McCain Helps to Kill the Ensign Amendment - The World to Line Up for Social Security Benefits
Perhaps there is no clearer example of the divide over immigration in the U.S. Senate than yesterday’s vote to table the Ensign Ammendment. The amendment was designed to prevent illegals from collecting Social Security benefits as a result of illegal employment:
“To reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft, and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system, by ensuring that persons who receive an adjustment of status under this bill are not able to receive Social Security benefits as a result of unlawful activity.”
Worth noting is that Arizona Republican John McCain voted to table the amendment. Now, I appreciate as much as anyone, McCain’s Vietnam prison camp story about the home-made American flag, a story he has told innumerable times to bolster his image as war hero, but his lame defense of his vote marks him as just another low-life politician pandering for votes.
McCain says, “We all know that millions of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for years and sometimes decades while they work to contribute to our economy.” They may be paying the employers, but are the employers passing it along to the IRS? With what, stolen Social Security numbers? Illegal workers benefit the Mexican economy, not the American economy, by sending millions of dollars back to relatives in Mexico.
McCain also made this shameless statement, “The Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming Social Security benefits that they earned before they were authorized to work in our community.” A better way to say “before they were authorized” might be to say “when they unlawfully broke into our country and stole jobs from American workers by working for below minimum wage.”
You may have garnered the Mexican vote in Arizona, Mr. McCain, but you just lost a shot at the Presidency. Here’s a full list of the traitorous Senators who are paying for votes with the Social Security benefits of the Baby Boomers.
| Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brownback (R-KS) Cantwell (D-WA) Carper (D-DE) Chafee (R-RI) Clinton (D-NY) DeWine (R-OH) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) |
Graham (R-SC) Hagel (R-NE) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Jeffords (I-VT) Johnson (D-SD) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) |
McCain (R-AZ) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Salazar (D-CO) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Specter (R-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Stevens (R-AK) Voinovich (R-OH) Wyden (D-OR) |