The Truth About The Senate Immigration Bill
Writing in today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson finally casts some light on one of the dirty little secrets in the immigration "reform" bill passed by the Senate. Now, this information has been out in the blogosphere for some time now, but the MSM has, up until now at least, ignored it completely.
The Senate passed legislation last week that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Post, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Yet the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades from about 20 million (under present law) to about 40 million.
One job of journalism is to inform the public about what our political leaders are doing. In this case, we failed. The Senate bill's sponsors didn't publicize its full impact on legal immigration, and we didn't fill the void. It's safe to say that few Americans know what the bill would do because no one has told them. Indeed, I suspect that many senators who voted for the legislation don't have a clue as to the potential overall increase in immigration.
Samuelson goes on to discuss what the impacts of this change will - and will not - bring about.
No one can contend that the United States needs expanded immigration to prevent the population from shrinking. Our population is aging but not shrinking. With present immigration policies, the Census Bureau projects a U.S. population of 420 million in 2050, up from 296 million in 2005. Under the Senate bill, the figure for 2050 would expand by many millions. Another dubious argument is that much higher immigration would dramatically improve economic growth. From 2007 to 2016, the Senate bill might increase the economy's growth rate by about 0.1 percentage point annually, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That's tiny; it's a rounding error.
The doubling of legal immigration under the Senate bill that I cited at the outset comes from a previously unreported estimate made by White House economists. Because the president praised the Senate bill, the administration implicitly favors a big immigration expansion. The White House estimate could be low. Robert Rector of the conservative Heritage Foundation has a higher figure. The CBO has a projection that the White House describes as close to its own. But all the forecasts envision huge increases, diverging only because they make different assumptions of how the Senate bill would operate in practice.
I have yet to hear an explanation for why some of our Senators think we need to more than double the number of immigrants into the country. Worse, the media seems intent on keeping the entire issue from becoming public knowledge. Samuelson does not blame this exactly on left-biased media, but more on a groupthink.
Rector's explanation is that the media's "liberal" bias creates a pro-immigration slant. I think it's more complicated. Stories generally mirror the prevailing political debate, which has concentrated on "amnesty" for existing illegal immigrants and the guest-worker program. Increases in other immigration categories were largely ignored. Reporters also cover legislative stories as sports contests — who's winning, who's losing — rather than delve into dreary matters of substance. We've had endless stories on how immigration might affect congressional elections and whether there will be a House-Senate "deal."
But note the irony: The White House's projected increases of legal immigration (20 million) are about twice the level of existing illegal immigrants (estimated between 10 million and 12 million). Yet, coverage overlooks the former. Here, I think, Rector has a point. Whether or not the bias is "liberal," groupthink is a powerful force in journalism. Immigration is considered noble. People who critically examine its value or worry about its social effects are subtly considered small-minded, stupid or bigoted. The result is selective journalism that reflects poorly on our craft and detracts from democratic dialogue.
This is, indeed, very dangerous. It's also something myself and a lot of others have been saying for a while. Slanted news coverage is a bad thing in and of itself, regardless which way it is slanted. It robs the public of the necessary information to make good decisions.
Immigration Reform | Gaius Wednesday, 31 May , 2006
By Black Jack, Wednesday, 31 May , 2006 @ 11:32 am
Unless they were compelled at gun point, I can’t fathom how in blazes a GOP majority in the Senate could ever pass this stinking pile of garbage. I don’t think even the socialists in the minority party would be so deaf, blind, and obtuse as to attempt such an outrage. Every single Senator who voted for this bill should be voted out of office as soon as possible, no exceptions.
That the perpetrators would attempt to conceal this crime against the nation isn’t surprising, and that MSM would aid and abet the attempt to hide these dirty little secrets from the public is standard operating procedure for the MSM’s propaganda industry.
Apparently, illegal immigration is perhaps too big an issue for representative government to handle. It may well be the time has come for us to examine more direct and expeditious ways to insure our elected representatives heed the voice of the people. But, for now, the midterm elections will have to do. My vote goes against any incumbent who voted in favor of this idiocy, and against any candidate who fails to denounce it.