No one disputes the chilling fact that our country is $14 trillion plus in debt. No one can dispute that when Clinton left office, we had a surplus. No one can dispute the debt started under Bush and escalated under Obama.
Today, we stand here like dummies staring at a stack of thousand dollar bills 945 miles (miles, not feet) high. Nine hundred and forty five. That’s a greater distance than from Orange, Texas to El Paso.
Even such a simple explanation of the enormity of the debt is still almost too confounding for me.
Nine hundred and forty-five! Why that’s almost as many miles as your teenager puts on his car over the weekend, right?
Fourteen trillion, and now the administration wants and half trillion to do the same thing all over again.
Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity- doing the same thing and expecting different results.
How did this all happen?
Most of us know exactly how it came about because unfortunately, the same thing has happened to many of us. We’re rocking along, holding our own, and than bingo, we’re broke. How?
Well, it’s a lot of little things we overlook.
But then someone shouts. Hold on! We’ve been fighting wars for ten years now. Them wars ain’t little things.
And he’s right. The Iraq and Afghan wars aren’t little things.
So, let’s talk about them. How much have we spent?
No one really knows.
Believe that? You should. We’re talking about Congress here, folks, not forthright, plain-speaking Americans.
You see, Congress has allotted the Defense Department $1.3 trillion for the wars through this fiscal year. President Obama said the wars cost about $1 trillion.
But those numbers are incomplete. In addition to that which Congress appropriated, the Pentagon spent an additional unknown amount from its $5.2 trillion base budget over the same period. According to a recent Brown University study, the wars and their ripple effects has cost the U.S. $3.7 trillion--over $12,000 bucks per person, even for the newest little guy or gal to pop into this world.
Other reports put it over $5 trillion, others a tad under, but I figure if we set the monetary cost at $4 trillion, we’d probably be in the ballpark.
I was no math whiz in school, but even I can subtract, and $4 trillion from $14 trillion still leaves $10 big T’s.
Though many disagree with the war, everyone can see where those funds went. What about the others? The $10 trillion?
There are the entitlements, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and others, all of which were designed to support those citizens who had fallen on hard times.
What about those who discovered the loopholes in the system? The illegals? How much do they cost us?
How about $340.000,000,000.00 a year? If you’re like me and all those zeroes confuse you, the figure is three hundred and forty billion a year. A year!
Cut that out, and in three years, we’d have a trillion cut off the debt.
Don’t believe the figures?
According to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national, nonprofit, public-interest organization that believes our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest stated that every year up to $22 billion is spent on welfare for illegal aliens. Another $22 B is spent on assistance programs such as WIC, free school breakfast and lunches, and food stamps.
Two and a half billion is spent on Medicaid while $12 billion is spent on public schools for illegals who cannot speak a word of English.
Seventeen billion is spent annually on the education of anchor babies, the children of illegals.
Three million a DAY is spent incarcerating illegal aliens who comprise 30% of all federal inmates.
American taxpayers spend ninety billion annually on social services for illegal aliens.
Two hundred billion a year in suppressed American wages are the result of illegal aliens, and to add insult to injury, $45 billion a year is remitted to their countries of origin.
And every day, every year, our Congress sits on its thumbs seeing who can one-up each other.
It’s time for term limits on those jokers.
Right now, the Democrats and Republicans are playing footsy with each other--business as usual while trying to make it look as if they’re governing.
Ask any individual who has pulled himself out of bankruptcy or overwhelming debt, and he will admit he had to make some tough decisions.
It is time for Congress to do the same thing.
rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26
Showing posts with label illegal aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illegal aliens. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Legal Truth About Anchor Babies
I had an interesting response a few weeks back in regard to an article I’d written concerning the president’s birth certificate.
The writer presented a very intelligent and insightful look at the ‘natural citizen’ requirement set by the constitution for the office of president. There is a simple citizen requirement also, but that counted only back at the time the constitution was adopted, 1789, and there ain’t none of them folks walking around now. That means a natural (born here legally) citizen is the one citizenship requirement for the presidency.
Now, all of us know that the Fourteenth Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
If foreign diplomats and like persons give birth to children while in this country, the child is not an American citizen because the parents are subject to laws of their own country, not ours. That’s what the ‘jurisdiction thereof’ means.
Now, that is pretty simple to understand. (except in Washington and by many judges who render culturally biased decisions)
Countries around the world use various methods to determine citizenship. The U.S.A. uses jus solis, which means citizen-by-location, location meaning within American boundaries. Japan on the other hand uses jus sanguinis or right-of-blood, which means only children whose parents are citizens can acquire Japanese citizenship. No naturalized citizens. In the U.S., just being born here gives babies citizenship.
Or does it?
Not in every case, and here is why.
Raoul Berger, the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History at Harvard University, wrote “that for a better part of a century the Supreme Court has been handing down decisions interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment improperly, willfully ignoring or willfully distorting the history of its enactment.”
Now, that is pretty strong stuff, but he happens to be right. Here’s what took place.
In 1898, The Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649, in a 6-2 decision, rejected arguments that the petitioner was not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because the phrase meant to exclude children born to foreign diplomats and children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country’s territory.
The Court held the petitioner, a child of subjects of the Emperor of China whose parents were lawfully living in the United States where he was born, was a U.S. citizen by birth. His citizenship status could not be revoked just because his parents were not American citizens at the time of his birth.
In simple language, the 1898 decision said if foreign parents are lawfully living in the U.S., their offspring are born citizens. But, you ask, if the parents are not citizens, how can they be lawfully living here? Simple, they came legally and are in the process of becoming citizens.
The other side of this sword obvously is that if parents are unlawfully living (i.e. illegal aliens of all cultures) in the U.S., their offspring cannot be citizens.
This is Raoul Berger’s point. A pretty simple one.
Illegal aliens’ offspring cannot become automatic citizens.
The 1898 decision became law, yet for over a hundred years, court decisions have ignored it.
Deeper research into the 14th Amendment also reveals that, as Mister Berger stated, “the authors of the amendment . . . intended only to protect the freedmen from southern Black Codes that threatened to return them to slavery."
It does not protect anyone who sneaks into the country at night to drop an anchor baby. (I said that, not the authors of the amendment)
Now, don’t go expecting lawmakers in Washington to do anything about the situation. The majority are too busy working on their next election or covering their indiscretions.
Oh the other hand, a few lawmakers and activists have proposed abolishing jus soli in the United States.
That might not be a bad idea. From jus solis to jus sanguinis.
Simply put, children whose parents live lawfully in the U.S. can be granted citizenship according to the 1898 Supreme Court decision. That includes parents who are natural citizens and parents who are here legally.
If the current Supreme Court refuses to support the Constituion which strangely enough happens to be the Law of the Land, what next?
Just more of the following.
Parkland Hospital Dallas is the second busiest maternity ward in the U.S. In a recent year, 70% of the women giving birth were illegal aliens. For the 11,200 babies, Medicaid paid 34.5 million to deliver, the feds 9.5 million and Dallas taxpayers 31.3 million.
Makes a gent want to cuss, don’t it?
The writer presented a very intelligent and insightful look at the ‘natural citizen’ requirement set by the constitution for the office of president. There is a simple citizen requirement also, but that counted only back at the time the constitution was adopted, 1789, and there ain’t none of them folks walking around now. That means a natural (born here legally) citizen is the one citizenship requirement for the presidency.
Now, all of us know that the Fourteenth Amendment states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
If foreign diplomats and like persons give birth to children while in this country, the child is not an American citizen because the parents are subject to laws of their own country, not ours. That’s what the ‘jurisdiction thereof’ means.
Now, that is pretty simple to understand. (except in Washington and by many judges who render culturally biased decisions)
Countries around the world use various methods to determine citizenship. The U.S.A. uses jus solis, which means citizen-by-location, location meaning within American boundaries. Japan on the other hand uses jus sanguinis or right-of-blood, which means only children whose parents are citizens can acquire Japanese citizenship. No naturalized citizens. In the U.S., just being born here gives babies citizenship.
Or does it?
Not in every case, and here is why.
Raoul Berger, the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History at Harvard University, wrote “that for a better part of a century the Supreme Court has been handing down decisions interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment improperly, willfully ignoring or willfully distorting the history of its enactment.”
Now, that is pretty strong stuff, but he happens to be right. Here’s what took place.
In 1898, The Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649, in a 6-2 decision, rejected arguments that the petitioner was not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because the phrase meant to exclude children born to foreign diplomats and children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country’s territory.
The Court held the petitioner, a child of subjects of the Emperor of China whose parents were lawfully living in the United States where he was born, was a U.S. citizen by birth. His citizenship status could not be revoked just because his parents were not American citizens at the time of his birth.
In simple language, the 1898 decision said if foreign parents are lawfully living in the U.S., their offspring are born citizens. But, you ask, if the parents are not citizens, how can they be lawfully living here? Simple, they came legally and are in the process of becoming citizens.
The other side of this sword obvously is that if parents are unlawfully living (i.e. illegal aliens of all cultures) in the U.S., their offspring cannot be citizens.
This is Raoul Berger’s point. A pretty simple one.
Illegal aliens’ offspring cannot become automatic citizens.
The 1898 decision became law, yet for over a hundred years, court decisions have ignored it.
Deeper research into the 14th Amendment also reveals that, as Mister Berger stated, “the authors of the amendment . . . intended only to protect the freedmen from southern Black Codes that threatened to return them to slavery."
It does not protect anyone who sneaks into the country at night to drop an anchor baby. (I said that, not the authors of the amendment)
Now, don’t go expecting lawmakers in Washington to do anything about the situation. The majority are too busy working on their next election or covering their indiscretions.
Oh the other hand, a few lawmakers and activists have proposed abolishing jus soli in the United States.
That might not be a bad idea. From jus solis to jus sanguinis.
Simply put, children whose parents live lawfully in the U.S. can be granted citizenship according to the 1898 Supreme Court decision. That includes parents who are natural citizens and parents who are here legally.
If the current Supreme Court refuses to support the Constituion which strangely enough happens to be the Law of the Land, what next?
Just more of the following.
Parkland Hospital Dallas is the second busiest maternity ward in the U.S. In a recent year, 70% of the women giving birth were illegal aliens. For the 11,200 babies, Medicaid paid 34.5 million to deliver, the feds 9.5 million and Dallas taxpayers 31.3 million.
Makes a gent want to cuss, don’t it?
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