A Tax Implication of Obama’s Immigration

Via The Daily Caller comes this ugly thought. Illegal aliens, under President Barack Obama’s immigration diktat, will get work permits and be eligible for social security payments in their dotage. They’ll also be required to pay taxes, including their Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. Never mind that their employers’ cost of labor just went up because they’ll no longer be able to avoid paying their own payroll taxes on those workers (to be clear, they should have been paying all along, but since they were breaking the law hiring these folks, they could hardly be expected to give themselves up by paying up).

Here’s the kicker, though. The number of illegal alien families living under the Federal Poverty Guideline is roughly double the number for the nation at large. Thus,

…asked if the illegals would get annual payments under the Earned Income Tax Credit program[,]

“They are subject to our tax law,” [Cecilia Munoz, White House Domestic Policy Council Director] said….

And for other welfare benefits, now that they’ll be in the system, at least for as long as Obama’s illegal diktat lasts.

Congress over the next Two Years

This is what our newly elected Congress needs to do over the next two years.

  • Re-pass the 40 jobs bills which Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) suppressed, without changing a word. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. President Barack Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal the ACA and Dodd-Frank. Do these with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal various parts of ACA, Dodd-Frank, one by one. Do each with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal most of the EPA’s regulations, particularly the ones impacting coal, oil, natural gas, and how private lands can be used. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass tax reform with lowered personal, business rates, closed loopholes and subsidies. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass budgets each year that fully fund the Federal government without funding the ACA or Dodd-Frank remnants and severely restricting funding for the EPA and the Labor Department and its political arm, the NLRB. Do this with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them. Make clear how the obstructionist President prefers to shut off government altogether in his temper tantrum if he can’t have his way.
  • Pass border control legislation. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass immigration entry reform legislation contingent on a decently secured border, but don’t wait on border security to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass legislation vis-à-vis existing illegal aliens contingent on a decently secured border and entry reform, but don’t wait on those to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Seriously restrict regulation delegation authority. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.

Our Congress needs to do this against a backdrop of House—and now Senate—hearings into Fast and Furious, IRS, Benghazi, VA, Secret Service failures, immigration lawlessness, NSA snooping, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, DoJ stonewalling of those investigations. Both chambers need to pursue these investigations and associated hearings with zeal, but they shouldn’t be in attack dog mode.

Our Congress needs to take action on the findings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R, SC).

This adds up to a full slate of activities for the 114th Congress.

All cases—legislation and investigative hearings—have two purposes. The first, and foremost, purpose is to get government out of the way of our economy so we can regain our prosperity and to learn and expose the truth of what’s been going on during the Obama administration so that those…failures…can be corrected. The secondary purpose is to keep the Obama administration’s failures of policy and of behavior in the public’s eye.

Don’t waste time on an impeachment effort. They don’t have the votes to convict in the Senate, but the effort will let the NLMSM change the subject away from the Obama administration failures. Of course, the NLMSM might well attempt simply to spike the stories about the legislation and the investigations and hearings, like they did Jonathan Gruber’s truth-telling and most of them did Obama’s immigration “reform” speech last night. But it’ll be a hard thing to spike for two years.

This will be the most effective way of demonstrating the distinction between Conservatives and Democrats/Progressives, of showing what Conservatives stand for and work to achieve compared to what the Democrats/Progressives stand against and work to block. It will give Americans a choice in 2016: a President of little experience and no accomplishment—Hillary Clinton channeling one aspect of Barack Obama—a President bent on Progressive, Big Government policies without regard to the law or the American people—Elizabeth Warren channeling another aspect of Barack Obama—versus a Conservative President, bent on reducing government’s intrusion into Americans’ lives and shrinking government’s interference with Americans’ economy.

This will shape the elections of 2016.

Another Installment of the Obama Recovery

The number of part-time workers who’d rather work full time remains heavily depressed. Here are some numbers, via Nick Timiraos in The Wall Street Journal.

  • 3 million full-time workers hired just this year, but the number of full-time workers is still around 2 million shy of the level before the recession began in 2007
  • number of workers who are part time for economic reasons is 4.5% of the civilian workforce, down from a high of 5.9% in 2010 but well above the 2.7% average in the decade preceding the recession

Yeah, we’re doing wonderfully well. Sure.

Heads Up

Politico is reporting

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has canceled its advertising reservations for Sen Mary Landrieu ahead of the December runoff in Louisiana.

The committee canceled all broadcast buys planned from Monday through Dec 6 in the state’s five major media markets, three sources tracking the air war told POLITICO. That’s about $1.6 million worth of time. The DSCC is in the process of canceling an additional $275,000 in cable placements….

This race is not a done deal. That’s a lot of money for running out a ground game, something at which the Democrats are very good, last week’s election results notwithstanding.

Stay focused, stay alert. Stay in the game, and get Bill Cassidy elected. The fat lady isn’t singing. She is a skilled campaigner, though.

Teachers Union Misbehavior

In a case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ten teachers say the California Teachers Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, forces them to participate in collective bargaining, whether they’re union members or not; pressures teachers to campaign for selected political candidates, whether the teachers actually support the candidate or not; and collects union dues, whether the collectee is a union member or not.

Under California state law, a union that is recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative for a school district, such as the CTA, can enter into an organizational security or “agency shop agreement which, in lay terms, means that while it is not mandatory for a teacher in the district to become a member of the local union, they must pay fees to the union for it to negotiate on their behalf. The rule is a condition of employment for all teachers.

Financially, this doesn’t involve chump change, either:

CTA members and non-members alike pay the full annual dues, which total around $1,000, with non-members only able to request reimbursement of the portion deemed separate from bargaining expenses.

The union does the deeming, too.

This is an affront to dignity, to individual liberty. This caps individual freedom of opportunity by taking the fruits of an individual’s labor for another’s purpose without the taken-from’s permission. This denies the individual his opportunity to cut his own deal with his employer. This demands an individual perform tasks to which he has not agreed, which are not part of his contract, and for which he is not paid.

This is a denial of opportunity by making even the chance of that labor conditioned on the power to take or to compel.

It’s union abuse.