Friday, May 26, 2006

Welfare As We Know It

One amendment that failed to make it into the Immigration bill yesterday says a lot about where the United States Senate really is on using "reform" to expand the welfare state. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a revealing essay on their site about Republican efforts to slow the flow of people who come to this country just to live off the American taxpayer. The liberals are against it, of course.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) filed the amendment to prevent anyone given amnesty from converting their new legal status into an invitation to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit refund.

EITC already dwarfs what we used to call welfare. If handing it out to millions of "guest workers" is such a great idea, why don't we start running those EITC commercials in Mexico and sign them up down there to save them the trip?