Principles? What Principles?
Bill Keller, NYT
January 28, 2014, 10:27 pm
To help appreciate President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address, with its to-do list of executive actions and its implicit fatalism about working with Congress, I suggest a preliminary visit to that citadel of reason, the Republican Party. There, the great minds and loud voices of the right are debating whether to adhere to the strategy of confrontation and sabotage that appeases the radicals in the conservative base, or to introduce a measure of pragmatism that might broaden the party’s appeal.
The first test of whether the party still believes in governing was the passage of a 1.1 trillion spending bill, in which the party mainstream overcame its vandal wing. The next will be the end of an impasse on the farm bill, with many subsidies eliminated and most of the money for food stamps restored. And then comes the big test: a comprehensive overhaul of our cruel and inefficient immigration laws. In the State of the Union speech, immigration reform occupied a special place as the one major legislative objective with a chance of passage.
Republican leaders in the House – facing a demographic wakeup call and perhaps recognizing that the party brand could use humanizing – are circulating a “statement of principles” outlining a broad compromise. Along with fortifying border security and rationalizing legal immigration programs, the statement would offer legal status to many of the 11.7 million undocumented adult immigrants living in the shadows and citizenship for their offspring only. (For the record, I favor a pathway to citizenship for adults, too, but I’ve argued elsewhere that legalization is the highest priority, and it is worth compromising on citizenship for the time being. Recent polling shows that Hispanics overwhelmingly believe the most important immediate goal is not citizenship but relief from the threat of deportation.) This statement of principles, while imperfect, is a welcome throwback to the days when legislators legislated.
(More here.)
January 28, 2014, 10:27 pm
To help appreciate President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address, with its to-do list of executive actions and its implicit fatalism about working with Congress, I suggest a preliminary visit to that citadel of reason, the Republican Party. There, the great minds and loud voices of the right are debating whether to adhere to the strategy of confrontation and sabotage that appeases the radicals in the conservative base, or to introduce a measure of pragmatism that might broaden the party’s appeal.
The first test of whether the party still believes in governing was the passage of a 1.1 trillion spending bill, in which the party mainstream overcame its vandal wing. The next will be the end of an impasse on the farm bill, with many subsidies eliminated and most of the money for food stamps restored. And then comes the big test: a comprehensive overhaul of our cruel and inefficient immigration laws. In the State of the Union speech, immigration reform occupied a special place as the one major legislative objective with a chance of passage.
Republican leaders in the House – facing a demographic wakeup call and perhaps recognizing that the party brand could use humanizing – are circulating a “statement of principles” outlining a broad compromise. Along with fortifying border security and rationalizing legal immigration programs, the statement would offer legal status to many of the 11.7 million undocumented adult immigrants living in the shadows and citizenship for their offspring only. (For the record, I favor a pathway to citizenship for adults, too, but I’ve argued elsewhere that legalization is the highest priority, and it is worth compromising on citizenship for the time being. Recent polling shows that Hispanics overwhelmingly believe the most important immediate goal is not citizenship but relief from the threat of deportation.) This statement of principles, while imperfect, is a welcome throwback to the days when legislators legislated.
(More here.)
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