Reply #15: The immigration situation is not games

[TayTay]

neither is the climate change bill. It is just what can and cannot pass the Congress and what the *** threat *** of doing something can do to actually get something done.

The recent EPA action threatening to deal with emissions has spooked a lot of people. Republicans are scared of it, as is many in polluting industries. Congressional action was a way to assuage the fears of industry that the EPA was going to regulate them and their emissions as a public health issue. If the Senate action collapses, as it well might, then the action moves to another level. What is truly scary is introducing a bill with all carrots, as some Senators want, without any sticks. Or, worse of all, a Senate bill that prohibits the EPA from taking action. That would be a killer.

I in no wya think that this is a totally depressing scenario. I never felt that Congress would pass a bill with teeth in it. (It can't. Congress is essentially non-functional right now.) The action on climate change is not in the Congress. It's in industry and it's in the country at large, and will be again as energy prices start to rise again due to the lessening of the recession. Things are going to move, they are just going to move without the Congress. I firmly believe that.

Immigration has been a simmering issue for a long time. It is about to become an uglier issue. Republicans don't want to deal with this issue because they can't. Leaving immigration where it is benefits the monied interests in this country as it depresses wages, especially in this economy. Yet the Republicans are trying to out-teabag each other in their efforts to be xenophobic and appeal to a base that hates non-white immigrants. So Republicans have no real interest in raising this issue, it's a lose-lose for them. (They will not deal with immigration because they can't. They are beholden on both sides of this issue and it is not resolvable because Congress is broken.)

The Democrats, should they choose to play hardball, have a win-win here. (Though it has nothing to do with climate change. Graham wants to conflate the two. I think that's disingenuous at best and a cover to hide pre-existing sins, but that just IMHO.) The Democrats gain voters and an energized base. They take a stand against the teabaggers, who wouldn't vote for them anyway. It sharpens "what they stand for" in an election year. So, yeah, they should take up immigration and financial reform. They are core Democratic issues.