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Justice

Obama Administration Opposes House Immigration Bill That Would Limit Legal Immigration

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Nov 29, 2012 at 4:15 pm

The Obama administration announced its opposition on Wednesday to a GOP immigration proposal that would add visas for highly skilled workers while actually reducing legal immigration. The House will vote Friday on the bill, which Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced. The measure failed in September when the House voted on it under a suspension of the rules, requiring a two-thirds vote.

Under the guise of trying to expand the number of visas available to international students who earn masters and doctorates in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, mathematics — at U.S. universities, Smith’s bill would cut the Diversity Visa program, which is intended for immigrants from countries that do not already send large numbers of immigrants to the U.S. And any unused STEM visas would disappear, shrinking overall legal immigration into the U.S.

In the White House’s statement of administrative policy against the bill, the administration emphasized its commitment to an immigration reform plan that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S.:

As a part of immigration reform, the Administration strongly supports legislation to attract and retain foreign students who graduate with advanced STEM degrees, to establish a start-up visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start businesses and create jobs, and to reform the employment-based immigration system to better meet the needs of the U.S. economy. However, the Administration does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the President’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform. [...]

Such an approach must provide for attracting and retaining highly skilled immigrants and uniting Americans with their family members more quickly, as well as other important priorities such as establishing a pathway for undocumented individuals to earn their citizenship, holding employers accountable for breaking the law, and continuing efforts to strengthen the Nation’s robust enforcement system.

In addition to President Obama’s support for comprehensive immigration reform — he said he expects to begin working on a reform bill “very soon after my inauguration” — the Congressional Hispanic Caucus outlined nine principles for a reform bill on Wednesday, including protecting families.

But while Democrats are discussing plans to address what voters say should be included in immigration reform, Republicans are pushing bills that roll back the clock on immigration. Smith’s STEM visa proposal treats immigrants as one-to-one competitors with native workers, and earlier this week, retiring GOP Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) introduced the ACHIEVE Act that fails to provide a clear path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. If Republicans truly wanted to do something about immigration reform during the lame duck session, they would have worked together with Democrats. But their commitment to ideology doomed the effort from the start.

Justice

GOP Senator: If Immigrants Want A Path To Citizenship, They Can Just Marry Americans

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Nov 27, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Lawmakers from both parties have expressed new interest in comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants, after Latino voters overwhelmingly supported President Obama in the presidential election. But the bill introduced on Tuesday by retiring Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX),  dubbed the ACHIEVE Act, is nothing more than a watered-down version of the bipartisan DREAM Act without a clear path to citizenship for those who would qualify under the measure.

Hutchison emphasized that the measure, which would require applicants to apply for three different visa programs over several years, does not offer a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “It doesn’t allow them to cut in line in front of people who have come and abided by the rules of our laws today,” she said during a press conference. “It doesn’t keep them from applying under the rules today, but it doesn’t give them a special preference.”

Kyl sought to dismiss the necessity of providing immigrants with a path to citizenship by suggesting that they should — unlawfully — marry U.S. citizens for immigration purposes:

KYL: Realistically, young people frequently get married. In this country, the biggest marriage pool are U.S. citizens. A U.S. citizen can petition for a spouse to become a citizen in a very short time…so I don’t think it’s any big secret that a lot of people who might participate in this program are going to have a very quick path to citizenship, if that’s the path they choose.

Watch it here:

The senators admitted during a press conference that it is unlikely they will make much progress on this bill while they are still in the Senate. They said they wanted to begin the process and let other senators take up the effort after the lame duck session. The ACHIEVE Act is reportedly based on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) working draft of a GOP alternative to the DREAM Act, an idea he floated last summer. So far Rubio is not a co-sponsor of this bill.

Economy

GOP Senator Blasts Obama For Talking ‘Incessantly’ About The Middle Class

By Travis Waldron on Jul 23, 2012 at 6:23 pm

President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts for incomes above $250,000 to expire at the end of the year has revived the Republican talking point that he is waging “class warfare” against the wealthy, a point Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R) drove home in an entirely new fashion today.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Kyl claimed that the president’s usage of the phrase “middle class” is “misguided and wrong and even dangerous.” Calling for an end to rhetoric about classes, Kyl blasted Obama for “incessantly” talking about class, “particularly the middle class”:

KYL: Most prominently, we have a president who talks incessantly about class, particularly the middle class. Maybe you’ve noticed that. He defines class strictly by your income. In the president’s narrative, someone who makes $199,000 a year is a member of one class and someone who makes $200,000 belongs to another class. Does that make sense? Indeed, each day the president’s out on the campaign trail championing himself as the great protector of what he calls the middle class and pitting these Americans against their fellow citizens by arguing that the wealthiest class is victimizing them through the tax code.

Watch it:

Kyl went on to explain that America doesn’t have “a true class-based society,” since we don’t have an “ingrained class system” or “noble bloodlines,” a point that seems to ignore every common usage of the “middle class” in our political system.

As ThinkProgress has repeatedly noted, the president’s plan to end the tax cuts that benefit only the wealthiest Americans doesn’t amount to class warfare — in fact, it still maintains a sizable tax cut for them too. And while Kyl claims “class is a loaded term that’s not appropriate for our debates about income,” the talk about who pays their fair share is a hot topic for the GOP too. Republicans have pushed the false notion that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay federal taxes to make it seem that it is actually the poor and middle class who aren’t paying enough in taxes, and Republicans consistently opposed an extension to the payroll tax cut, which primarily benefited middle class workers.

The House GOP budget, meanwhile, gutted the social safety net, taking 62 percent of its cuts from programs that benefit the middle and lower classes. And while the GOP maintains the idea that reducing the debt and the tax burden on the wealthy will help middle-income Americans, the last decade has proven that to be utterly false. Republicans promised prosperity and job growth when they passed the high-income Bush tax cuts in 2003; what followed was a decade of rising deficits, anemic job growth, and a massive recession that decimated middle- and lower-class families and programs that benefit them.

Security

Republicans Abandon ‘Government Doesn’t Create Jobs’ Mantra In Fight To Preserve Military Spending

By Ben Armbruster on Jul 18, 2012 at 5:23 pm

Rep. Howard 'Buck' McKeon (R-CA) (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Defense industry-backed Republicans are so desperate to stave off the automatic military spending cuts that they’re trying to scare Americans about job losses and an ensuing nose-diving economy should the military spending cuts hold.

Except there’s one problem. Republicans aren’t supposed to believe that government spending creates jobs. But in this last act of desperation, however, it seems that Republicans pushing to preserve America’s bloated military budget have come to a pretty significant epiphany. Next week, three right-wing think tanks will co-host Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Reps. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) and Randy Forbers (R-VA) to “discuss the dangers of deeper defense cuts.” All four lawmakers are warning about job loss because of sequestration, yet they’ve all previously argued that government spending doesn’t create jobs:

SEN. KELLY AYOTTE

Now: “So we’re not just talking about the jobs issue, which is, of course, of concern to anyone who serves in Congress. We’re talking about lost lives if we don’t give our men and women the equipment that they need.” [6/24/12]

Then: “It’s not the government that’s going to create jobs in this country, it’s our small businesses, it’s the private sector.” [9/22/10]

SEN. JON KYL

Now: “The whole point here [staving off the sequester] is to try to get some economic growth, job creation, to get out of this recession.” [5/24/12]

Then: “Faced with the reality of historic unemployment rates and record federal debt, I had hoped that President Obama, by now, would understand that even more government spending doesn’t create jobs.” [9/09/11]

REP. BUCK MCKEON

Now: “Sequestration’s impact on the economy would be sudden and severe, … result[ing] in the loss of about 1 million jobs in 2013 and 2014 and a half a percent cut to America’s already meager economic growth.” [6/24/12]

Then: “We don’t look to the government usually to create jobs. What we like to see them do is get out of our hair and let us create the jobs.” [5/21/12]

REP. RANDY FORBES

Now: “For reasons of both national security and local jobs, citizens of Hampton Roads ought to carefully consider the sober assessments of our military commanders and leaders regarding the impacts of adding another $600 billion in security cuts to the $489 billion Congress has already enacted.” [10/08/11]

Then: “Congressman Forbes believes there is a simple truth when it comes to job creation in America: real solutions create real growth that generates real jobs. In order to make this happen, government needs to get out of the way.” [Forbes' website]

And outside of the hypocrisy, the GOP’s jobs argument is spurious. Republicans are holding up a new industry-backed study claiming the military spending cuts will mean a loss of nearly one million jobs. But experts have pointed out the report’s many flaws, mainly that government spending in non-defense sectors of the economy creates more jobs.

The study is good for “political purposes, not very good analysis of the labor market,” said defense budget expert Gordon Adams. CATO expert Chris Preble said the report shows that the industry is just “trying to save their profits.”

There’s also no evidence that the military spending sequester will be “devastating” as some have argued and polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans favor cutting DOD’s budget. But Republicans will most likely ignore these facts and fight to preserve the Pentagon’s needlessly bloated budget, all while abandoning a central tenet of their party’s ideology.

Politics

Top Republican Senator Suggests Impeaching Obama Over Immigration Policies

By Igor Volsky on Jun 26, 2012 at 9:15 am

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) floated the possibility of impeaching President Obama over the administration’s recent decisions on immigration, during an appearance on Bill Bennett’s radio show on Tuesday.

Responding to a question about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to pull back “on a program known as 287(g) — which allows the feds to deputize local officials to make immigration-based arrests” — following the Supreme Court’s ruling invalidating substantial sections of Arizona’s SB 1070, Kyl said the president must be held accountable:

BENNETT: How do you make the feds cooperate [with state immigration efforts]?

KYL: Well, that’s the executive’s job and there are only a couple of ways to do it… If the president insists on continuing to ignore parts of the law that he doesn’t like, and simply not enforce that law, the primary remedy for that is political. And you have it two ways: one is oversight through the Congress to demonstrate what they’re doing wrong and there are some potential criminal charges there for dereliction of duty. Although, I haven’t looked that up yet. And the other part of it is people need to react through the ballot box to turn out of office those people who are not doing their duty. Now if it’s bad enough and if shenanigans involved in it, then of course impeachment is always a possibility. But I don’t think at this point anybody is talking about that.

Listen:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) adopted a similarly bellicose tone towards the president on Monday, saying, “I guess he doesn’t think we’re part of the country anymore.”

Climate Progress

Sen. Rand Paul: When Big Oil Screws Americans At The Gas Pump, ‘You Should Want To Encourage Them’

By Rebecca Leber on Mar 27, 2012 at 1:40 pm

The top five oil companies in the United States have already made $5.8 billion in windfall profits from spiking gasoline prices this year. Yesterday, Senate Republicans agreed to debate a bill that repeals $2 billion in annual tax breaks for these super-wealthy oil giants. The move was purely a political calculation — don’t expect the GOP to end taxpayer welfare for their Big Oil allies. GOP senators like Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) have used their time on the Senate floor today to push error-riddled arguments coming straight from their oil industry donors.

Paul argued Big Oil deserves even more favors from government, because they’re doing such a good job extracting wealth from American families:

Instead of punishing them, you should want to encourage them. I would think you would want to say to the oil companies, “What obstacles are there to you making more money?” And hiring more people. Instead they say, “No, we must punish them. We must tax them more to make things fair.” This whole thing about fairness is so misguided and gotten out of hand.

Watch it:

“We as a society need to glorify those who make a profit,” Paul concluded.

In his floor speech, Kyl claimed that ending the tax breaks would be “discriminatory.”

The five major oil companies are some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world, increasingly at the expense of the rest of humanity. The big five companies enjoyed record levels of $137 billion profits last year, while paying absurdly low tax rates. Exxon is the most profitable, making $1300 per second in 2011, but it only paid a 13 percent tax rate, according to a Reuters analysis. The oil industry claims it pays a higher tax rate — but it counts foreign taxes and deferred taxes.

The industry is set to make even higher profits from record gas prices. A Center for American Progress analysis shows that for every penny rise in gas, the big five companies gain $200 million more in profit. Republican senators are asking to boost Big Oil’s profits at the expense of the 99 percent.

Meanwhile, the oil industry is not using its profits to hire more people. Paul falsely claimed the oil companies employ 9.2 million people — in fact, there are only 2.2 million jobs in the entire oil industry, and 40 percent of those jobs are minimum-wage work at gas stations. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP have shed their U.S. workforce by 11,200 between 2005 to 2010, according to a report last year. Big Oil isn’t investing in renewable energy or in reducing oil spills, either.

Strangely, while Kyl and Paul called an end to oil subsidies indefensible, they used the opportunity to label clean energy tax credits “crony government.” During his clean energy rant, Paul said:

It doesn’t seem to right that your tax dollars are sent to companies just because they’re big contributors.

Republicans have received 88 percent of donations from the oil industry’s coffers. In the Senate, Republicans have taken over $13.8 million from oil, compared to the Democrats’ $3.3 million, meaning Senate Republicans have taken four times the amount in Big Oil contributions as Democrats. Kyl is the No. 29 largest recipient in the Senate from oil and gas in career contributions with over $330,000and Paul has received over $106,000 from oil.

Climate Progress

Senate Debates Giving Away The World’s Third Largest Copper Deposit To A Multi-National Mining Company

By Public Lands Team on Feb 9, 2012 at 2:33 pm

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on two Republican bills that would give one of the world’s largest copper deposits away to the Resolution Copper Company, owned by the large multi-national mining conglomerates Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. The deposit is located on public lands in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona.

Sens. John Kyl (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) are the biggest proponents of the bills in the Senate. Kyl testified today that

The legislation that came over to the Senate from the House is perfectly good legislation, it has all of the protections in it, and it has Congress making the decision.

Under the bill, the Resolution Copper Company would receive more than 2,000 acres of land with the copper deposit in exchange for approximately 5,000 acres of land that the company currently owns which would be set aside for conservation. The Resolution Copper Company plans to mine the copper deposit as soon as the transfer is complete.

The House version of this bill (H.R. 1904), which was debated today, would prohibit environmental review from taking place until after the land exchange had occurred. So, the extent of the environmental impacts would not be determined until after the land is made private, thereby limiting the ability of surrounding communities to work to stop or modify the mine should major problems be predicted.

Additionally, American taxpayers would not be properly compensated for the value of the copper that would come off of these lands when the area is made private in the land exchange. Instead, a single multinational corporation would benefit from one of the largest copper deposits in the world — a true example of giving away our public lands for corporate profits.

Finally, the Resolution Copper mine would be built on Oak Flat, a site that is sacred to Native American tribes. As Shan Lewis, president of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona testified today:

Federal laws and policies are designed to protect Native sacred sites like Oak Flat.  The proposed land exchange that would be mandated by H.R. 1904 would circumvent these laws and policies and transfer ownership to of federal lands containing a sacred site of Apache, Yavapai, and other Native people to a company for mining activities that will destroy this sacred site.  Although ITCA is not opposed to mining in general, mining in this location that will result in the destruction of a sacred site is offensive to us and should not be condoned.

In past sessions of Congress, both McCain and Kyl have held up other Senate bills and nominations in order to try to move previous versions of the Resolution Copper bill.

Justice

14 GOP Senators Slam Senate GOP’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Filibuster*

By Ian Millhiser on Dec 7, 2011 at 11:00 am

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Discuss Their Understanding Of The Constitution

Yesterday, Senate Republicans voted nearly unanimously to block Caitlan Halligan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) broke party lines to join the 54-45 vote to allow Halligan to move forward — leaving Halligan six votes short of what she needed to break the GOP filibuster.

The Senate GOP’s decision to filibuster Halligan earned wide rebukes from Senate Republicans*, many of whom slammed this decision to filibuster a judicial nominee as unconstitutional:

  • Lamar Alexander (R-TN): “I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.”
  • Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA): “Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it.”
  • Tom Coburn (R-OK): “If you look at the Constitution, it says the president is to nominate these people, and the Senate is to advise and consent. That means you got to have a vote if they come out of committee. And that happened for 200 years.”
  • John Cornyn (R-TX): “We have a Democratic leader defeated, in part, as I said, because I believe he was identified with this obstructionist practice, this unconstitutional use of the filibuster to deny the president his judicial nominations.
  • Mike Crapo (R-ID): “Until this Congress, not one of the President’s nominees has been successfully filibustered in the Senate of the United States because of the understanding of the fact that the Constitution gives the President the right to a vote.”
  • Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I think filibustering judges will destroy the judiciary over time. I think it’s unconstitutional”
  • Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster.”
  • Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX): “[T]he Constitution envisions a 51-vote majority for judgeships…. [Filibustering judges] amend[s] the Constitution without going through the proper processes…. We have a majority rule that is the tradition of the Senate with judges. It is the constitutional requirement.”
  • Jon Kyl (R-AZ): “The President was elected fair and square. He has the right to submit judicial nominees and it is the Senate’s obligation under the Constitution to act on those nominees.”
  • Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation.”
  • Jeff Sessions (R- AL): “[The Constitution] says the Senate shall advise and consent on treaties by a two-thirds vote, and simply ‘shall advise and consent’ on nominations…. I think there is no doubt the Founders understood that to mean … confirmation of a judicial nomination requires only a simple majority vote.”
  • Richard Shelby (R-AL): “Why not allow the President to do his job of selecting judicial nominees and let us do our job in confirming or denying them? Principles of fairness call for it and the Constitution requires it.”
  • John Thune (SD): Filibustering judicial nominees “is contrary to our Constitution …. It was the Founders’ intention that the Senate dispose of them with a simple majority vote.”

*All quotes are taken from when George W. Bush was president. But, of course, that doesn’t matter because — in the words of Cornyn — “we need to treat all nominees exactly the same, regardless of whether they’re nominated by a Democrat or a Republican president.”**

**Cornyn’s statement was also made when George W. Bush was president.

Economy

Kyl Could Support A Middle Class Tax Cut, But Only If The Rich Get A Massive Tax Break Too

By Travis Waldron on Dec 5, 2011 at 7:10 pm

As Democrats continue to push a renewal of the payroll tax cut included in last year’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, members of the Republican Party have reportedly grown concerned that if they do not go along with the proposal, they will lose their reputation as anti-tax zealots and get painted as defenders of the richest Americans. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R), apparently, is not one of those Republicans.

Speaking on the Senate floor this afternoon, Kyl blasted the plan put forth today by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), which would partially pay for the extension by instituting a temporary surtax on Americans whose incomes top $1 million. Despite outlining his perceived problems with the plan, however, Kyl said he could be persuaded to vote for an extension — but only if Democrats agreed to again extend the 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans:

KYL: It was part of an overall agreement in which we said we will extend all of the existing tax rates — the so-called Bush tax cuts, that is the rates that have been in effect since 2001 and 2003, we would extend this temporary tax holiday from the payroll tax cut, we would extend all of those. And I supported that. That frankly was the right thing to do, to extend all of these existing rates. … Now if we can do that again, I’m all for it. I’ll support the extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Watch it:

The payroll tax cut extension as proposed by Democrats would ensure that, at a time when the middle- and working-classes are still inching toward recovery, the average household would pocket an extra $1,000 a year. Meanwhile, in Kyl’s home state of Arizona, the millionaires’ surtax used to pay for much of the extension would affect just 0.1 percent of all taxpayers — a whopping 3,173 people who bring home an average annual income of $3.5 million, according to a Citizens for Tax Justice analysis. And while proposals exist to pay for the extension, no such plan exists for the Bush tax cuts, despite a 10-year price tag topping $2.5 trillion and no meaningful job creation to show for the cost.

Kyl’s statement is a direct contradiction to comments he made just a year ago during debate about the Bush tax cuts. “My view, and I think most of the people in my party don’t believe that you should ever have to offset a tax cut,” Kyl told reporters in July 2010. Now that it is a Democratic tax cut on the table, however, Kyl not only opposes the Democrats’ attempts to offset the costs, he wants to ensure that the middle class doesn’t get a tax cut unless the wealthiest Americans — whose tax rates are already at historic lows — get one too.

Economy

GOP Sen. Kyl Pushes Raising Payroll Taxes On Middle Class But Refuses To Raise Taxes On Millionaires

By Tanya Somanader on Nov 28, 2011 at 11:45 am

In a clear display of misplaced priorities, congressional fiscal super committee member Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) entirely dismissed the idea of extending the payroll tax cut for middle class families yesterday, even though failure to do so “would reduce GDP growth by 0.5 percent and cost the economy 400,000 jobs.” “The payroll tax holiday has not stimulated job creation. We do not think that is a great way to do it,” he told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

But practically in the same breath, Kyl refused to even consider a small (and publicly-supported) tax increase on America’s millionaires to pay for the payroll tax cut extension. “Taxing the people who provide the jobs, you put off the day that we have economic recovery and job creation in this country. That’s precisely what the Democratic plan would do”:

KYL: The second problem is that by taxing the people who provide the jobs, you put off the day we have economic recovery and job creation in this country. And that’s precisely what the Democratic plan would do. It would hit those people, the small businesses who we all acknowledge are the ones who create the jobs coming out of economic difficulty. And that we think would be a big mistake in –

WALLACE: If I may, Senator Kyl, just to cut this short, are you saying no deal on extending payroll tax cuts?

KYL: The payroll tax holiday has not stimulated job creation. We don’t think that is a good way to do it.

Watch it:

Incidentally, a small tax increase on millionaires would not affect most small businesses and the businesses it does affect note that such minute increases make “zero difference” in their hiring practices. When Wallace noted that economists say a failure to extend the payroll tax cut along with jobless benefits could “cost more than half a million jobs,” Kyl responded, “I don’t know who those economists are. I just read a piece by a respected economist Art Laffer who says that isn’t true.” Of course, Laffer — a former Ronald Reagan adviser — is known for bragging about Reagan’s tax increases on low-income Americans.

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