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The Annoyed Man wrote: Gut TSA, and suddenly you can afford a lot more Border Patrol Agents. Gut BATFE, and suddenly you can afford a bunch more. Get my drift? We CAN have a tighter border if we adjust what we're willing to pay for, and it isn't necessary to extort more money out of the taxpayer to pay for it. Gut welfare and people will go back to work to take the jobs they used to fill when I was a mere laddie, and the illegal immigration population will dry up. The vast majority of them did not come here for political reasons. They came here for economy reasons. If you remove those reasons by removing welfare, forcing people to work, then those jobs will dry up, and illegal immigration will dry up with it.

Gut the TSA? Oh goodness, as a pilot and a passenger, the thought brings joy to my heart.
I cannot think of a bigger waste of tax payer dollars. And yes, I'd absolutely accept some level of increased risk and perhaps significant civilian casualties that gutting the TSA "might" cause.

The thing is, gutting the TSA won't bring our budget in line. It'd help.. And I'll give you that you just presented a way to pay for increased border security.

On welfare: Be specific. Welfare isn't the problem.. Sure, there is some waste there, but being on welfare is much tougher to sustain than it used to be. Most life-long welfare recipients have transitioned to disability. These days people get on disability with a little help from one of the thousands of disability specialist attorneys out there.. And guess what? Once they're on, they're on for life... I'm with you, require annual reviews for all but the most obvious disability cases.

Immigration would also dry with a little more help:
1) Start seriously prosecuting (criminal and financial) the people and companies that currently openly hire illegals. That would mean loss of some political dollars for sure, so it won't be easy to pass.
2) Create a reasonable guest worker program that is easy to get into for non-criminals. Make it expensive (but less than the cost of getting here illegally) and require a return trip.

The Annoyed Man wrote: Traitors.... excuse me, I meant to say "democrats".......don't WANT to control the border. It is not in their party's interest.

I think what you've said is true also. It's not in the interest of the Democratic party to anger voting Hispanics. However, lets all recognize two things:
1) That there is a massive business advantage in some industries (construction, agriculture, etc) to retaining our current way of looking the other way. These businesses aren't necessarily Democratic and they fill political pockets.
2) The truth is that the illegals also contribute significantly to our economy. We talk all the time about the drain on the economy, but there is a financial upside too... And it benefits you and me, especially in Texas. Lets me honest about it.

karder wrote: I choose to believe, perhaps incorrectly, that the American people will support politicians who make responsible decisions. Our country was not won by men who were taking the politically safest steps and racking up personal wealth along the way. Our founding fathers two options were victory or the gallows when they decided to seek independence from the British. I doubt there are many in Washington who step into those waters today.

I wish I believed that. Unfortunately, I continue to hear the same thing from the majority:
1) We won't accept new taxes, we'll either find waste or the economy will expand and we'll get ourselves out of a massive deficit.
2) I won't accept cuts to my special interest. Could be medicaid, medicare, defense, education, border security, or a real special interest. It's always "cut my neighbors program, not mine".
3) And most want promises of new services or improvements of existing services.

We don't elect people that are going to cut the services that we're interested in. We certainly won't elect anyone that indicates he/she might raise taxes. No one accepts that we've already spent the money.

It's the same deal over and over. We elect the people that promise the most and ignore reality...

And the fear mongering... Even on this forum is ridiculous. There are so many outrageous claims that the masses just believe on faith because it supports their personal agenda. I'm not talking just conservative or just liberal. It happens on both sides.

Yea.. What is wrong with people?

You guys that are dummy-crat bashing do remember that the last time this happened it was under Regan, right? Remember what his political party affiliation was?

The Republicans are certainly getting far from center and it's costing them some elections... They're between a rock and a hard place here. Politically, it's probably not a good idea to not approve "something" in terms of immigration reform because it'll be all over the news at election time. However, if they do it without looking tough on border security, they're going to have a problem with their base.

karder,
I generally agree with our assessment.

I think it's a great example of fear-mongering that has resulted in constituents with massively opposite views. As such, the Republican party can't do anything that doesn't include "increasing border security". I'd like it if they just framed it in reality: It's going to result in a tax increase. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it will hit eventually. I'm bet some of those guys are smart enough to know that doubling our border patrols (again) isn't going to solve the problem, but they also know that they need a token for their constituents.

You can erect a huge wall. As long as we essentially look the other way once you're about 60 miles off the border in terms of employment, the size and difficulty of the "border security" just makes it a little harder to get here.

We should accept the things we either can't or are unwilling to change, such as real enforcement against people or companies that benefit from this labor, we could have a constructive discussion of what we should do about it. There is a lot we could do to make it easier to go back and forth, with an emphasis on the BACK. We could tax the privilege to work here, as these people are spending real money to get here illegally. We could limit benefits (excluding emergencies) and do something about the current "anchor-baby" policy that is the origin of welfare and support.

With that discussion, we have to recognize and look past the fear mongering. We (US citizens) get very real and tangible economic benefits due to these workers. If they magically evaporated overnight, we would all feel it in our wallets... But no one talks about that.