Kristol, Lowry Urge House GOP to Kill Immigration Reform
Kristol and Lowry lay out a three-pronged case against the Gang of Eight bill: It “doesn’t solve the illegal-immigration problem,” it is too large and was written in an unacceptably “hasty manner,” and Republicans will ultimately benefit politically from killing reform efforts.
There are major flaws with each of these arguments. First, contrary to Kristol and Lowry’s skepticism about the new measure’s effectiveness, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would cut illegal entries into the country by 50 percent. Second, the “hasty” bill was actually debated at length — which Kristol should remember, since he erroneously claimed that anti-reform senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was “winning the debate” as he unsuccessfully submitted 48 amendments to the final bill.
Finally, the notion that Republicans will benefit politically from killing the bill — Kristol and Lowry incredulously ask, “Are we supposed to believe that Republican Senate candidates running in states such as Arkansas, North Carolina, Iowa, Virginia, and Montana will be hurt if the party doesn’t embrace Chuck Schumer’s immigration bill?” and suggest, in an admirable attempt to avoid using the adjective “white,” that “it’s most important that the party perform better among working-class and younger voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility” — is deeply flawed. As Nate Cohn explains in The New Republic, the GOP is highly unlikely to rebound without expanding its base. Immigration reform won’t solve all of the GOP’s problems, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Kristol’s confidence that immigration reform would not be advantageous to the Republican Party politically is a tremendous flip-flop from a pundit who once described himself as “a liberal on immigration,” and supported George W. Bush’s 2006 reform efforts. Back then, Kristol warned against the “political — and moral — cost of turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know Nothing party,” writing that it “could easily dash Republican hopes of becoming a long-term governing party.” Now, Kristol writes that such concerns are “silly.”
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