WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?
David Frum's Diary
Ed Gillespie has been telling the press (eg this morning's front-pager in the WSJ) that a revived amnesty plan will be the president's top domestic priority come September. Let's hope this is all wrong. The plan is bad policy and bad politics - and also by the way a sure loser. Why is the administration pressing forward? Here's a cynical theory. Some may hope to get the best of both worlds, pleasing business lobbies and Hispanic voters by advancing the plan - while placating conservatives and wage-earners by gracefully bowing to defeat when Congress balks. But I wonder whether the opposite calculation may not be more accurate: that advancing the issue will lose support among conservatives and wage-earners - while ultimate defeat will alienate Hispanic voters. Even from the point of view of crass politics, this issue may be one where it is better not to try at all than to try and lose. And of course, there are the merits of the issue - where respect for law, attention to the Republicans wage-earning voting base, and (not to omit) national security all argue that law enforcement, not law waiver, is the right way to deal with the illegal immigration problem.
Let me take issue with David Brooks' column of a few days ago. It is most emphatically not unrealistic to believe that immigration laws can be enforced. Of course they cannot be enforced perfectly. Of course the border cannot be sealed. But law enforcement is not a NASA mission. It can succeed without achieving perfection.
It's not necessary to raid every lawn in Los Angeles. Increase the number and effectiveness of inspections of large employers in the meatpacking, construction, and hospitality industries and other industries where law-breaking is rife; increase fines for employers who break the law; introduce some measure of personal liability for executives who employ illegal labor - and you'll change the incentives those industries face. If law-enforcement can add a dollar or two to the all-in cost of employing an illegal, the demand for illegal labor will drop. Reduce the demand for illegal labor and the supply will taper off too.
Women, students, the elderly - all of these groups have increased or reduced their presence in the labor force as economic incentives alter. Illegal immigrants respond to the same laws of supply and demand. This administration of all administrations should perceive that. By "reforming" immigration in ways that make law-breaking more attractive, they are inviting an ever greater supply of the very problem they are claiming to wish to solve - and also ever greater cynicism among conservative and Republican voters. How does that make sense?
frum.nationalreview.com |
