the gas tax and find funding alternatives with the goal of adding billions of dollars to the transportation budget. It is indeed time for the development of a comprehensive restructuring of transportation funding. But just throwing more money into the pot will not solve the problem.

Also needed is a streamlining and restructuring of the entire array of transportation entities operating in the state beginning with the Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and extending to the regional public transportation agencies. The system is beset with administrative bloat, funding inequities, and antiquated labor contracts.

There is universal agreement that roads and bridges, public transit, railroads, and airports are vitally important to the economic vibrancy of Penn’s Woods. Rather than take the politically difficult, but necessary step of developing the comprehensive plan needed to knit all the above together, state policymakers have taken the easy way out by just throwing money at whatever crisis happens to develop.

This is a unique opportunity to systematically address Pennsylvania’s transportation needs. Hopefully, the governor’s commission doesn’t turn into yet another way to simply suck more money out of taxpayers’ wallets but rather takes the first steps toward developing a sustainable transportation system.

Lowman Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal and American Radio Journal. Leo Knepper and Lowman Henry had a chance to talk about the Governor’s proposal. That video can be found below.

Government Is Greed, Public Works Are About The Benjamins
Government Is Greed, Public Works Are About The Benjamins

Communism possesses a language William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-30-21

Communism possesses a language William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-30-21

Gt uvzosoyz oy gy cxutm gy ulzkt gy znk vkyyosoyz haz oy lgx ngvvokx
Mktte Rgttotm

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: Communism possesses a language which every people can understand – its elements are hunger, envy, and death.
Heinrich Heine

Communism possesses a language William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-30-21

Communism possesses a language William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-30-21

Took palm branches William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-29-21

They took palm branches William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-29-21

Htrrzsnxr utxxjxxjx f qfslzflj bmnhm jajwd ujtuqj hfs zsijwxyfsi – nyx jqjrjsyx fwj mzsljw, jsad, fsi ijfym.
Mjnswnhm Mjnsj

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!”
John 12:13

They took palm branches William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-29-21

They took palm branches William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-29-21

Studies Perfect Nature William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-28-21

Studies Perfect Nature William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-28-21

Xlic xsso tepq fvergliw erh airx syx xs qiix lmq, wlsyxmrk, “Lswerre!” “Fpiwwih mw li als gsqiw mr xli reqi sj xli Psvh!” “Fpiwwih mw xli omrk sj Mwveip!”
Nslr

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.
Francis Bacon

Studies Perfect Nature William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-28-21

Studies Perfect Nature William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-28-21

Mantis Shrimp William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-27-21

The mantis shrimp may be but four inches long but don’t mess with it. It packs a punch with same velocity as a gunshot from a .22 caliber rifle.

Mantis Shrimp William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 3-27-21
The mantis shrimp may be but four inches long but don't mess with it. It packs a punch with same velocity as a gunshot from a .22 caliber rifle.

People are like dirt William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-27-21

People are like dirt William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-27-21

Vwxglhv shuihfw qdwxuh dqg duh shuihfwhg vwloo eb hashulhqfh.
Iudqflv Edfrq

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
Plato

People are like dirt William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-27-21

People are like dirt William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-27-21

Oregon Libraries Keeping Seuss

Oregon Libraries Keeping Seuss — Bob Small of Swarthmore sent us this link about how libraries in Oregon are dealing with the bizarre decision by Dr. Seuss Enterprises to stop publication of six classic titles due to anti-intellecutal and arrogant wokeness.

The libraries — believe it or not — plan to keep them on the shelves until it is time to remove them due to well-established criteria i.e. the books become worn or are no longer checked out.

So kudos to the libraries for not caving into virtue signaling hypocrites.

Oregon Libraries Keeping Seuss
Oregon Libraries Keeping Seuss

Neither thirsty nor drunken William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-26-21

Neither thirsty nor drunken William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-26-21

Zoyzvo kbo vsuo nsbd. Droi mkx osdrob xyebscr iye kxn rovz iye qbyg kc k zobcyx yb droi mkx cdexd iyeb qbygdr kxn wkuo iye gsvd kxn nso.
Zvkdy

Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit puzzle: It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
Aristotle

Neither thirsty nor drunken William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-26-21

Neither thirsty nor drunken William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 3-26-21