I love watching the Republican Party's sudden conversion to the need for immigration reform. The right-wing controlled party of (mostly) white guys have decided that, yeah...maybe it's time to realize we just can't deport 12 million illegals. They probably also came to the conclusion that the "Romney plan" which amounted to self deportation was not going to work in the real world.
When the Republicans kept searching for a way to destroy President Obama before the election, it came in the form of putting him down for "leading from behind", some dimwitted Republican consultant's phrase (Frank Luntz?) to describe Obama for not taking America to lead in the war to bring down Gaddafi. I thought it was a good idea not to get America involved in every example of the Arab Spring. Like it or not, although we love freedom (wasn't that a Bush mantra?) we simply cannot keep placing our military into every battle on the planet. As it is, we now have a military suicide rate of historical proportions. No, Americans sided with their President to allow other nations or NATO to take the lead on Libya and other locations of conflict.
Listening to Senator Angry: aka John McCain the other night, who said it best when he went through a litany of reasons for the Republicans seeing the light on immigration reform. McCain stated something about the timing, the logic, and oh yes...politics. Politics got in the way this time as the changing demographics in America had Hispanics voting for Democrats overwhelmingly. It seems the extreme right-wing rhetoric and new laws where people "looking" like illegal aliens would get pulled over. That fat mouth hag of a governor in Arizona even went so far as to take advantage of a photo-op with President Obama and pointed her rodent-like finger at him to get some applause from those rubes back home. It looked for awhile like it was going their way until the polls opened for the general election of 2012.
The fact is both political parties and an array of presidents are responsible for no action in protecting our border. After 9/11 would have been the right time to do it, but our crops still needed to be picked, and where else but south of the border would we get migrant labor to pick the crops. Besides, allowing millions of illegal immigrants to become legit may help pad our tax base which might help in resolving our economic woes. As social security becomes unbalanced, maybe a new influx of citizens will help put more dough into the kitty and solidify that treasured program.
The Republicans now choose to lead from behind and come out in favor of the much needed reform. They'll probably go overboard and brag how they made it happen. This political party will need to do more than just help with immigration reform. Our tax code needs to be simplified and both Republicans and Democrats need to come together on common sense and offer Americans a tax code which is balanced and easy to understand. Trickle-down has gone down, and huge tax cuts for the rich is not the way to produce jobs.
Whether it's by a splash of cold reality at the polls or some honest recognition that their old gimmicks just won't work anymore, the Republicans have been brought to the table of compromise at last. Democrats too must see the light on entitlements and realize we must reform that major drag on our economy. The old ways won't work anymore. In the short run, besides immigration, the next lesson the Republicans need to learn is a more long range plan on keeping our economy funded. This drip, drip, drip of working out a short term plan to continue the funding is keeping our economy from truly rebounding. There's too much inconsistency and doubt about what we can accomplish, and promise in the way of taxes and other funding that keeps long range plans a mirage when running corporate America. Companies need to plan for the coming year and how many people need to be hired and all else when forecasting annually. We can't run America on budget compromises which occur every three months. Congress needs to work together because we are at a precipitous point right now where our economy and the housing market are on the upswing. It's time to forget politics and put America first. Everybody wins in the end that way.
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