05/17/2013

by Edwin Meese III

Experts can’t always predict exactly how public policy will affect the nation, despite our best efforts. But when it comes to immigration policy, we have tried many of the types of reforms advocated by today’s Gang of Eight—so we should consider the effects these reforms had in the past.

In the mid-’80s, many Members of Congress advocated amnesty for long-settled illegal immigrants. President Reagan considered it reasonable to adjust the status of what was then a relatively small population, and as his attorney general, I supported his decision.

The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.

This should sound familiar, as it’s quite close to the path and provisions set forth by the Gang of Eight.

Today they call it a “roadmap to citizenship.” Ronald Reagan called it “amnesty.” And he was right.

The 1986 reform did not solve our immigration problem—in fact, the population of illegal immigrants has nearly quadrupled since that “comprehensive” bill.

Why didn’t it work? Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill promised—from border security to law enforcement—was to come later. It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal immigration.

Today, we have many of the same needs we did then. We need to work on better securing our border. We need to modernize our legal immigration system, including effective temporary worker programs. And we need strong enforcement of the laws we already have, including those that enforce immigration policies in the workplace.

The Gang of Eight is making promises now. “Border security” is a big promise. But their proposal spends money and grants amnesty without the guarantee that this promise will be kept.

We are having much the same debate and being offered much the same deal in exchange for promises largely dependent on the will of future Congresses and Presidents.

Instead, we should learn from our mistakes.

America welcomes more immigrants than any other country. As Ronald Reagan said:

In this free land a person can realize his dreams—going as far as talent and drive can carry him. In return America asks each of us to do our best, to work hard, to respect the law, to cherish human rights, and to strive for the common good. The immigrants who have so enriched America include people from every race, creed, and ethnic background. Yet all have been drawn here by shared values and a deep love of freedom. Most brought with them few material goods. But with their hearts and minds and toil they have contributed mightily to the building of this great Nation and endowed us with the riches of their achievements. Their spirit continues to nourish our own love of freedom and opportunity.

But in keeping open that door of opportunity, we also must uphold the rule of law and enhance a fair immigration process, as Reagan said, to “humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.”

The U.S. Attorney General from 1985-1988, Edwin Meese III is Heritage’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

Quick Hits:

• Another of President Obama’s “recess appointments” of an official has been struck down by a court.

• A bipartisan group in the House (like the Gang of Eight in the Senate) has agreed to its own immigration plan.

• Yesterday, the House voted to repeal Obamacare.

• Texans are cleaning up from a tornado that killed six people and destroyed homes.

• What has your state decided about Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion? Watch our Google+ hangout today at noon ET to learn the latest.

05/16/2013

By Jim DeMint

Members of the House of Representatives are scheduled to vote Thursday to repeal all of Obamacare. Given that the House voted to repeal the law last year, some commentators and observers have questioned the need for another repeal vote.

However, the scandals coming to light over the last week perfectly make the case for why Congress must eradicate the law from the statute books.

On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service finally disclosed that it had spent years targeting tea party and other conservative groups, delaying their applications for non-profit status and giving those applications additional scrutiny — solely because of those groups’ political beliefs.

Also on Friday, The Washington Post revealed that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius personally asked health industry groups to contribute to Enroll America, a pro-Obamacare front group working to “educate” the public about the law’s supposed benefits.

While we don’t yet know all the details about these scandals, we do know that the IRS grossly abused its power at a time when Obamacare grants it massive new authority. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General has said Obamacare represents “the largest set of tax law changes in 20 years,” with at least 42 provisions adding to or amending the tax code.

Obamacare taxes most people with health insurance, and most people without health insurance. Likewise, the law taxes many employers who provide health insurance, and most employers who don’t provide health insurance.

Obamacare’s heavy reliance on the IRS seems somehow fitting, as the entire law relies on a scheme of government controls and regulations to work its will on the health care system. The law imposes price controls on insurance companies and extends a system of price controls for pharmaceutical companies. Obamacare also places a board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats at the center of its plans to control health care costs.

A 2010 Congressional Research Service report found that the number of new bureaucracies “that will ultimately be created” by Obamacare “is currently unknowable.” Little wonder that Vice President Biden boasted shortly before the law was passed, “We’re going to control the insurance companies.”

That’s what Obamacare is about. It’s not about health care. It’s about government control and power. And the record of this Administration shows its willingness to use this power in arbitrary and harmful ways.

Secretary Sebelius’s recently disclosed fundraising campaign tried to make an end-run around Congress, forcing private companies to give money for a pro-Obamacare marketing campaign that Congress itself has refused to fund.

It isn’t the first time the secretary has skirted the law, either. HHS’s infamous waivers, the majority of which went to individuals in union health plans, weren’t mentioned in Obamacare. And in recent weeks, Democrats who support the law have criticized the secretary for taking funds from other programs to fund Obamacare implementation.

Just like the IRS, HHS has also targeted the First Amendment rights of private organizations. In 2009, the department applied an infamous “gag order” on Medicare Advantage plans, ordering them not to communicate with seniors about how Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage would affect their coverage.

If past experience is any guide, IRS and HHS could use their newfound Obamacare powers to target their political opponents. Will individuals who choose not to buy insurance under Obamacare’s mandate find themselves subjected to government audits?

Will corporations who choose not to “donate” to Sebelius’s fundraising campaign find themselves targeted by Obamacare regulators — or even the IRS itself? Given the events of the past week, few can answer these questions with an unequivocal “no.”

There’s one easy way to stop the rot, and that’s to repeal Obamacare once and for all. At a time when this week’s revelations show how the government has abused its existing powers, it’s exactly the wrong time to give the government yet more authority. Congress should instead focus on repealing Obamacare and restoring freedom.

This piece originally appeared in The Washington Examiner.

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

Quick Hits:

• An explosive set of emails released yesterday revealed how the State Department and the White House edited talking points on the Benghazi terrorist attack, removing references to al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists, as well as evidence of prior warnings.

• The acting commissioner of the IRS has been ousted, but congressional committees and the FBI are still investigating potential civil rights violations in the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.

• Attorney General Eric Holder went before a congressional committee yesterday on the AP phone record scandal, though the hearing yielded few answers.

• Google has launched a new music streaming service to compete with Pandora and Spotify.

• School choice makes sense to moms—they want the best education for their children.

05/15/2013

By Matthew Spalding

Across this great land, patriotic Americans are behaving subversively.

We’re quoting from our pocket Constitutions, starting reading groups to discuss our founding documents, even gathering together to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Uncle Sam is not amused.

As leaders of tea party groups have been painfully aware for years, the Internal Revenue Service has given “special” attention to conservative groups.

Heritage sounded the alarm on the Obama Administration’s hit list nearly a year ago. Idaho businessman Frank VanderSloot was singled out by the IRS and the Labor Department after making a sizable donation to Mitt Romney. Who ordered his investigation?

>>> Watch our video to hear his story 

The IRS admits that in recent years it has zeroed in on organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. Further, The Wall Street Journal reports the IRS has also targeted groups that say they are “worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to ‘make America a better place to live.’” Fox News adds that organizations interested in doing “education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” made the list.

The goal was clearly to reduce the amount of anti-government speech by making it more difficult for these groups to achieve tax-exempt status. And it worked. Just look at these examples from four different states:

• ABC News reports that Jennifer Stefano of Pennsylvania wanted to start a tea party group, but dealing with the IRS “was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”

• The IRS ordered an Ohio group to answer 35 detailed questions, including to “provide a listing of all your past activities. Indicate the percentage of your time spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%) and the percentage of your funds spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%).”

• In Tennessee, Kevin Kookogey was trying to start an educational group called Linchpins of Liberty to teach the economic principles of Milton Friedman and Adam Smith. When he inquired with the IRS in 2011 about the delay in his tax-exempt status, he was told: “We have been waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your and similar organizations.” He is still waiting.

• In Virginia, it took Richmond Tea Party President Larry Nordvig two and a half years to get tax-exempt status. He tells The Washington Post the wait had “a very chilling effect” on how much money his group could raise, and thus on how much speech it could generate.

How many groups are under scrutiny? That remains to be seen. President Obama said yesterday that the IRS’s actions were “intolerable and inexcusable” and that “regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong.”

Our federal government was designed to be a neutral arbiter between competing private interests that would protect our liberties. Instead, it has morphed into a permanent interest group of its own.

In some ways, it’s almost as if we’ve disappointed our government by questioning it. As Bertolt Brecht quipped about the late, unlamented East Germany:

The people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.

So here’s a charge to all tea partiers, and indeed all “patriotic” Americans of any political bent: Let’s redouble our efforts—to limit government and promote freedom.

Doing so may anger Big Brother, but it will protect the liberty of all Americans.

Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.

Quick Hits:

• The IRS scandal is one thing that has brought Republicans and Democrats together.

• The IRS isn’t the only agency treating conservative groups differently from liberal groups. The Competitive Enterprise Institute reports that the EPA shows a bias in its answers to Freedom of Information Act requests.

• At a fundraiser earlier this week, President Obama blamed gridlock in Washington on “hyper-partisanship,” saying, “My thinking was after we beat them in 2012, well, that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet.”

• Conservatives should be concerned about modernizing U.S. defenses so that they are there when we need them, says Heritage President Jim DeMint.

• Join us today at noon ET for a debate about defense. Watch online as conservative and liberal debaters face off on national security.

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