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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Gingrich: Republicans Will Oppose Any Immigration Plan Backed By Obama Because They Hate Obama
By Igor Volsky on Feb 17, 2013 at 1:01 pm
During an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) admitted that Republicans are likely to oppose any immigration reform proposal introduced by President Obama because they personally dislike the Commander-in-Chief.
“An Obama plan led and driven by Obama in this atmosphere with the level of hostility towards the president and the way he goads the hostility I think is very hard to imagine that bill, that his bill is going to pass the House,” Gingrich said. “I think that negotiated with a Senate immigration bill that has to have bipartisan support could actually get to the president’s desk.”
The Senate-backed framework for immigration reform, which enhances security on the border and includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, shares many similarities with Obama’s own proposal, though the president has repeatedly said that if Congress fails to make progress, he will introduce his own reform legislation.
That plan, obtained by USA Today, “mirrors many provisions of the bipartisan 2007 bill” spearheaded by Ted Kennedy and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and would allow unauthorized immigrants “to become legal permanent residents within eight years.” “The plan also would provide for more security funding and require business owners to check the immigration status of new hires within four years,” the paper reports.
Despite its bipartisan nature, the draft proposal was immediately panned by Republicans. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — a member of the Senate group working towards producing comprehensive legislation — called it “dead on arrival,” while Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said it demonstrated that Obama is “looking for a partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution.”
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sun Feb 17, 2013 3:58 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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GOP Eager For The Sequester To Go Into Effect So They Can Blame Obama For Its Devastating Consequences
By Igor Volsky on Feb 17, 2013 at 10:16 am
With the sequester deadline looming just two weeks away, Republicans have adopted the public posture of cheerleading for the anticipated spending reductions to social programs, while preparing to blame President Obama for their devastating impact on middle class Americans and national security.
Republicans have yet to offer a proposal that would offset the cuts in the 113th Congress and have categorically rejected the Senate’s balanced approach of higher revenues and spending cuts. Instead they’re sitting on their hands until the March 1 deadline, informing Obama that they will not act to head off the automatic reductions.
“Let me be very clear,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told CNN’s Candy Crowley on Sunday. “These spending cuts are going to go through on March 1st ….The Republican Party is not in any way going to trade spending cuts for a tax increase.”
Pressed by Crowley on the consequences of the across-the-board cuts, Barrasso initially dismissed their impact before blaming Obama for any deleterious effects. “I believe the president has a lot of authority that he can decide how this works, and, yeah, he can make it very uncomfortable, which i think would be a mistake on the part of the president, but when you take a look at the total dollars there are better ways to do this, but the cuts are going to occur,” he said.
Federal spending is already scheduled to reach historic lows as a result of the Budget Control Act, which placed caps on spending as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. Non-defense spending is currently 14 percent lower than it has been at any time in the last half-century, and will drop further if the sequester goes into effect, impacting food safety, education, law enforcement, and safety net programs, according to estimates from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. |
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Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:49 am |
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