Polls Reaffirm Americans Support Immigration Enforcement
Three polls released last week by Rasmussen Reports reaffirm what true immigration reformers have known for years: the American public overwhelmingly supports enhanced border security and strengthened interior enforcement of our immigration laws. The results of these polls further undermine the arguments of amnesty advocates who claim that the American people want "comprehensive" immigration reform.
The first Rasmussen poll, released March 16th, focused on border security. According to the poll, 79% of voters support using troops on the U.S.-Mexico border to protect Americans from drug-related violence. The 79% figure marked a 21% jump in support for the use of the U.S. military along the border in just two months. Only 10% of U.S. voters oppose putting U.S. troops on the border to fight drug violence, while 11% say they are unsure. Strong support for placing U.S. troops on the border may stem from the fact that 82% of U.S. voters are concerned that Mexican drug violence will spill over into the United States, including 50% who say that they are very concerned. The poll also found that more than six in ten Americans say that the Department of Homeland Security should continue to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Rasmussen Reports, March 16, 2009). The release of the poll came just days after President Obama and other members of his administration expressed reluctance to deploy members of the National Guard to the border. (See FAIR's Legislative Update, March 16, 2009).
The second Rasmussen poll, released March 17, highlighted strong support for local law enforcement of immigration laws. According to the poll, 73% of voters say that police officers should automatically check to see if someone is in the country legally when the officer pulls that person over for a traffic violation, while only 21% disagree. Furthermore, 67% of voters say that if law enforcement officers know of places where immigrants gather to find work, they should conduct surprise raids to identify and deport illegal aliens. (Rasmussen Reports, March 17, 2009). The poll's findings came less than two weeks after House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) questioned the success of the 287(g) program - which allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enter into agreements to train state and local law enforcement agencies in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. (See FAIR's Legislative Update, March 9, 2009).
A third Rasmussen poll, released March 18, shows that nearly seven in ten voters support strict government sanctions on employers who hire illegal aliens. Only 22% say that employers should not be punished, while another 10% are not sure. Nearly half of U.S. voters support sanctions for landlords who rent or sell property to illegal aliens, while 36% are opposed to such penalties. (Rasmussen Reports, March 18, 2009). These findings came just eight days after the Senate voted to kill an amendment offered by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill (H.R. 1105) that would have reauthorized the E-Verify program - which prevents employers from hiring illegal aliens in the first place - through September 2014. (See FAIR's Action Alert, March 10, 2009).
Saturday, March 28, 2009
OBAMA'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
OBAMA'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
By DICK MORRIS
Does President Obama truly believe that he can castigate and condemn Wall Street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then secure its cooperation on the other days of the week?
Does he not understand that when he ignites a public furor over AIG bonuses and then incites Congress to pass a punitive tax, he sends shivers down the spines of every other corporate executive who makes a lot of money?
Does he seriously believe that Wall Street investors will not worry that their winnings, should they join the Treasury as partners in risky investments, would be subject to public abuse, publicity and confiscatory taxation?
Of course he realizes that his rhetoric makes it unlikely that his program will succeed. He obviously gets it that the entire concept of a public-private partnership is impossible amid a climate of waging class warfare, taxing the rich and heaping contempt on anyone who makes money. The president is quite bright and certainly understands that you cannot shake hands with your right while you launch a roundhouse with your left.
So why does Obama persist in his aggressive rhetoric? Why does he continue to treat Wall Street as something out of Dante's Inferno?
Because he's just not that into you! He doesn't really care if the public-private partnerships work out.
He sends Geithner out to announce the program because he doesn't want to make it his own. When he announces a stimulus plan or a new spending bill, it's Obama's moment before the teleprompter. But the public-private partnerships he leaves to his Treasury secretary to announce.
The most rational explanation for Obama's puzzling conduct -- sabotaging his own program by way of his own rhetoric -- is that he truly wants to be forced to nationalize the banks in pursuit of his ultimate goal of a socialist economy.
Obama has to oppose nationalization today in order to achieve it tomorrow. He has to show the country and the world that he is doing all he can to help the private sector to sort things out with government help. He must ostentatiously invite the hated demons of Wall Street to join him in rescuing the banks in order, later, to say that he did his best to avoid having to take over the banks. Only then will nationalization be an acceptable alternative -- when he has run out of other options.
Meanwhile, he makes sure the private sector won't play ball by going after their bonuses, sending an implicit message to the other executives on Wall Street that reads: Stay away.
Even when he takes over the banks, as he almost inevitably will, he is going to have to dress up the nationalization as a temporary measure forced on him by the economy and the previously unrealized depth of the problem. He will cite the example of Sweden, where the government nationalized the banks only temporarily and returned them to private hands quickly.
You can't be for nationalization. But Obama hopes to accomplish it nonetheless.
Already, in the TARP and TALF programs, we can see how eager he is to use government power to manipulate the once-private sector. Consider the mandates piling up on any financial institution that takes government funds: limits on executive pay, corporate travel and conferences; a strong Buy American recommendation; and aggressive action to get them to make consumer loans. Can affirmative action, low-income lending and diversity outreach be far behind?
If Obama can bring banks and the healthcare industry under government control, we will have de facto socialism. Is this Obama's goal? It is obviously where he is headed.
Is Obama a socialist? Rather than throw around labels, let's do the math. The best measure of whether an economy is government- or private sector-oriented is the percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) that flows through government expenditure. Before the current fiscal crisis, the major nations stacked up as shown in the chart on page 27.
Obama's stimulus package, alone, comes to about 6 percent of GDP, vaulting the United States past Japan to 40 percent on the list above. If we add in the extra spending in the supplemental appropriations bill and the likely increases for healthcare, the total government percentage will rise well past 40 percent and probably close in on the United Kingdom's 43.
That's pretty socialistic, but Obama has three more years to get us up around Germany and really ruin our economy!
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND TELL THEM THEY CAN GET THESE COLUMNS E-MAILED TO THEM FOR FREE BY SUBSCRIBING AT DICKMORRIS.COM!
By DICK MORRIS
Does President Obama truly believe that he can castigate and condemn Wall Street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then secure its cooperation on the other days of the week?
Does he not understand that when he ignites a public furor over AIG bonuses and then incites Congress to pass a punitive tax, he sends shivers down the spines of every other corporate executive who makes a lot of money?
Does he seriously believe that Wall Street investors will not worry that their winnings, should they join the Treasury as partners in risky investments, would be subject to public abuse, publicity and confiscatory taxation?
Of course he realizes that his rhetoric makes it unlikely that his program will succeed. He obviously gets it that the entire concept of a public-private partnership is impossible amid a climate of waging class warfare, taxing the rich and heaping contempt on anyone who makes money. The president is quite bright and certainly understands that you cannot shake hands with your right while you launch a roundhouse with your left.
So why does Obama persist in his aggressive rhetoric? Why does he continue to treat Wall Street as something out of Dante's Inferno?
Because he's just not that into you! He doesn't really care if the public-private partnerships work out.
He sends Geithner out to announce the program because he doesn't want to make it his own. When he announces a stimulus plan or a new spending bill, it's Obama's moment before the teleprompter. But the public-private partnerships he leaves to his Treasury secretary to announce.
The most rational explanation for Obama's puzzling conduct -- sabotaging his own program by way of his own rhetoric -- is that he truly wants to be forced to nationalize the banks in pursuit of his ultimate goal of a socialist economy.
Obama has to oppose nationalization today in order to achieve it tomorrow. He has to show the country and the world that he is doing all he can to help the private sector to sort things out with government help. He must ostentatiously invite the hated demons of Wall Street to join him in rescuing the banks in order, later, to say that he did his best to avoid having to take over the banks. Only then will nationalization be an acceptable alternative -- when he has run out of other options.
Meanwhile, he makes sure the private sector won't play ball by going after their bonuses, sending an implicit message to the other executives on Wall Street that reads: Stay away.
Even when he takes over the banks, as he almost inevitably will, he is going to have to dress up the nationalization as a temporary measure forced on him by the economy and the previously unrealized depth of the problem. He will cite the example of Sweden, where the government nationalized the banks only temporarily and returned them to private hands quickly.
You can't be for nationalization. But Obama hopes to accomplish it nonetheless.
Already, in the TARP and TALF programs, we can see how eager he is to use government power to manipulate the once-private sector. Consider the mandates piling up on any financial institution that takes government funds: limits on executive pay, corporate travel and conferences; a strong Buy American recommendation; and aggressive action to get them to make consumer loans. Can affirmative action, low-income lending and diversity outreach be far behind?
If Obama can bring banks and the healthcare industry under government control, we will have de facto socialism. Is this Obama's goal? It is obviously where he is headed.
Is Obama a socialist? Rather than throw around labels, let's do the math. The best measure of whether an economy is government- or private sector-oriented is the percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) that flows through government expenditure. Before the current fiscal crisis, the major nations stacked up as shown in the chart on page 27.
Obama's stimulus package, alone, comes to about 6 percent of GDP, vaulting the United States past Japan to 40 percent on the list above. If we add in the extra spending in the supplemental appropriations bill and the likely increases for healthcare, the total government percentage will rise well past 40 percent and probably close in on the United Kingdom's 43.
That's pretty socialistic, but Obama has three more years to get us up around Germany and really ruin our economy!
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!
PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND TELL THEM THEY CAN GET THESE COLUMNS E-MAILED TO THEM FOR FREE BY SUBSCRIBING AT DICKMORRIS.COM!
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