Reply To: Political Statements
JoAnn, that language is standard in government bills like this for a reason — they used to check personal characteristics such as legal status but after studying the effect of doing that, discovered that illegal immigrants don’t often try to get access to government assistance because they’re afraid of being caught and deported. They found that the only effect of making people prove their status was to make it difficult for people like the elderly or handicapped who don’t have drivers licenses and such to get the services they were legally entitled to. So, for completely practical reasons, they decided to stop checking for that since it wasn’t solving the problem it was intended to solve. I don’t want to sound mean, but it’s only in conservative fantasies that liberals are trying to sneak government services to millions of illegal immigrants.
And the rest of the tea party stuff seems to be more of the same — conservatives suddenly freaking out about stuff because they’ve been misinformed by people like Glenn Beck.
You bet it’s got a high price tag. But the price of two wars and tax cuts for the rich wasn’t a problem, so why is this? I’m more moved by Mark’s point than anything tea partiers can ever point to.