Fear is a powerful motivator

The Senate seems to have finally seen the light on what the American voters demand from them on immigration...and fear of losing their seats in 2 months has forced them to act...

Senate set to consider fence bill
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 19, 2006

The Senate, which has been the major obstacle to strict border-security legislation this year, will take up a bill this week that calls for constructing 700 more miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"It's time to secure the border with Mexico," Majority Leader Bill Frist said last night before filing the parliamentary motions to force the House-passed bill onto the Senate floor in a final effort to get a major immigration bill on the president's desk before the elections.

It's about time Senators, awash in the power of incumbency, realized that they derive power from voters and that it's not a birthright. Don't be fooled into thinking Bill Frist is doing the right thing for the right reasons...he's not. His constituents will unceremoniously toss the bum out of office if he doesn't close the border first. But at least he's doing the right thing.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, said the move "smacks of desperation" and was a "clear repudiation of President Bush's call for comprehensive legislation." The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was easily approved by the House last week, contains none of the "comprehensive" measures that President Bush, Democrats and some Senate Republicans have demanded. Those include provisions to grant citizenship rights to about 10 million illegal aliens living in the country and a guest-worker program that would usher hundreds of thousands more foreign laborers into the U.S.

See, the Democrats want desperately to legalize 10 million aliens (i.e. ready-made Democratic voters) and invite in hundreds of thousands more who would not only demand social services courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, but also eventually demand citizenship as well. The more impoverished and destitute the voting base, the better it is for Democrats, because poor people like to be given other people's stuff they didn't earn. Democrats are only too happy to exploit this by raising taxes on the producers and achievers and redistributing it to the underclass of consumers who produce nothing, in return for votes.

"Border security is the essential first step of any effort to enact immigration reform," Mr. Frist said. "Only when we have convinced the American people of our commitment to securing our borders will we be able to reach a consensus on comprehensive immigration reform."

Let's get the fence done first and then tackle this disastrous amnesty program later. If the Senate passes this bill in the same form as the House version, without comprehensive reform attached, I predict the Republicans will reap the benefits in November and may even increase their majority. The added benefit is that it will force craven Democrats like Harry Reid, to show that they are in direct opposition to what a vast majority of Americans want in terms of national immigration policy.