As 2019 began, newly empaneled Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vowed, “There’s not going to be any wall money,” referring to legislation needed to fund the government.
Pelosi’s Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was even clearer about Democratic leadership’s view of the border wall. “Democrats are against the wall,” Schumer stated with uncharacteristic brevity. Thankfully, the president still managed to secure nearly 100 miles of wall construction and border fencing over the last three years by using Department of Defense money dedicated to related purposes.
As 2019 began, newly empaneled Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vowed, “There’s not going to be any wall money,” referring to legislation needed to fund the government.
Pelosi’s Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was even clearer about Democratic leadership’s view of the border wall. “Democrats are against the wall,” Schumer stated with uncharacteristic brevity. Thankfully, the president still managed to secure nearly 100 miles of wall construction and border fencing over the last three years by using Department of Defense money dedicated to related purposes.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is one of the few institutions in Washington nowadays that is not poisoned by petty partisan bickering. The CBO is nonpartisan and has managed to stay that way. It does not take positions on important policy matters; rather it analyzes data, presents facts and leaves it up to Congress to decide how to use that information.
True to form, a new CBO analysis, “The Foreign-Born Population and Its Effects on the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget — An Overview,” presents an easy-to-digest picture of the impact of current U.S. immigration policies on the economy. It’s not a pretty one.
Americans woke up to dual headlines last Thursday: 4.4 million Americans filed first-time unemployment claims, bringing the five-week job loss total to 26 million, and President Trump signed an Executive Order temporarily halting immigration to the United States.
One headline was true, while the other one wasn’t. Sadly, the epic job losses resulting from the coronavirus crisis continues unabated. And, regrettably, the Executive Order that President Trump signed late Wednesday which, in the president’s words, is intended to “ensure that American workers of all backgrounds will be first in line for jobs as our economy reopens,” does nothing of the kind.
With rare bluntness, the editor of Germany’s largest newspaper, Bild Zeitung, called out the Chinese government not only for its cover-up of the coronavirus crisis that is endangering public health and crashing economies around the world, but for a host of other misdeeds. In an April 17 editorial, in the form of an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Bild-Zeitung editor Julian Reichelt makes it clear that the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party should be treated as a hostile player on the world stage. “You are endangering the world,” is how Reichelt titled his letter/editorial.
California has gone off the fiscal cliff. The coronavirus crisis nudged the state over the precipice, but the state got right up to the very edge all by itself. According to projections by the state’s Department of Finance, California is facing a budget shortfall of $53.4 billion, which represents a staggering 37 percent of its $147.8 billion budget.
California, like many state and local governments, is looking for an infusion of cash from the federal government, which itself is accruing mind-numbing amounts of new debt. California likely falls under the heading of “too big to fail,” and its fiscal implosion would create an economic black hole that would suck in residents of the other 49 states.
The White House has released its 66-page section-by-section summary of its immigration overhaul legislation it calls the U.S. Citizenship Act. If you’re thinking that any piece of legislation that requires 66 pages to summarize is probably filled with goodies for every imaginable special interest, you’re absolutely right.
The bill can actually be summarized in just 39 words: Amnesty for every illegal alien (including criminals) in the United States and for many who have been deported (and any spouses and children they might have outside the country), and lots more visas for workers and extended family members. The rest, as they say, is details.
President Biden has taken the position that Central American and other migrants attempting to enter the United States across our southern border are legitimate asylum seekers who are fleeing for their lives. The president has been harshly critical of his predecessor, who took the view that most of those attempting to reach the United States are economic migrants seeking better opportunities, rather than escaping persecution. President Biden has labeled former President Trump’s policies that barred many migrants from entering the U.S. as “cruel” or “inhumane.”