Rachel Maddow's Blog, page 3388
June 19, 2013
The immigration price tag the right didn't want to see
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When the Heritage Foundation launched an offensive against comprehensive immigration reform in early May, it focused its attention almost exclusively on one area: the legislation's price tag. After all, one of the first questions lawmakers ask in response to any proposal is, "What does it cost?" and if the bipartisan reform bill is too pricey, Congress will have a good excuse to reject it.
With that in mind, Heritage, relying on numbers that no one could take seriously, said immigration reform would cost taxpayers over $6 trillion. Yesterday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office -- the official score-keepers for federal lawmakers -- published a very different figure.
A long-awaited analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the benefits of an increase in legal residents from immigration legislation currently being debated in the Senate -- which includes a pathway to citizenship -- would outweigh the costs. [...]
The report estimates that in the first decade after the immigration bill is carried out, the net effect of adding millions of additional taxpayers would decrease the federal budget deficit by $197 billion. Over the next decade, the report found, the deficit reduction would be even greater -- an estimated $700 billion, from 2024 to 2033.
The full report from the CBO is online here (pdf).
This is incredibly important, and puts conservatives in an exceedingly awkward position. According to the CBO's non-partisan analysis, the comprehensive immigration reform plan pending on Capitol Hill would be one of the biggest deficit-reduction bills in decades, reducing the deficit by nearly $200 billion in the next decade, and nearly $900 billion over the next 20 years.
In an amusing twist, the CBO does not ordinarily score bill bills beyond the first 10-year window, but in this case, the agency made an exception -- because Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a fierce opponent of reform, asked it to, assuming it would help bolster his case. Oops.
This is simply devastating for Republican opponents of reform. Indeed, one of the pillars of the right's argument has suddenly been shattered.
I suppose the right will seize on the elements of the CBO report that point to outlays -- as undocumented immigrants become eligible for various benefits, including the Affordable Care Act, there will be additional government spending.
But the point is, the savings would easily outweigh the costs, as immigrants become citizens and begin paying income and payroll taxes. The CBO also projects an increase in the nation's gross domestic product.
So, let's summarize the case for conservatives -- who, remember, generally describe federal budget deficits as such an extraordinary problem that they threaten the future of our civilization. According to the CBO, comprehensive immigration reform will dramatically reduce the deficit without raising taxes, boost the economy, and strengthen the fiscal future of Social Security and Medicare. It will also, incidentally, help millions of families and countless American communities.
And it's against this backdrop that most congressional Republicans are still eager to kill the legislation.
Morning Maddow: June 19
Red Knots, New Jersey, May 22, 2010
Migration Productions (Shawn P. Carey)
In a speech later this morning, President Obama will call for the U.S. and Russia to cut nuclear arsenals by an additional one-third.
House Republicans hold the first of four Hispanic outreach meetings today.
The body of Ibragim Todashev was flown home to Russia yesterday.
The NY Times looks at how internal FBI investigations found its agents faultless in 150 shootings.
The Texas Senate passes new abortion restrictions during a special legislative session, but not a 20-week ban.
The New York State legislature will vote this week on a women's rights package, including a bill expanding access to abortion.
Meet the bird that may be the harbinger of climate change.
June 18, 2013
Links for the 6/18 TRMS
Tuesday night's citations are listed after the jump.
Rick Wiles: Fly Landing on Obama May Be Sign He Is Demonic
Duncan has 'questions' about the president's 'validity'
The House abortion bill likely won't make it into law. But it still matters.
Comments by Rep. Michael Burgess About Fetuses Masturbating Not Based in Science, Doctors Say
N.M. bill calls post-rape abortion 'evidence tampering'
Republicans think they're winning the abortion wars now
Texas Congressman: Masturbating Fetuses Prove Need for Abortion Ban
The Runaway General - The Rolling Stone profile of Stanley McChrystal that changed history
January 19, 2007 - Ambush Kills an American Teaching Democracy to Iraqis
Andi Leadership Institute for Younger Women
Hastings surprised by McChrystal fallout
Al Capone's Palm Island Estate Sold
Special Agent Eliot Ness: Law Enforcement Service with ATF's Legacy Agencies
To extend and modify authorities needed to combat terrorism, and for other purposes. (pdf)
Sen. Durbin pressures gun lobby with threat to move ATF authority to FBI
Death row deaths in Florida rising
Gov. Rick Scott signs bill to speed up executions in Florida
Some states speed up death penalty
State of Texas: The Road to 500 Executions
Nebraska Keeps Death Penalty, Though Majority Seems to Back Repeal
Senate approves death penalty repeal bill
Hickenlooper hints at veto of lawmakers' death-penalty repeal bill
Ahead on the 6/18 Maddow show
Tonight's guests include:
Adele Stan, senior Washington correspondent for RH Reality Check
Sister Helen Prejean, anti-death penalty advocate and author of “Dead Man Walking”
And here is executive producer Bill Wolff with a preview of tonight's show:
House GOP approves sweeping anti-abortion bill
Associated Press
Congress' most restrictive anti-abortion bill in a decade easily passed the Republican-led House of Representatives late this afternoon, with a 228-196 vote. The outcome, which was not a surprise, largely fell along party lines -- all but six Republicans voted for it, all but six Democrats voted against it.
Rachel will have plenty more on this on tonight's show.
In the meantime, it's worth noting that the bill, a legally-dubious proposal to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, led to a lively debate on the House floor.
Debate on the bill was tense on the House floor from the start, when Democrats asked why Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) -- who does not sit on the bill's committe of jurisdiction -- was managing the bill. Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said it is acceptable under the rules of the House to allow "appropriate" people to manage the bill.
But several Democrats suggested it's because the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), made the controversial comment last week that rape usually doesn't result in pregnancy. Franks is on the Judiciary Committee, but he never spoke about his own bill during the hour-long debate.
They also said it was because Republicans have no women on the committee of jurisdiction and wanted to put a woman's face on the bill; Republicans never answered that charge.
Democrats said the lack of any input from women on the committee showed in the final product, and argued that the final bill is based on faulty science.
In the end, it didn't matter that the bill is unconstitutional; it didn't matter that its supporters' talking points were inconsistent with the available science; and it didn't matter that the bill has no chance of becoming law.
What mattered is that House Republican leaders felt the need "to satisfy vocal elements of their base."
Journalist Michael Hastings dies at the age of 33
BuzzFeed's Ben Smith made a heartbreaking announcement this afternoon: Michael Hastings died earlier today in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was just 33 years old.
"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone. Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague and a joy to work with. Our thoughts are with Elise and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him."
I only knew Michael a little, but I knew his work very well. He was a brilliant, consequential journalist -- he's perhaps best known for his work at Rolling Stone, and his piece that ended Gen. Stanley McChrystal's tenure as the commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan -- and the author of an exceptional book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan."
He was also a great guy who will be sorely missed.
Update: Tim Dickinson's obituary for Hastings is well worth your time.
Tuesday's Mini-Report
Today's edition of quick hits:
* Afghanistan: "U.S.-led troops handed complete control of security to Afghanistan authorities Tuesday -- an act of faith in country's fledgling police and army in the face of near-constant insurgent attacks."
* Great potential: "The Taliban signaled a breakthrough in efforts to open Afghan peace negotiations on Tuesday, announcing the opening of a political office in Qatar and new readiness to talk with American and Afghan officials, who said in turn that they would travel to meet insurgent negotiators there within days."
* Is the White House moving past efforts to reduce gun violence? According to Vice President Biden, the exact opposite is true.
* Ted Cruz hopes to make sure Latino voters never back GOP candidates again: "The 7-2 ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia prompted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to announce an amendment to the Senate bill that would permit states to require people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote."
* Gitmo: "The Obama administration Monday lifted a veil of secrecy surrounding the status of the detainees at Guantánamo, for the first time publicly naming the four dozen captives it defined as indefinite detainees -- men too dangerous to transfer but who cannot be tried in a court of law."
* Nice gig: "Secretary of State John Kerry announced Tuesday he is appointing former Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to be the new special envoy to the African Great Lakes region."
* If the White House is listening, I'm hoping Christina Romer fills the looming vacancy: "President Obama suggested that he was likely to nominate a new Federal Reserve chairman later this year, saying in a television interview aired late Monday that the current chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, had 'already stayed a lot longer than he wanted or he was supposed to.'"
* What's worse than former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) trying to work on national security issues? Scott Brown trying to work on national security issues former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn).
* The mayor of a major Canadian city resigned today, but it wasn't Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Cummings gets tired of waiting for Issa
Associated Press
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has seen the same interview transcripts as Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), documenting the interviews investigators conducted with IRS officials in Cincinnati. And with that in mind, Cummings was getting a little tired of Issa playing partisan games, releasing carefully edited, cherry-picked quotes from the transcripts in the hopes of keeping a "scandal" alive.
Indeed, Cummings has declared publicly, more than once, than if Issa didn't provide the public with all of the information -- rather than the portions Republicans found convenient -- than Cummings would feel compelled to make the disclosures himself.
Today, the Maryland Democrat and his colleagues apparently got tired of waiting. Greg Sargent has the story:
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have just released a full transcript of testimony from a key witness in the investigation of IRS targeting of conservatives -- and it appears to confirm that the initial targeting did originate with a low-level employee in the Cincinnati office.
It also shows a key witness and IRS screening manager – a self-described conservative Republican -- denying any communication with the White House or senior IRS officials about the targeting.
Imagine that. Issa didn't want the public to see all of the relevant information, because the truth interfered with the preferred Republican narrative.
The documents are now online for public review. Part I (pdf) is 103 pages, Part II (pdf) is 102 pages, and both feature some redactions to protect the identities of specific individuals whose names are not relevant to the testimony.
Of particular interest were the remarks of one particular IRS official, whose interview led Cummings to argue that the entire controversy has been "solved" and it's time for the political world to "move on."
I'm referring, of course, to the self-described conservative Republican who helped manage the IRS office that "targeted" Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status, and who told investigators that he -- not the White House, not the Obama campaign, not the DNC -- applied the additional scrutiny.
Given its significance, this portion of the full transcript was isolated by committee Democrats in this (pdf) five-page portion. From Greg's summary:
The manager further testified that the Tea Party groups were deliberately grouped together so that they would receive consistent treatment. "There was a lot of concerns about making sure that any cases that had, you know, similar-type activities or items included, that they would be worked by the same agent or same group," the manager testified.
In the testimony, the screening manager also flatly stated he had no reason to believe there was White House involvement.
I wonder why Issa was so eager to keep this information from public view?
It's going to take some time to review the transcript in detail, but at this point, it looks like the IRS controversy, which was on shaky ground before, has almost completely fallen apart.
If, upon further review, these transcripts reinforce the perception that Issa tried to mislead the public, it's the California Republican, and not the Obama administration, that will have some explaining to do.
'Gang of Eight' felt the need to lobby Fox
Associated Press
The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza has a fascinating item on the Senate's "Gang of Eight" and their efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and there's quite a bit to chew on in the piece. But like Paul Waldman, I was struck by an interesting tidbit I hadn't heard about before: Republican "gang" members actually lobbied Fox News on this issue.
Fox News has notably changed its tone since the election.... McCain told me, "Rupert Murdoch is a strong supporter of immigration reform, and Roger Ailes is, too." ... McCain said that he, Graham, Rubio, and others also have talked privately to top hosts at Fox, including Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Neil Cavuto, who are now relatively sympathetic to the Gang's proposed bill. Hannity voiced support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which he previously dismissed as "amnesty," on the day after the 2012 election.
"God bless Fox," Graham said. "Last time, it was 'amnesty' every fifteen seconds." He said that the change was important for his reelection, because "eighty per cent of people in my primary get their news from Fox."
At a certain level, all of this makes perfect sense. Republican proponents of immigration reform want to boost their bill's prospects, and if Fox News decides the legislation is a mistake, their job becomes vastly more difficult. With this in mind, it's not surprising that leading GOP senators would privately lobby Fox hosts in the hopes of persuading them on the bill's merit.
But let's not brush past the underlying significance too quickly. As Waldman explained:
This shows Fox not as a journalistic organization making news judgments, but as a group that gets targeted for (and responds to) lobbying, much in the same way as Congress.... If there were consensus on immigration reform within the GOP like there is with most issues, there would be no need to lobby Fox; they'd know exactly what they're supposed to say. But because the party is divided, the network isn't sure where exactly it should come down.
And as such, lobbying becomes necessary.
It's worth emphasizing that private chats between policymakers and media professionals are quite common, and there's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, I can think of many instances in which President Obama has held off-the-record chats with journalists, including, in some cases, prominent progressive media voices.
So isn't this roughly the same thing as McCain and Graham lobbying Hannity and O'Reilly? I don't think it is. When Obama, for example, chats with center-left opinion journalists, he's offering them a candid look at his thinking on the issues of the day. It is, in effect, an informal interview.
But look again at what Lizza reported: Republican senators didn't approach Fox hosts with behind-the-scenes details about the legislation; they approached Fox hosts in the hopes of getting them on board with the party's agenda. This was about members of the same team closing ranks and agreeing to the same gameplan.
In other words, GOP senators look at the network as another constituency group under the party umbrella. On an issue like immigration, Republican officials have an informal checklist in their mind of all the various contingents they need to win over: business leaders, the religious right, Fox News, etc., and each group is lobbied accordingly.
Is it any wonder so many people, when asked to name the Republican Party's most prominent leaders, identify Fox News hosts?
'No way in hell'?
Getty Images
It's long been clear that the fate of comprehensive immigration reform is in House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) hands. While Senate passage is not yet assured, it is likely -- even anti-immigration senators expect it to pass -- and attention has already turned to the bipartisan bill's prospects in the lower chamber.
There are a few relevant angles to this, but arguably the most salient is whether the House Speaker is prepared to rely on Democratic votes to pass immigration reform, even over the objections of most of his majority caucus. The Washington Examiner's David Drucker reported yesterday that this is a step Boehner will not take.
House Speaker John Boehner is not going to bring a comprehensive immigration-reform plan to the floor if a majority of Republicans don't support it, sources familiar with his plans said. "No way in hell," is how several described the chances of the speaker acting on such a proposal without a majority of his majority behind him.
A few hours later, the Associated Press published a report saying largely the opposite.
Some lawmakers say Boehner might allow a far-reaching immigration bill to pass the House even if most Republicans oppose it, with Democrats providing most of the votes. Boehner has chosen that "minority of the majority" route on some less consequential issues.
So, which is it? Will Boehner honor the entirely made-up "Hastert Rule" he's been willing to ignore on occasion, even if it kills the legislation, or will he want to get a bill done?
I'm leaning towards the latter.
It's safe to say the Speaker wants to pass immigration reform; he's said so publicly many times. It's also say to say Boehner realizes it's in his party's long-term interests to get this legislation finished, even if many of his own caucus allies disagree.
So why not just ignore the chatter, rely on House Dems, and pass the bill? Because there's a chance he'd face a revolt that would end his career.
With conflicting reports as to whether Speaker John Boehner will let the House vote on a reform bill even if the majority of Republicans don't support it, [Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California] argued that Boehner "should be removed as speaker" if he allows such a bill to reach the floor over his supposed "betrayal" of Republicans and the American people.
On the surface, that seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? If Boehner moves on the bipartisan Senate bill, over the objections of most House Republicans, some of his members would try to take his gavel away.
And while time will obviously tell, I remain skeptical that this is a realistic scenario. Plenty of House Republicans will vote against immigration reform, while secretly hoping it passes -- they want to get this done (it's ultimately in the party's best interests), but don't want to be on record support it (the rabid GOP base will want to punish the bill's supporters). Boehner can make this "vote no, hope yes" caucus quite happy, not angry, by allowing the bill to pass with largely Democratic support.
If I'm wrong, and Boehner is too scared of the heat, then immigration reform will very likely die at the hands of House Republican opponents. But the chess match is really just getting started in earnest, and the path to success remains relatively clear.
